Acer M3970 Internal SSD recommendations?

Sonofsuffolk
Sonofsuffolk Member Posts: 2 New User
edited November 2021 in Aspire and Veriton Desktops
My Acer M3970 is a few years old and running out of disk space. I have never used the swappable drive bay but as it's there can anyone suggest an SSD that I can slot into it? My knowledge of computers is limited to when I look at the drives available on the market I'm confused by the jargon and abbreviations..

Best Answer

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    Boy, that one is getting a little long in the tooth. :) Rather than putting a new SSD into the swappable bay I'd suggest putting the new SSD in as your primary drive and moving the original HDD to the swappable bay. The swappable bay is connected to a slower SATA port than the main drive. IIRC you have six SATA connectors, two of which are SATA3 and four of which are SATA2. Typically the ODD and the swappable are both on SATA2, the main drive is on SATA3.
    Pretty much all the SSDs are 2.5" form factor and your system is setup for 3.5" drives, so pick up an adapter at the same time as you pick the drive. I'd likely go with a SSD that's at least 1TB in size, which is a good price point these days. I'd also stick with one of the brand names, they tend to have fewer child failures than the smaller brands. Drop the new drive in, connected to one of the SATA3 ports then clone you current drive to the SSD. Once that is complete disconnect the old HDD and boot from the SSD. Verify everything works as expected then reconnect the HDD and wipe all partitions off it to reconfigure it as a data drive. You will be really happy with the HDD->SSD upgrade, it by far gives you the biggest bang for your buck.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    Boy, that one is getting a little long in the tooth. :) Rather than putting a new SSD into the swappable bay I'd suggest putting the new SSD in as your primary drive and moving the original HDD to the swappable bay. The swappable bay is connected to a slower SATA port than the main drive. IIRC you have six SATA connectors, two of which are SATA3 and four of which are SATA2. Typically the ODD and the swappable are both on SATA2, the main drive is on SATA3.
    Pretty much all the SSDs are 2.5" form factor and your system is setup for 3.5" drives, so pick up an adapter at the same time as you pick the drive. I'd likely go with a SSD that's at least 1TB in size, which is a good price point these days. I'd also stick with one of the brand names, they tend to have fewer child failures than the smaller brands. Drop the new drive in, connected to one of the SATA3 ports then clone you current drive to the SSD. Once that is complete disconnect the old HDD and boot from the SSD. Verify everything works as expected then reconnect the HDD and wipe all partitions off it to reconfigure it as a data drive. You will be really happy with the HDD->SSD upgrade, it by far gives you the biggest bang for your buck.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Sonofsuffolk
    Sonofsuffolk Member Posts: 2 New User
    Great. Thanks a lot. I'll look into doing that.