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Inspiron N5110 - results of SSD upgrade
Hi all.
Not a discussion as such, but a post to help others out who may be thinking of upgrading the HDD in their N5110 to an SSD.
My original system details
- Inspiron N5110
- i5-2410M 2.30GHz
- 8GB RAM (upgraded from 4GB)
- Nvidia GeForce GT 520M
- 500GB 5200rpm HDD
How I went about it
I decided to buy a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO to replace the standard hdd. The drive arrived with a CD containing the Samsung migration tool and Samsung Magician. I also bought a eSATA cable to do the data migration.
I conected the new drive to the eSATA port and tried to use the migration tool. I had to transfer 370GB from the old disk to the new, after 2 hours, the tool reported that it would take a further 8 hours to complete the migration! I gave up on that, and followed the instructions here using Clonezilla. The whole migration then took only 1.5 hours. I ignored the tweaks at the bottom, the Samsung Magician software takes care of that for you.
Once the drive cloning was complete, I followed this YouTube video to disassemble the laptop, and replace the HDD with the new SSD. Once reassembled he laptop booted flawlessly :)
The original drive is SATA2 (3GB/s), but the motherboard supports SATA3 (6GB/s) so you will get the best performance out of the new SSD. Bear in mind, that both the connector for the DVD drive and the eSATA connector only support SATA2 (and I think the DVD connector does not support AHCI either) so you must install the drive internally in the original slot to get the maximum performance.
Once the laptop booted, I ran the Samsung Magician software. I enabled rapid mode, and set OS Optimization to 'Maximum performance'. I ran a benchmark before and after. I think you can see from the image below what a huge difference it has made!
If anyone has any questions about doing this, I'd be happy to help out if I can. Thanks!
Philip_Yip
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
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16K Posts
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May 2nd, 2015 08:00
Nice! I'm sure this will help out some others.
Just to be safe I'd advise making Dell Backup and Recovery media from the original HDD if you ever want to revert back to the factory install:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/dell-backup-and-recovery-1-8-1-71/
The creation of recovery media with Dell Backup and Recovery may not work on a lconed drive.
Nar-kofer
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June 23rd, 2016 17:00
ejn63
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June 23rd, 2016 18:00
On the N5110, it's not easy to change the hard drive -- it requires tearing down the system, as the drive is bolted to the underside of the system board. The other option is to replace the DVD drive with the hard drive, but you'll get only half speed (the optical drive controller is SATA 3G, not 6G).
This is what you need to do in order to remove the drive from an N5110
:
www.youtube.com/watch
R347i6HT
1 Message
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July 7th, 2017 08:00
Hi, i've same model of laptop. And i already upgraded my RAM to 8Gb total (it's max, right?) now, i'm upgrading my drive to SSD. Friend of mine said i need some caddy or some converter kit, is that right?
I found out that:
- HDD suitable for N5110 is 2.5" 9.5mm
- Drive is under motherboard
- I can install SSD without converter or adapter/plastic-kit protects SSD from shock or something (even it is 7mm), because there's HDD holder in N5110
- If i though i need to convert my DVD-drive to additional drive i can use caddy
Am i right?
And any advice for choosing SSD and/or upgrading my lappy?
I'm not expert and i need your advice. Please help. Thanks in advance!
ejn63
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July 8th, 2017 06:00
You can swap in an SSD without an adapter, but be sure you know what you're in for with this model - accessing and replacing the drive requires an almost complete tear-down of the system.
See here:
www.youtube.com/watch
vijayinani2017
2 Posts
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November 18th, 2017 20:00
What all specs should I look for while buying an SSD? What are the differences? Is there anything like class6, class10 Etc. as seen in the case of memory cards?