Dimension 9150 - Adding a Solid State Drive

Hi Zippy42,

Dimension 9150 supports SATA II standard using the four onboard SATA ports. The SSD would work at the speed of SATA II if it is connected to the onboard port.

Yes, you will be able to obtain the full benefits of SATA III by adding a PCIe X4 controller card. This will disable the onboard controller and you will need to connect all the devices to the PCIe X4 card.

You can purchase the StarTech.com 4 Port PCI Express SATA III 6Gbps Controller Card from the following link:
http://dell.to/130Y7kQ

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

I have doubts about about an X4 9150 card being a good idea if you also have an X16 video card due to slot bandwidth issues with the 945 P chipset.  DDR2 667 and 1066 mhz fsb also being bottlenecks.

Which processor would also make a huge difference.  The issues would manifest itself as audio and video artifacts and or skipping and freezing if not outright crashing.

Microsoft has some suggestions for SSD

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2727880

Windows 7
SSD: defragmentation, SuperFetch, prefetch

The Syba SI-PEX40061 is reasonably priced and performs well. I installed one of these in a G41 homebuilt and the primary hard disk Windows Experience Index score jumped from 6.5 to 7.4.

All the 'lag' in responsiveness has disappeared from this PC, which is configured with Windows 7 64-bit, Q9300 CPU, 8gb DDR3 and Kingston 120gb SSD.

Hi Rajath - Thank you for this information. Is the existing SATA on the Dell Dimension 9150 definitely SATA II. I had heard that it was something called SATA 150 and thus any drive connected to it would only run at SATA I speeds?

If I do go with the PCI Express SATA III card you suggest will what I understand is the TRIM function work and will I be able to boot from an SSD attached to the SATA III PCI card?

I am also a bit confused about the comments made by SpeedStep in this thread.

Your help is much appreciated.

I am also a bit confused about the comments made by SpeedStep in this thread.

It might not be a good idea to buy such an elaborate card for such an old design.

The Syba I pointed out is inexpensive and boosted the Windows 7 "Experience" from 6.5 to 7.4 on a G41 homebuilt with Q9300 CPU (a much more modern design than the 9150).

You're not going to get a full 7.9 on the Windows Experience no matter what you do. Even my Phenom II 945 with onboard SATA 3 only manages 7.8.

SATA revision 1.0 - 1.5 Gbit/s - 150 MB/s

SATA revision 2.0 - 3 Gbit/s - 300 MB/s

SATA revision 3.0 - 6 Gbit/s - 600 MB/s

The bus can handle 2 Devices at Sata 2.0 Speed.

Pentium D high end versions top out at 8.5 GB Single Core and Slower Versions do less.

You won't get 6GB speed thru the PCI Bus and at the same time get 8GB thru the X16 video slot AND have anything else run.   Overtaxing the PCI bus causes slowdowns, lockups and otherwise video and audio artifiacts since the video and audio also run on the PCI Bus.   One way around this is to use PCI-E video HDMI Audio which keeps the audio on the X16 bus via an HDMI Monitor.

Apologies but I am getting a bit confused with all the terminology. The card suggested by rddunnill  seems to only have 2 SATA III ports. My Dimension 9150 currently has 3 conventional Hard Drives. I want to replace the "C" drive with an SSD running under SATA III and keep the other 2 conventional Hard Drives for data and backup as applicable.

The PEXSAT34 looks good but if that is going to overload as per SpeedStep then I am lost.

SpeedStep what do you mean by "One way around this is to use PCI-E video HDMI Audio which keeps the audio on the X16 bus via an HDMI Monitor" ?

What is my best way of achieving my requirements?

You're limited in what you can do with something this old (due to bus issues), and furthermore, you don't need SATA III for ordinary hard drives. That is why I suggested a two-port card, which will easily accommodate an SSD.

For an example of the benefits to be had, an SSD installed in a G41 Q9300 homebuilt that was moved from onboard SATA II to a PCIe-x1 SATA III card had its Windows Experience Index primary hard drive increase from 6.8 to 7.4. In comparison, an ASRock AMD 945 quad-core homebuilt has a 7.8 for that score and an XPS 8500 3570K has the full 7.9.

Thank you for your guidance. I do appreciate it is an old system but it still serves me well. I'm afraid I am still confused. As per Rajath  near the top of this thread I thought introducing a PCIe SATA III card meant that the on-board SATA controller became disabled? Could you also please clarify about this TRIM feature and whether or not it is required.

Much appreciate your help.

The SATA card should not disable your onboard SATA, just supplement it. You'll realize a boost in performance from the SATA card, but it won't match the speed you'd get from a new architecture like the XPS 8500 has.

Regarding TRIM, I believe that that is handled internally by the SSD.

Thank you again for this clarification. Just going a little off topic if I did decide to replace my desktop rather than upgrading my Dimension 9150 would the XPS 8500 that you mention be todays equivalent. I would want a tower PC that is easy to upgrade and take apart like the 9150 with plenty of space in the case and already containing an SSD. I would also want it to have Windows 7 Pro pre-installed as I can't stand WIN 8.

Newer PCI-E video cards have HDMI audio.  If you match this with an HDMI monitor

you get Sound thru the monitor and you turn off the onboard audio in bios so the only PCI bus that does audio is the X16 slot.

You then use a Apricorn Velocity Solo x2 PCIe 2.0 x2 to SATA 6Gb/s

Apricorn Velocity Solo x1 PCIe 2.0 x1 to SATA...

Thank you Speedstep for this information. Are you referring to any PCIe Video Card that has an HDMI output for Video or something different where the HDMI is just used for sound. The Video card I have in the x16 slot does have HDMI out but I am only using the DVI connection to my monitor. My monitor does not have built in speakers. If I understand correctly what you are suggesting is to then remove the audio card all together which will remove excess strain on the PCI Bus.

Sorry to put another spanner in the works but I also have a dedicated audio card in the PCI Express x4 slot and the onboard audio is turned off. The only reason I did this some while back was because I needed an audio facility that has a "What you hear" setting so I could record audio off of iPlayer Radio or live radio using Audacity.

Hope I have explained this clearly. Any further advice much appreciated.

Sorry guys but I am still confused re above. Help much appreciated.