Review on 💨 Sleek and High-Performance Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 120GB SSD - MZ-7TE120BW by James Brault

I've had a Dell Inspiron 640m (2007 notebook - Core 2 Duo processor, Intel 945G chipset, 1GB RAM) idle since 2011 and I decided to breathe into life. Bought a Samsung SSD, it comes with software to copy the OS and data from the old computer. Strangely, no USB cable was included to connect the SSD to your old laptop, even though the instructions show it. Since I had planned a new installation anyway, it didn't bother me. Anyway, replacing my old hard drive with this Samsung SSD took about 5-10 minutes and I did a clean install of Windows XP. After installing the drivers and applications, I decided to read up on maintaining my new SSD - and while doing so, I came across a problem that XP users have with SSDs. Windows XP does not support TRIM. (TRIM activation is required to keep the SSD running long term). I've read a lot about workarounds, but the general advice was to upgrade to Windows 7 as it supports TRIM automatically. But I didn't want to go through the hassle of upgrading my RAM and then buying Windows 7 and so on. After much research I found out that Samsung and Intel SSDs provide "optimization" software for their SSDs that emulates TRIM functionality for user xp. Bingo! I was so thankful I went with the Samsung SSD over the Sandisk and Kingston (although to be honest I don't know if they come with similar software). So yes, overall I am very satisfied. Even with 1GB of RAM and in IDE mode, the laptop runs like a new computer. In fact, it's never been this fast, even when I bought it! Now to share some additional insights for those with older computers: 1. The BIOS settings in the Dell Inspiron 640m do not allow AHCI to be enabled. Without AHCI, you won't be able to achieve top performance with any SSD. Note that my laptop is still very fast even in IDE mode. However, if reaching the maximum read/write speeds is important to you, make sure your BIOS supports AHCI.2 mode before purchasing an SSD. If you have Windows 7, you don't have to worry about TRIM. But XP (and maybe Vista?) users will need an SSD with manufacturer-supplied optimization software.3. Since an SSD works differently than a magnetic drive, you need to tweak some settings in the operating system for optimal performance (e.g. disable indexing, enable write caching, etc.). Samsung's software has come in handy once again - it allows you to change all of these operating system settings from the interface. However, you can also get this information from the Internet and set up the operating system yourself. It's not difficult, and even Windows 7 users should do it. I've only been using the new SSD for a week and of course it works amazingly well. I'll update if I notice a drop in performance - but so far so good. ------------------------------- ------------------- - ---------- -------------------- ------------Update from 01.10.14: Used SSD for 3 months. No performance change. My hard drive is a little over half full now, and with a magnetic drive, that alone would slow it down. Well done Samsung!