Question SSD on an old system (SATA I and IDE) - will it run?

[majaczos22]

I know that installing a new SSD drive is a way to give an old PC a new life. I have the opportunity to get a brand new Goodram CL100 120GB for next to nothing and I though that would be a good idea as I have a very old PC I have no reason or money to do a proper upgrade as it serves as a browser mostly, plus some image shuffling and very light gaming (classics like NFS MW).
Either way SSDs are recommended by everyone but I did some research and I may have a problem. I have a Asus P5KPL-E motherboard which supports SATA I only. On top of that it doesn't support AHCI, just IDE. So: does it still make sense? Will it run at all?

 

[USAFRet]

Just an IDE interface?
No....you can't even plug it in.

 

[mdd1963]

Older mainboards from 2005 era often had a mixture of both IDE and SATA ports...

Read thru your mainboard's specs. (It having IDE ports does not preclude it also have SATA ports)
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5KPLE/overview/

Specs say it has SATA ports, so a SATA SSD drive will work, but, at slower SATA2 specs (3 GB/sec vs. 6 GB/sec)

Edit: your mainboards manual says you have a pair of IDE ports, and four SATA ports, BTW....

 

[AllanGH]

It'll work, but it will be limited to SATA1 speeds, as I'm sure you already suspect.

The only caveat that I can think of is to make certain that the drive capacity is actually supported by the motherboard, itself (BIOS limitations), as well as the OS you propose to use with the drive.

 

[mdd1963]

the MB manual says the ports are SATA-II spec, 3 GB/sec....

 

[majaczos22]

I have SATA ports, my current HDD is connected to SATA. But in the BIOS there is no option to enable AHCI mode which is recommended for SSDs.

 

[AllanGH]

the MB manual says the ports are SATA-II spec, 3 GB/sec....

Thanks for catching that. I was going from the OP description of SATA-1 spec for the MB.
Twice as good, then, speed-wise, anyway.

 

[popatim]

It will run just fine.
I have a 64GB Patriot Pyro SE on a n old System that only has Sata2 ports and it actually boots faster then the newer systems that uses Sata3 with a Samsung 830. They both run the exact same software (Win8.1 w/MediaCenter) with similar builds Intel CPU & Asus motherbds but the build with the 840 is 2 generations newer. LoL

If you don't have an OS that supports Trim though, you will need to let it sit at the login screen once in while so garbage collection can do it's thing. by 'sit' we're talking 30-60 minutes.