Upgrading from HDD to SSD on DV6 6050se

[Wasif Abbas]

Hello Guys,

I am looking to upgrade my laptop from HDD to SSD.

I have already upgraded the operating system to Windows 8 Pro and the Ram to 8GB.

Now these specs sheet on HP website leave out two important things that I wanted to know for my upgrade.

1) Will I be able to connect the SSD to the Laptop on sata 3.0 6GB/S? If not will I bottleneck my SSD performance if I use a Samsung 840 500GB SSD?

2) I see the SATA controller Driver in Device Manage stating SATA AHCI, however the BIOS doesnt show any such thing. Will my SSD connect in SATA AHCI by default?

I have a few other questions.

3) I know you can do a factory reset with the media you create if your hard drive fails. My question is can I do a factory reset on a smaller drive like a 256 GB SSD or do I need a 500 GB SSD as my original drive is 500GB?

4) If the answer to question 1 is that I can not connect in sata 3.0, I wanna know if my motherboard supports SATA 3.0 and is there a way to activate it?

Thanks for the help.
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My laptop's spec mentioned on HP's website are:

Hardware
Product Name dv6-6050se Product Number LE965EA Microprocessor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5-2410M Microprocessor Cache 3 MB L3 cache Memory 4 GB DDR3 Memory Max Upgradeable to 8 GB DDR3 Video Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M (1 GB DDR5) Display 39,6 cm (15,6") High-Definition LED HP BrightView Display (1366 x 768) Hard Drive 500 GB SATA (7200 rpm) Multimedia Drive LightScribe SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support Network Card Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Wireless Connectivity Bluetooth wireless networking

802.11 b/g/n Sound Beats sound system Keyboard Full size keyboard with integrated numeric keypad Pointing Device TouchPad supporting Multi-Touch gestures and On/Off button PC Card Slots Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader for Secure Digital cards, Multimedia cards External Ports
1 VGA
2 headphone-out
1 microphone-in
2 USB 2.0
2 USB 3.0
1 RJ45
Dimensions 37.8 x 24.68 x 3.11 cm Weight Starting at 2.91 kg Power 120W AC Power Adapter

6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery What's In The BoxHP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone (VGA low-light)

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[Emerald]

1) from what I could find the laptop only uses SATA2 ports but you can connect the SSD to but it might limit the read speed.

2) YES

3) Not 100% sure, but usually the restore process uses the current partition size and does not resize the partition

4) NO

 

[Wasif Abbas]

1) from what I could find the laptop only uses SATA2 ports but you can connect the SSD to but it might limit the read speed.

2) YES

3) Not 100% sure, but usually the restore process uses the current partition size and does not resize the partition

4) NO

Thank you for your clear and prompt answer.

I have a further query. CPU-Z shows that my Motherboard chipset is Intel HM 65 which supports SATA III 6GB/s. Should it not be the same If the connector for Sata II and III are not different. Or is it that HP has limited my laptop to SATA II?

 

[Emerald]

the HM65 supports 2 SATA3 devices and 6 SATA2 devices; however, from what I understand they use different PINs on the chip and HP chose only to use the SATA2 connection. Most likely to save cost because it requires additional space and parts on the motherboard

 

[Wasif Abbas]

the HM65 supports 2 SATA3 devices and 6 SATA2 devices; however, from what I understand they use different PINs on the chip and HP chose only to use the SATA2 connection. Most likely to save cost because it requires additional space and parts on the motherboard

Thanks again. This sucks so bad, as HP does have the exact same model with higher capacity hard drives(640gb 7200rpm, 750gb and above) configured at SATA III. I wished there was something that could have been done to change it. Oh well. So can you tell me if there is a way to very what my SATA port configuration is, as in what is the max it can support with the port available?

 

[Emerald]

You could try a software called Speccy. It will tell you what SATA type the hard drive is and at what SATA mode it is connected.

However it will not be able to tell you if it is a SATA3 port or not. The only way to know is to connect a SATA3 drive and see if it connects in SATA3 mode.

 

[Wasif Abbas]

You could try a software called Speccy. It will tell you what SATA type the hard drive is and at what SATA mode it is connected.

However it will not be able to tell you if it is a SATA3 port or not. The only way to know is to connect a SATA3 drive and see if it connects in SATA3 mode.

Much appreciated. You have been of great help. This information I can find by just checking the advanced settings of my drive in the Intel Rapid Storage Technology as well. I guess I will just have to wait till my Drive comes in tomorrow. I have ordered a 500gb Samsung 840 SSD since I should be able to use that for factory restore option and the I can use my Win 8 upgrade media disc on it to do a clean install.

However I was more inclined towards getting the 256gb Samsung 840 pro which should suffice for my needs and as I wasnt sure of the write performance and durability of TLC memory in the 840 non pro which makes it an inferior subject for investment. I also could not think of another way to install Win 8 upgrade. Do you have any pointers on this matter?

 

[Wasif Abbas]

1) from what I could find the laptop only uses SATA2 ports but you can connect the SSD to but it might limit the read speed.

2) YES

3) Not 100% sure, but usually the restore process uses the current partition size and does not resize the partition

4) NO

I returned my 500 840 ssd and bought the 256 840 PRO. I managed to install windows 8 clean on the fresh drive from the upgrade media, however it was not activated. So looking around the internet I found a way to tweaking the registery to activate windows and now I have a genuine windows 8 pro activated. So my drive is connected in SATA III AHCI mode by default despite the fact that there are no settings in BIOS which is great news for me. I Installed the samsung magician software. This software has OS optimization option in which there are quite a few settings. I wanted to know what setting are best to get the best performance without compromising the SSD's life. I will list the options below.

Hibernation Mode, Virtual memory, Index service/search, Prefetch/superfetch, write cache buffer, write cache buffer flushing, power settings option, system restore option. I have no idea what to do with all these settings in windows 8 as I have read windows 8 is SSD optimized so doesnt need tweaking. Secondly Can someone tell me if it is a good idea to make partition on an SSD?