Replacing IDE HD with IDE SSD: Is It Worth Doing?

[David Kaye]

I like descriptive titles. Immediately you know what the post is about.
So, I'm wondering if the throughput of an IDE (PATA) solid state drive is
fast enough compared to the existing hard drive to make the replacement
worth doing?

I've replaced a couple SATA HDs with SATA SSDs and the gain in speed is
remarkable. But PATA is an older, slower technology.

Ideas anyone?




---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[(null)]

Post by David Kaye
I like descriptive titles. Immediately you know what the post is about.
So, I'm wondering if the throughput of an IDE (PATA) solid state drive is
fast enough compared to the existing hard drive to make the replacement
worth doing?
I've replaced a couple SATA HDs with SATA SSDs and the gain in speed is
remarkable. But PATA is an older, slower technology.
Ideas anyone?

As I recall, PATA drives never came close to the interface max throughput.
Perhaps SSDs might. If anything, the drop in latency should help too.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 24 Aug 2015 04:27:59 -0700, "David Kaye"

Post by David Kaye
I like descriptive titles.

I don't. I prefer descriptive content, such as what machine and OS is
this PATA drive running. Mostly, I'm interested in the OS as support
for SSD drives is somewhat OS dependent.

Post by David Kaye
Immediately you know what the post is about.

Not me. I don't read the Subject line unless required. I usually
repeat the subject line in the message body for those like me that
don't like a mess of navigation junk on top of every page, or who
purchased 1366x768 dot LCD screens with truncated vertical work area.

Post by David Kaye
So, I'm wondering if the throughput of an IDE (PATA) solid state drive is
fast enough compared to the existing hard drive to make the replacement
worth doing?

Drive throughput is limited by the drive and the HD controller.
Plugging a 6 Gigabits/sec SATA III drive onto a PATA 133 Mbits/sec bus
will operate at the SLOWEST speed, most typically that of the PATA bus
speed. Most things will be the same as PATA, except you will benefit
from nearly zero average seek time, which is a big win.

On the down side, your unspecified OS and BIOS probably do not have
TRIM support. While this is not necessary, having it will increase
the life of the drive by drastically reducing the number of writes.
(Reads are fast and safe. Writes are slow and destructive). You may
also have some problems getting the SSD formatted so that everything
is on 4K boundaries. In general, I think it's a good idea because the
expected life of the old computah, operating system, and SSD are all
fairly short and should fail at approximately the same time. Make
sure your SSD comes with some monitoring utilities so you can keep an
eye on the damage. I installed a Samsung 850 SSD (recommended) in an
XP laptop and a destkop without TRIM. Two months so far and Samsung
Magician software hasn't found any damage or problems. If it fails in
about 2 years, I'm happy because the SSD has deferred the purchase of
a new machine which makes the $100 purchase well worthwhile.

Post by David Kaye
I've replaced a couple SATA HDs with SATA SSDs and the gain in speed is
remarkable. But PATA is an older, slower technology.

I'm getting 3x to 5x faster on most machine.