Review on Boost Performance with Kingston 480GB A400 SATA 3 2.5-inch Internal SSD SA400S37/480G - Ideal HDD Replacement Solution by Morgan Gilmore

Such a quite budgetary 2.5'' SATA-3 drive was purchased not so long ago in the Eldorado retail chain. At that time, the disc was offered under the action for 1999 rubles. And taking into account the bonuses accumulated on the account of the Eldorado website, on a virtual card it came out even much cheaper. The storage capacity of 120GB is low by today's standards. But for installing the operating system and basic programs of this capacity, it will be enough for both a desktop computer and a laptop. At the same time, to install a 2.5'' drive into a 3.5'' bay of a desktop PC, if the desktop case does not provide additional bays for 2.5'' disks, you can use mechanical adapters like this from the Chinese from AliExpress. The issue price is about 100 rubles, excluding shipping costs. In our case, the Kingston A400 120GB SSD was used to upgrade a Lenovo G560 laptop from previous years. Also in the laptop, in addition to the new main drive, a second DDR3 memory module with a capacity of 2GB was installed. As a result, his RAM increased from the previous 2GB to 4GB. And the RAM itself, due to the presence of two symmetrical 2GB RAM modules in its composition, switched from the previous single-channel mode of operation to the dual-channel one, which was originally provided by the chipset. This, due to the increase in the speed of the RAM, gave an additional increase in laptop performance by 20 - 30%. Also, instead of the previous 32-bit Windows OS, a 64-bit Windows 7 OS was installed on the new laptop SSD. This operating system was able to correctly detect and use the entire amount of laptop RAM. Also in the laptop, in addition to the new main drive, a second DDR3 memory module with a capacity of 2GB was installed. As a result, his RAM increased from the previous 2GB to 4GB. And the RAM itself, due to the presence of two symmetrical 2GB RAM modules in its composition, switched from the previous single-channel mode of operation to the dual-channel one, which was originally provided by the chipset. This, due to the increase in the speed of the RAM, gave an additional increase in laptop performance by 20 - 30%. Also, instead of the previous 32-bit Windows OS, a 64-bit Windows 7 OS was installed on the new laptop SSD. This operating system was able to correctly detect and use the entire amount of laptop RAM. Also in the laptop, in addition to the new main drive, a second DDR3 memory module with a capacity of 2GB was installed. As a result, his RAM increased from the previous 2GB to 4GB. And the RAM itself, due to the presence of two symmetrical 2GB RAM modules in its composition, switched from the previous single-channel mode of operation to the dual-channel one, which was originally provided by the chipset. This, due to the increase in the speed of the RAM, gave an additional increase in laptop performance by 20 - 30%. Also, instead of the previous 32-bit Windows OS, a 64-bit Windows 7 OS was installed on the new laptop SSD. This operating system was able to correctly detect and use the entire amount of laptop RAM. And the RAM itself, due to the presence of two symmetrical 2GB RAM modules in its composition, switched from the previous single-channel mode of operation to the dual-channel one, which was originally provided by the chipset. This, due to the increase in the speed of the RAM, gave an additional increase in laptop performance by 20 - 30%. Also, instead of the previous 32-bit Windows OS, a 64-bit Windows 7 OS was installed on the new laptop SSD. This operating system was able to correctly detect and use the entire amount of laptop RAM. And the RAM itself, due to the presence of two symmetrical 2GB RAM modules in its composition, switched from the previous single-channel mode of operation to the dual-channel one, which was originally provided by the chipset. This, due to the increase in the speed of the RAM, gave an additional increase in laptop performance by 20 - 30%. Also, instead of the previous 32-bit Windows OS, a 64-bit Windows 7 OS was installed on the new laptop SSD. This operating system was able to correctly detect and use the entire amount of laptop RAM. Despite the fact that instead of the previous 50-plus megabytes per second of write and read speed from the HDD after installing the SSD, this speed increased to only 109 MB / sec in write mode, and 143 MB / sec in read mode, the performance of the laptop after installing the SSD is noticeably changed. He began to quickly load the operating system, quickly open browsers, and in general the operation of the machine became responsive and comfortable. What was not there before, and this laptop was previously considered a notorious "brake". As a result, the increase in RAM, the replacement of the HDD with an SSD, plus the final installation of a new operating system, transformed the laptop, breathed a second youth and breath into it. SATA-3 SSD drive Kingston A400 120GB in a sealed factory blister: Back side of the package: The disk case is made of metal: The disk has a classic SATA interface: It should be noted that such a disk has a SATA-3 interface, and the laptop in which it was installed had a previous SATA-2 interface. This does not allow to fully realize the high-speed capabilities of such a disk. Nevertheless, even with this combination, the theoretical possibility of a SATA-2 interface of 300 MB/sec in a disk-chipset controller combination turned out to be far away. When tested by the H2testw program, the Kingston A400 from the Windows 7 64bit environment showed a speed result of 109 MB / sec in write mode and 143 MB / sec in read mode: To install the disk in a Lenovo G560 laptop, I had to unscrew part of its bottom cover: The native 320GB HDD was removed from the laptop's HDD stack, after which its strapping was reinstalled on a new SSD. By the way, the native HDD of the laptop turned out to be in excellent physical condition: In addition, a second DDR-3 RAM module was installed in the machine, and the fan blades for cooling the processor and chipset were cleaned from dust. Replacing the HDD with an SSD in a laptop, if there are technical possibilities for this, gives a certain and very noticeable increase in the performance of the machine. In addition, noise and vibrations from the operation of the drive completely disappear, and the operating time from the built-in laptop batteries increases due to the greater efficiency of SSDs compared to HDDs. The Kingston A400 SSD works stably and with good speed both when loading the operating system itself and a variety of applications. Installing more capacious and expensive SSD models in a laptop of past years is unlikely to be justified in economic terms.