ssd in a 20 year old laptop?

[Ashleyyyy]

i've got a laptop from 1998 which i would like to put an ssd into. 

 

i use it for old games, and older software. it has windows 98 on it. 

it currently has it's original 4.3gb hdd in it, which has a date stamp of december 1998, and is very clicky and slow. 

 

can i put some sort of ssd in it? 

 

EDIT: i currently have a gigabyte free, so i'm perfectly fine with 4gb.  but not a lot smaller. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

I know they did actually make SSDs for this interface. I've only ever seen one, so I'm not sure how easy they'd be to get.

 

Just to double check, can you remove the existing drive and get a photo of it?

[Fraser Cow]

That could be tricky. I'm not sure if it's possible to adapt ide to sata.

[sazrocks]

What interface does the drive use?

[Zagna]

KingSpec 16GB, IDE eBay likely.

Delock IDE Flash Module 44Pin 4GB vertical

[AngryBeaver]

23 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i've got a laptop from 1998 which i would like to put an ssd into. 

 

i use it for old games, and older software. it has windows 98 on it. 

it currently has it's original 4.3gb hdd in it, which has a date stamp of december 1998, and is very clicky and slow. 

 

can i put some sort of ssd in it? 

 

EDIT: i currently have a gigabyte free, so i'm perfectly fine with 4gb.  but not a lot smaller. 

For the money you will spend on an ssd you would be better off picking up a used by 2 to 4yr old one for 150... or even buying a new budget one for 350.

 

Save yourself the frustration and retire that thing.

[Ashleyyyy]

20 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Just to double check, can you remove the existing drive and get a photo of it?

 

7 minutes ago, sazrocks said:

What interface does the drive use?

 

 

1 minute ago, AngryBeaver said:

For the money you will spend on an sad you would be better off picking up a used by 2 to 4yr old one for 150... or even buying a new budget one for 350.

 

Save yourself the frustration and retire that thing.

i'm only using it to run old software, windows 98 - DOS era. i have a modern laptop. look at my signature. 

[TheRandomness]

That's just laptop IDE. So, just find an adapter for that.

[Ashleyyyy]

3 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

That's just laptop IDE. So, just find an adapter for that.

this? 

http://www.dx.com/nl/p/2-5-44-pin-female-ide-to-sata-male-fast-chips-adapter-45685?tc=EUR&ta=NL&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhov1jK6_2QIViD8bCh03-gvDEAQYDCABEgJOo_D_BwE#.WpHG36gbOUk

[billstelling]

Yep..

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, AngryBeaver said:

For the money you will spend on an ssd you would be better off picking up a used by 2 to 4yr old one for 150... or even buying a new budget one for 350.

 

Save yourself the frustration and retire that thing.

Such an old PC is likely for the purpose of running software that won't run on modern hardware/OSs.

 

Would a CompactFlash to IDE adapter be suitable?

[Ashleyyyy]

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Such an old PC is likely for the purpose of running software that won't run on modern hardware/OSs.

exactly. i use old windows 95/98 programs with it. 

 

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Would a CompactFlash to IDE adapter be suitable?

i just looked that up and it's perfect. i can get one of those and a 4gb cf card.. 

but what about the read/write cycles of those? 

[Zodiark1593]

3 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

exactly. i use old windows 95/98 programs with it. 

 

i just looked that up and it's perfect. i can get one of those and a 4gb cf card.. 

but what about the read/write cycles of those? 

The read/write cycles are probably going to be more dependent on the card itself rather than the interface. A CF card from a known-good brand is likely to be as reliable as a decent SSD drive, though results will likely vary here. For retro use however, it is easy to copy software onto these drives via your primary computer, and they're cheap enough where you can mirror an image onto several drives to keep on hand.

[Ashleyyyy]

8 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

The read/write cycles are probably going to be more dependent on the card itself rather than the interface. A CF card from a known-good brand is likely to be as reliable as a decent SSD drive, though results will likely vary here. For retro use however, it is easy to copy software onto these drives via your primary computer, and they're cheap enough where you can mirror an image onto several drives to keep on hand.

and Windows 95/98 don't have a swap file i think. so that'll help. i don't think it would even use it, because 128mb ram is loads for what i use it for.. 

[Zodiark1593]

3 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

and Windows 95/98 don't have a swap file i think. so that'll help. i don't think it would even use it, because 128mb ram is loads for what i use it for.. 

I'm pretty sure those two used Swap as well. Fairly certain Windows ME did on my first PC.

[Ashleyyyy]

7 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I'm pretty sure those two used Swap as well. Fairly certain Windows ME did on my first PC.

i looked it up, you can disable it on windows 98. and i installed win98 on my pentium 2 pc with 32mb ram once, and it did work. very slowly, but it did work. and that laptop has 128mb.. so it should be ok. 

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

i looked it up, you can disable it on windows 98. and i installed win98 on my pentium 2 pc with 32mb ram once, and it did work. very slowly, but it did work. and that laptop has 128mb.. so it should be ok. 

I would keep it enabled anyway, if for nothing else but to reduce the probability of crashes. Don't think it will impact lifespan very much unless you're running close to the limit for a very long period of time.

[Ashleyyyy]

2 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I would keep it enabled anyway, if for nothing else but to reduce the probability of crashes. Don't think it will impact lifespan very much unless you're running close to the limit for a very long period of time.

ì'll see. 

 

also, is there a way to clone the old drive to one of those adaptors? i don't really want to reinstall all my stuff. 

[Zodiark1593]

The only obstacle I know of would be to have a PC with both an IDE interface as well as an interface for the card. An IDE to USB adapter may be used, though it would be easier to use an old desktop with the interface image the drive onto the CF card.

[AngryBeaver]

2 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

exactly. i use old windows 95/98 programs with it. 

 

i just looked that up and it's perfect. i can get one of those and a 4gb cf card.. 

but what about the read/write cycles of those? 

You might use old programs with it, but I am sure a lot of those programs have been upgraded to work on windows 10 (in their newest versions) and for those that haven't been there is this thing called virtualization. This means you can access to ALL of these old programs and your old OS all while being able to use a newer laptop and newer version of windows for everything else.

[Ashleyyyy]

@AngryBeaver i know, but i like retro stuff. it's fun to use. but old harddrives are just annoying....

[AngryBeaver]

In that case adapters exist to make a sata drive work on an IDE connection, but space for it inside a laptop will be problematic. Maybe if you get one that is cord based and not board base it might work.

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Generic-IDE-to-SATA-or-SATA-to-IDE-Adapter-PC/141708386?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=4473&adid=22222222228107721903&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=233324240104&wl4=pla-383603147219&wl5=9019683&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=113537598&wl11=online&wl12=141708386&wl13=&veh=sem

[Ashleyyyy]

20 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

In that case adapters exist to make a sata drive work on an IDE connection, but space for it inside a laptop will be problematic. Maybe if you get one that is cord based and not board base it might work.

as @Zodiark1593 mentioned, a CF to IDE adaptor might be better. because as far as i know those are not bigger than a regular laptop hdd. and i only need a few gigabytes of data. 

[Cypher-Jackson]

THis guy did it in a tower