Best cheap 120gb ssd

mattyfez · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:06

Hi,
As title, I'm upgrading my Nana's PC, it's simply an Internet machine really, but has an old mechanical drive so I want to clone it over to a cheap SSD.

Is there any notable difference between these for example? Thank you.

Randomface74 · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:19

Not really.
I'd take either of the Kingston drives.
If the machine's old it might run at SATA 3Gb/s anyway.

mattyfez · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:38

Thanks,

It's a socket 775 machine, fairly generic motherboard, so it will be on the lower sata 3gb/s running 2gb ddr2 and a low end core 2 duo chip. It has a dedicated graphics card too, but it's a really cheap passive nvidia card.

I've managed to source a further 4gb stick of ddr2 800 and a Intel quad 8400 second hand for £20 but i figured the bottle neck is mostly the hard drive.

Given it's usage, it's basically just an Internet box, I figured this would be a good upgrade for £65-£70 as opposed to building a new system.

It's currently laggy and slow, running Windows 10, no matter how much I optimise Windows.
But it does have a poor cpu, it's low on ram and of course it's running a mechanical hard drive.

Thanks and any further suggestions welcome.

mattyfez · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:44

Does running an SSD on sata 3gb/s limit the performance much?

Randomface74 · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:46

I ran a machine practically identical to that as a media PC for a while.
The SSD upgrade was very significant. Being 3Gb/s wasn't a problem at all.
For web browsing it'll be fine.

The CPU becomes the bottleneck.
E.g. some 1080p video can be choppy.
(but mine was dual core, with a quad this might be fine)

mattyfez · 9 Dec 2017 at 17:55

Cool thanks, I'll go ahead with the update then I think.. I was always going to put an SSD in, but upgrading the ram from 2 to 6gb, and upping it the CPU to a good quad (reletivley speaking lol!) should certainly help things along.

I think it's paging a lot currently as it's under RAMed, but then it's paging so a slow crappy hard drive, which does not help!

Randomface74 · 9 Dec 2017 at 18:04

Yep do it, report back with results

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 10 Dec 2017 at 16:20

You can get the Crucial BX300 120GB for £44 if you shop around. My main concern with Kingston is even though they make decent SSDs(my Hyper 3K 120GB is still fine after many years),they have quietly downgraded the NAND,etc in drives without telling anyone.

mattyfez · 10 Dec 2017 at 16:42

Cool, well I've bought the below second hand, so she'll just have 4gb, or 4.5gb if I leave the other random 500mb stick in it.

so just need to choose an SSD, I might just buy a £50 quid one from here.. Interesting about the Kingston but I doubt it will make much odds I guess, it's not like the drive will be doing a lot of work?

ED209 · 10 Dec 2017 at 17:45

Using sata 3 will be fine. I have a old x58 mobo and I use the sata 3 ports over the state 6 ones as the controller is quite bad for sata 6.

Using my ssd in a sata two port I get 280mb read and write. Still such a improvement over a normal hdd.

Out of the ssds listed I would go for one of the Kingston drives as I have never heard of the other one.

mattyfez · 11 Dec 2017 at 20:48

Cool, Kingston drive ordered.
Her pc currently runs like a pig so the cloning process will take a while, I'm half tempted to do a clean install, but cloning means I won't need to mess about too much.

shamus21 · 12 Dec 2017 at 13:51

When it comes to 120gb drives just go for the lowest cost option.

tamzzy · 12 Dec 2017 at 14:09

why not get a second hand 120gb ssd on the MM for like <£30?

mattyfez · 12 Dec 2017 at 17:37

Already bought a Kingston one from here, but thanks anyway.

mattyfez · 23 Dec 2017 at 13:52

billysielu said:
Yep do it, report back with results

Upgrade done, painless clone with macronium, 2 more gb ram and core 2 upgraded to quad q8400.
Runs loads better, absolutely fine for a general purpose desktop PC.