Dell Dimension 4600 + SATA + SSD

I think it's the 150 version. I'm not sure if it supports SSDs or not.

Hello from France!

I hope this post doesn't come too late for you but I only just yesterday upgraded my Dimension 4600 with an SSD

The answer is yes it does work and it has made a huge performance improvment. I put the SSD (which is a 64GB V+100 from Kingston) onto SATA0 on the motherboard and transferred an existing 500GB drive from SATA0 to SATA1 on the motherboard (for some reason Dell doesn't see a disk on SATA1 if SATA0 is unused)

The original IDE 130GB disk which was used just to hold Windows XP was removed after transferring the operating system.

You need to ensure both SATA ports are enabled in the BIOS.

I would highly recommend the SSD I used because it has automated garbage collection (XP does not support the TRIM command) so performance of the SSD should not degrade. I ordered the upgarde bundle which comes with cloning software, drive mountings, SATA cable and power cable. Obviously, you must make sure the used space on the drive you are cloning is smaller than the SSD!

Hope this is of help to you.

Are the SATA ports enabled?

Wondering if this remains true for newer SSDs--tried a Vertex 3 MaxIOPS 240GB drive in our Dimension 4600, but it was not recognized.

Yes--current running the system using a WD 640GB hard drive--plugged the Vertex in the same port, and tried booting off a USB drive.

The SATA ports on the 4600 are VERY FLAKY.  Doubt it will work at all with SSD.:emotion-3:

Yes--current running the system using a WD 640GB hard drive--plugged the Vertex in the same port, and tried booting off a USB drive.

Buy a four-port card.

Please refer to my post of 10-31-2100. My Dimension 4600 is still working perfectly and has not crashed once since my SSD upgrade.

If you experience any problems with this kind of upgrade it is almost certainly down to (i) not enabling the SATA ports in the BIOS, or (ii) not having a supported drive connected to SATA0 when trying to use SATA1 or (iii) having a flaky SATA cable (not at all unusual - use a cable which "clicks" into position as the other cables easily come loose).

I don't recommend combo cards at all except an external USB to SATA/IDE - which is essential to your upgrade toolkit but much too slow for operational use.

Do you believe it's possible to upgrade to a mSATA drive on the 4600?

MSATA is an entirely different PCI-E connection that the Dimension 4600 does not have.

Do you believe it's possible to upgrade to a mSATA drive on the 4600?

csrb7007

No, MSATA is not supported.

Bev.

Yes, you just need an mSATA to SATA adaptor.

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/mSATA-SSD-to-25in-SATA-Adapter-Converter~SAT32MSAT257

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/M-2-NGFF-SSD-to-2-5in-SATA-Adapter~SAT32M225