What SSD can I fit in a Veriton X2640G and for SSD freezing there doesn't appear to be a clear?

obroad

The machine came fitted with a 128GB Kingston SSD which I've kind of outgrown. I tried replacing it with a 480GB WD Green, but it developed a really BAD freezing problem and although I've found plenty of search hits for SSD freezing there doesn't appear to be a clear solution out there. I've raised a support ticket with WD.

I'm guessing that either I have an odd compatibility issue that will go away if I buy a different make of drive or I need to update something.

Alternatively I'm wondering about fitting a regular hard drive as secondary storage but I'd rather have one volume.

Also since I'm never going to upgrade the graphics could fit a NVMe adaptor in the x16 slot?

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Larryodie

Go to https://www.crucial.com/products and let them scan your computer.

I installed a MX-500 Sata SSD as a 2nd drive and moved all my data/picture files to it and also an external hard drive as double back-up then deleted and re-installed windows on a TC-895-UA92, (512 SSD M.2 NVMe.

I was down to 20 GB left on C: now I'm down to 125 GB used but you only have 128Gb so you may need to upgrade your onboard SSD.

In have a Lenovo laptop that basically is the same as I bought it except for an upgrade to WIN11 , it runs fine for uses with 128GB.

obroad

So far my plan is to install the SSD in something else to see what happens. Alternatively I've ordered a power splitter cable so I can install two drives at once.

If I have the drive connected as secondary and not the boot drive is there any kind of test I can run?

Larryodie

This is from Crucial

https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/initialize-ssd-windows

How to Initialize Your SSD for Windows®

Before you can use your new SSD you have to initialize and partition it. If you are performing a clean installation of your operating system, or cloning to your SSD, it is not neccessary to follow these steps. A clean installation of your operating system or cloning to an SSD will initialize and partition the new SSD.

Note: if you simply need to format/reformat a drive, only steps 5-9 below will be needed, assuming your SSD has previously been initialized. 

1. Attach the SSD as a secondary drive and load Windows from your existing drive.
2. In Windows 7 and earlier, open Disk Management by right clicking on Computer and selecting Manage, then Disk Management.
3. In Windows 8 and later, move the mouse to the lower left corner of your desktop and right-click on the Start icon, then select Disk Management.
4. When Disk Management opens, a pop-up will appear and prompt you to initialize the SSD.
5. Select GUID partition table (GPT) and click OK. MBR (Master Boot Record) is best for certain legacy software compatibility, but GPT is better for modern systems and higher capacity storage devices.
6. Right-click in the area that says Unallocated and select New Simple Volume...
7. The New Simple Volume Wizard will open, click Next.
8. Leave the Specify Volume Size as the maximum (default value) and click Next.
9. Select a Drive Letter and click Next.
10. In the Format Partition screen, decide on a Volume label (the name you want to give the drive) and click Next.

billsey

You have three SATA ports on your motherboard. Typically one is used for an ODD and one for a HDD or SSD. Just swap out the small SSD with a larger one, cloning the old drive to the new drive first. Near those ports are two sockets for SATA power. Each of those sockets can support power to two drives. The cables for those sockets are Acer part numbers 50.VGRD3.001 for the long one (460mm) and 50.VGRD3.002 for the short one (250mm). You can search on those numbers to try and find one. I don't have pinouts on those power ports, so can't say for sure that the new ATX12VO power cables will work.

obroad

Currently the Kingston drive 128GB with Windows on is on the first SATA port

The WD Green 480 is on the second port and is currently blank as I deleted the previous attempt.

The DVD drive is on the third port.

Just for clarification: I have the cables, I currently have the drive connected (as secondary), I have already tried migrating the system to the new drive once and I had problems (freezing) that made the system unusable.

I'm aware of the process for doing a clean Windows 10 install, it is how I used to do SSD upgrades on Windows 7 machines. I'm reluctant to go down that route but it is an option. Previously I used Macrium Reflect to migrate Windows 10 to the new drive.

I can try again though, maybe it will work better the second time.

WD have asked me to try the drive in another computer, which is an option but inconvenient. Having said that my boss has a laptop that could badly use a SSD so I may try upgrading that then get a different make of SSD for this machine, maybe Crucial or Kingston?

obroad

I've just tried copying the system over and booting off the new SSD and I've had two freezes already, one while reading a webpage and one while posting this message. SMART tests passed.

Obviously it is POSSIBLE I have been sold a defective SSD but I still find that unlikely.

billsey

There should be no functional difference between a SATA HDD and SATA SSD, other than the speed. No reason I can think of for freezing like that other than a potentially faulty drive. All three of the SATA ports are SATA3/600 so there shouldn't be an issue with which port it's plugged into, unlike some models in that age range that had a single SATA2 port for the ODD.

obroad

I kind of agree that there shouldn't be a difference, a SATA drive should present a standard SATA interface and the previous drive was a SSD anyway. However if you search on SSD freezing there seem to be a number of cases on forums with vague resolutions like reinstalling Windows TWICE and it went away. There are even some suggestions about DRAM.

Currently the computer is low on RAM (4GB) as I haven't bothered to expand it from stock, but that may mean it is leaning heavily on virtual memory and putting the SSD under strain. I'm thinking that maybe swapfile activity burns through all the available blocks and the drive pulls some kind of "garbage collection" routine if pushed hard?

I do remember from Windows3.1 that back then if the hard drive locked up Windows would freeze. If the janky MFM drive could be unlocked (say by pulling and reinserting the power connector) Windows would spring to life again.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone with a budget SSD, or maybe I should upgrade the RAM first.

Alternatively I could possibly test the hypothesis if I could get Windows to put the swapfile on a secondary drive.

ttttt

@obroad

My friend, you just don't copy over to the new drive.

You need cloning software or use Windows image backup to do the cloning.

obroad

Well to wrap this up I've increased the RAM to 16GB and the issue has gone away. I won't say solved but so far so good.

I can't prove it but I think the problem is that budget SSDs don't cope well with swapfiles. By increasing the amount of RAM the amount of swapfile activity drops to a manageable level.

Coincidentally around this time while running on the smaller SSD the computer developed a horrible ten minute boot time irrespective of which boot type (normal, logged, safe etc). This seems to have been triggered by the old drive nearly filling up and the problem disappeared when I moved to the new drive, so maybe if anyone else gets a nightmare slow boot then try a really major disk clean.

I should have bought "WD blue" drives or equivalent. I was fooled by the way the "green" series HDD appeared to be a reasonable entry level desktop drive and a good secondary drive so I thought the SSD would be OK too.

Oh and for disk cloning I recommend Macrium Reflect.