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SSD Notebook Compatability

1K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  JMPC 
#1 ·
This is probably an easy question, but I have a Seagate SATA II 2.5 drive that looks like this:



I'm looking at a Kingston SSD drive that says it's backwards compatible, but does not have the four prong connector (far right).




Is that just an optional power connector for turning the Seagate into an external drive, or are these drives not compatible after all? The Seagate died, so I figured this would be a good time to upgrade to a SSD.

Also, sorry for the large pictures, I'm not sure how to scale them down.

Thanks!
 
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#2 ·
The four pin block you see on the first drive is a jumper block. You won't typically see that on an SSD and is not needed.

Just an FYI before you buy a Kingston drive, some models has a non-documented change where they switched to slower memory but didn't inform the consumer. If you check reviews you'll see this information.

Other drives to consider are the Crucial MX100, Intel 730, Samsung 840/850.
 
#5 ·
Thank you all! That makes perfect sense now that you explained it. I've just never seen a laptop HD using a jumper pin. I know the normal SATA HD configuration... but I never considered that 2.5 drives had the jumper configuration at all, so an extra power connection made the most sense in my mind.

All the laptops that have two drives that I know of, automatically designate primary from secondary based on location. I can't think of any logical reason a jumper designation would be used.

I appreciate the clarification.

I'm looking for a good quality SSD I can format as my laptop main drive. (It was the secondary that failed)

As it is a proprietary laptop (dell), I'd be wanting a 480 to 500mg drive so that I can use imaging software to copy the main drive fully onto the SSD, and then transfer media/non-program files from there.

Thanks for the heads up JMPC. Other than newegg, which removes product pages (temporarily or not) when they're out of stock for a certain period, where is a good place to look for reviews?

Is there any sort of unofficial ranking of the Kingston (when they're good), Crucial, Intel, and Samsung drives?

I'd think any SSD drive without defects would be fast in comparison to a HD, so I'm mainly thinking about product lifetime and reliability. Although, I'd take the second highest if the cost was significantly reduced.
 
#6 ·
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