I'm thinking about getting an SSD for a work computer. The computer itself runs XP Pro and hosts the practice intranet. It also gets used for teaching. Otherwise, it just sits there doing nothing the rest of the time.

I need speed and reliability. Size isn't important because the HDD is only 40GB and is only at 20GB capacity (max).

I recall OCZ had issues with their SSDs. I was looking at Crucial M4 drives but there are some serious negative reviews on Amazon.

Any recommendations?

Currently using Samsung 840 series

I thought there was an issue SSD's running on Win XP though - sure I read it somewhere.

no TRIM support?

Check the specs of the work PC - no sense in coughing up for an M4 or 840 if you're limited to SATAII.

If you are on SATAII, Scan are selling the 240GB OCZ Vertex Plus for £95. I've just sold a 120GB Vertex Plus - it was solid little drive, and the 240GB unit is faster. OCZ's problems were on later drive controllers iirc.

Scan Clicky


Not on XP. You can schedule a garbage collection run though, with a non-destructive Wiper app and task scheduler.

The drive is a SATA 1

The optiplex GX520 machine has only one SATA port.

Will it still benefit an SSD?

The most dramatic improvement using SSD is access time. Yes, it will benefit greatly. SATA1 is still pretty fast.

I have put a SATAII SSD in a SATA1 laptop. It doubled the disk performance and gave the laptop a whole new lease of life.

It will certainly speed up that PC, although a new-ish HDD would cost much less, offer more capacity and also help the performance (but not as much).

I agree. Even if can't get close to the maximum data rate, you'll still benefit from the massively reduced random access time.

I disagree, (I think) as the machine is hosting an intranet site and running Windows XP. I'm sure that I also read about XP not playing nice with SSDs but wouldn't the increased disk access associated with multiple people accessing the inranet site reduce the life span of the SSD?

XP doesn't support the Trim command for SSD's. However you can manually run the garbage collection feature provided by the SSD manufacturer.
If it gets used for teaching, presumably people will be working directly on it and would notice the improvement.

They bring in presentations and run them off the flash drive or I sometimes download via google drive and it gets projected. 80% of the time, the computer is doing nothing. We don't all need to access it simultaneouly but it is the homepage for the clinician computers.

Load up time (intranet site was created in Joomla) can vary from near instantaneous (is this cached?) to 60 secs which can be painfully slow when you need to print off a suspected cancer referral form.

Then he could be right. The HDD might not be the bottleneck.

I use Samsung SSD's personally and find them to be very good