How to connect an SSD drive to a computer to the motherboard? We connect the SSD drive to a personal computer Connecting ssd to a laptop via usb.

Today, wearable storage is presented with increasingly stringent requirements. To the amount of built-in memory, as well as to the small weight and size, the requirement for data transfer speed was added. Everything is logical: the higher the speed, the faster documents, photos, music, movies will be copied.

Moreover, the volumes of those same documents and media content have greatly increased. If earlier a film of good quality “weighed” up to a gigabyte, today it weighs several gigabytes. The same with photographs: with an increase in the resolution of camera matrices, the volume of photographs has increased, and if there are hundreds and thousands of them, the copying process becomes excruciatingly long.

Today, wearable drives are subject to more demands from users than ever before. In addition to the small weight and size, as well as the amount of built-in memory, the requirement for data transfer speed was added. Everything is logical - the higher the speed, the less time it will take to copy documents, photos, music and movies. In addition, the volumes of those same documents and media content have greatly increased. If earlier a film of good quality “weighed” up to a gigabyte, today it weighs several gigabytes. The same with photos - the resolution of camera matrices has grown, which means that the volume of photos has also grown, and if there are hundreds or thousands of them, then transferring them from a flash drive and back will be a real torment.

New realities and opportunities

With the advent of the USB 3.0 interface, it would seem that the data transfer speed should have increased 10 times compared to USB 2.0. After all, the theoretical throughput of the interface from 480 Mbps has grown to 5 Gbps. But this is just a theory. In reality, speeds depend on the drive itself more than on its interface. For example, ordinary flash drives with slow memory and the simplest controller inside will never be able to show good speed, regardless of their interface. The same with hard drives for laptops, which are often used as an external portable drive - USB 2.0 interface, of course, is not enough for them, but they cannot use USB 3.0 "to the fullest" either. The maximum speeds for linear reading and writing in the case of a 2.5” HDD never exceed 100 MB/s.

Affordable Solid State Drives (SSDs) connected via USB 3.0 were supposed to provide significantly faster read and write speeds. Indeed, unlike hard drives, the speeds of such drives are already limited by the bandwidth of the third-generation SATA interface - 6 Gb / s. That is, speeds at the level of 500 - 550 MB / s in both directions. There are plenty of external USB 3.0 boxes too, so it's no problem to make an external USB 3.0 drive out of a fast SSD and USB 3.0 box. However, there are doubts about the SATA to USB 3.0 interface converter - how much the speed will be cut during the conversion, that's the main question.

At the same time, well-known manufacturers have created fast flash drives that are based on the same SSD controllers and fast NAND memory as traditional SSDs. For example, the latest generation promises us breathtaking read and write speeds - up to 450 MB / s and up to 200 MB / s, respectively.

Here's what Corsair promised us

We at the NIKS Computer Supermarket are not accustomed to taking anyone's word for it, so we decided to conduct an experiment and understand what is better: buy a fast USB 3.0 flash drive or assemble an external drive from a real SSD and USB 3.0 box.

Experiment

As an experiment, we used the same testing system that we use for hard drives and SSDs with a SATA interface. You can see the stand configuration.

The following components were tested, which were at hand:

	Corsair Voyager GTX 256 GB	Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 120 GB + Espada PA6009U3
ATTO Disk Benchmark Reading speed. Default settings, KB/s	463962	150243
ATTO Disk Benchmark Write speed. Default settings, KB/s	347114	144320
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Sequential Read (1024 KB Block Size), MB/s	232.6	156.7
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Sequential Write (1024 KB Block Size), MB/s	129.3	157.4
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Read (512 KB block size), MB/s	168.3	154.1
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Write (512 KB Block Size), MB/s	127.3	147.8
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Read (4 KB block size), MB/s	23.61	23.69
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Write (4 KB block size), MB/s	34.88	36.34
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Read (4 KB Block Size, 32 Request Depth), MB/s	25.8	25.9
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Random Write (4 KB Block Size, 32 Request Depth), MB/s	36.82	38.96
AS SSD Copy Benchmark ISO, MB/s	68.27	66.98
AS SSD Copy Benchmark Program, MB/s	52.38	55.99
AS SSD Copy Benchmark Game, MB/s	65.26	63.15

As you can see, sequential read and write operations are much faster than the competitor. And since the main operations for an external drive are just the banal transfer of large data, these characteristics are the most important. We also note that Corsair did not deceive, which many manufacturers of flash drives sin with - the read and write speeds are really high. It is possible to transfer a gigabyte of data in 3 seconds.

The conclusion is obvious - much faster than SSDs connected via USB using existing USB 3.0 boxes. In addition, much smaller and lighter "SSD designs", which is also very important for portable drives.

Conclusion

No matter how hard we tried to get high speed SSDs through existing USB 3.0 boxes, it didn't work out. And here it turned out great. With a new 256 GB flash drive (just think about it!) You can transfer a bunch of information at speeds that until recently seemed sky-high to us. In addition, it is much smaller in size and weight than an SSD installed in a box. Yes, it is more expensive, but it is made of metal, weighs little and reads and writes really quickly - today there is simply no alternative to such a combination of pluses.

Terrible secret!

If a flash drive or portable external HDD equipped with a USB 3.0 interface, this does not mean that the speed of reading and writing will increase radically or even increase at all. It all depends on the drive itself. At the dawn of USB 3.0, many flash drive manufacturers did not change anything at all, except for the interface. That is, a “slow” USB 2.0 flash drive was taken with reading and writing rates of up to 10 MB / s, the interface changed and a USB 3.0 flash drive went on sale. Of course, there was no increase in speed at all.

Now let's take a portable external hard drive as an example. In fact, this is a 2.5” SATA drive + SATA -> USB 3.0 interface converter. If you remember at what speed any 2.5 ”HDD for a laptop with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm works, then numbers pop up in the region of 85 MB / s for linear reading and writing. Simple math will tell us that a USB 2.0 interface won't be enough for this drive's capabilities, but in the case of USB 3.0, only a third of the bandwidth will be used, at best.

You will need an SSD, a piece of wire with a USB connector, and blue electrical tape. Will such a set of “ingredients” suit you for assembling an external USB SSD? I'm not there, and I offer you an option to solve the problem with improvised means, but the result should be no worse than the factory one. The problem is actually small, and easily solved in other ways, but it requires a trip to the store or waiting for delivery.

I found an unclaimed SSD with a SATA III interface and the idea came up to use it as an external high-speed drive. What is it for? You can install a second operating system, you can record project files when processing video or photos, you can use it as a high-speed flash drive if you often have to carry large files between work and home laptops.

Connection interface selection

There are no SATA inputs on my laptop, but there is USB 3.0. Their speed is approximately the same - 5 Gb / s on USB3.0 and 6 Gb / s on SATA 3.0, but USB is much more common and versatile, there will be no problems finding a device where to connect it. This determined the choice of the connection interface.

The theoretically achievable speed of USB 3.0 is 640Mb/s, which is higher than the declared speed of the SSD. For USB 2.0, the bandwidth does not exceed 60Mb / s, you will not see any difference in performance between an SSD and a regular hard drive, but if necessary, you can use this interface. This is a plus of the versatility and backward compatibility of USB.

Unfortunately, SATA and USB are not compatible with each other, it will not be possible to connect them simply by connecting the pins. An interface converter is required for connection. The speed of work with such an adapter will be lower than with a direct connection via SATA. In any case, it is much higher than the speed of the HDD, which will never exceed 100Mb / s, and in most operating modes it will be significantly lower.

Donor

Previously, I used Thermaltake to connect external SATA HDDs. BlacX Duet 5G HDD Docking Station. It is designed to connect two hard drives of 3.5 ″ or 2.5 ″ format, the design is rather big, but it is quite convenient for the house. Carrying it with me is not included in my plans, I need to look for another way to connect an SSD.

The easiest way was to buy a USB box for 2.5″ drives, but the decision came unexpectedly. One of the external USB drives died at work, I'll try to use it as a USB box.

Disassembling a USB drive

For disassembly, it is better not to use metal tools, they can easily damage the case. I use plastic spatulas from a phone repair kit.

Frame external HDD consists of two halves, interconnected by latches. Separate them carefully.

Inside is the 2.5″ HDD itself, pasted over with protective foil. We pry it from the side opposite to the USB connector, and the disk can be easily removed from the case.

We peel off the foil together with the insulating substrate, under it there is a small scarf attached to the HDD, this is the converter we need.

SATA 3 to USB 3.0 converter

The board is double-sided, factory soldering, almost perfect. On one side of the board are the main components and the USB 3.0 connector. On the left side of the board is a USB 3.0 to SATA controller - JMICRON JMS577, on the right is a microcircuit responsible for power supply.

The power and SATA 3 connectors are located on the other side.

SSD connection

We connect the converter to the SSD, the contacts are completely the same.

If you need to connect different drives to your computer, often changing them, then you can simply insulate the scarf (here it’s an amateur, you can use electrical tape or heat shrink) and use it without a case.

Since the dimensions of the SSD are the same as the 2.5″ HDD, we can use its case. We insert an SSD into it with a connected converter. It stays in there pretty tight.

Close the top with a lid. If you were careful not to break the latches, then the lid will close tightly.

Work speed

It remains to check the performance of the design and test the speed. I copied several video files to the SSD, and then started copying them to another folder on the same disk. The copy speed was at the level of 164Mb/s.

If you have any questions, you can watch the video version of this article.

You can also buy ready-made USB 3.0 converters or USB boxes for 2.5″ drives.

findings

I am quite pleased with the result, with a direct connection of this SSD to SATA on motherboard another computer, the speed of its work differed slightly.

The performance of hard drives when connected via USB, leaving behind the new USB 3.0 interface. At that time, we did not conduct such tests due to the small selection and high cost of USB 3.0 equipment, today there are enough devices on the market with this interface in an acceptable price range, so we decided to return to this issue.

What are the fundamental differences between USB 3.0 and previous generations of this interface? First of all, the bandwidth increased to 4.8 Gb / s (like SATA 6 Gb / s), the current strength of one port also increased from 500 mA to 900 mA, which eliminates the need for an external power supply for many peripheral devices. This is technically implemented by adding additional data lines and increasing the number of USB cable conductors, so USB 3.0 connectors are not fully compatible with USB 2.0, although a high degree of compatibility has still been maintained. Most often, you will be able to connect your USB 3.0 devices with via USB 2.0 cables, another question is how they will work at the same time, but not vice versa.

The reason for testing was the purchase of an external box for a 2.5 "drive Zalman ZM-HE130 Black, this device belongs to the middle price category, is made of aluminum and has a rich package.

The participants of the test were already familiar from the previous testing of the hard drive 320 Gb SATA II 300 Fujitsu 2.5" 5400 rpm 8Mb and solid state drive 60 Gb OCZ Agility 2 .

However, not everything went smoothly. As it turned out, not all USB 3.0 controllers are "equally useful": the controller Etron EJ168, which many Gigabyte boards are equipped with, refused to work stably with an external box, after a while the disk simply turned off, continuing to be present in the system and giving errors when trying to access it. As it turned out, Etron is a very problematic controller and we cannot call the compatibility situation cloudless. The situation was saved by an additional controller on a chip Renesas µPD720202, however, the need to buy additional components cannot please, and if you add non-cheap USB 3.0 cables here, then buying a device with a new interface can still cost a pretty penny.

First of all, we connected the hard drive directly via SATA to get a starting point for comparing performance.

The values ​​are quite low, but this is not surprising, we have a typical "notebook" drive with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm and no performance claims. Now let's connect it via USB 3.0.

As you can see, USB connection speed is no longer a bottleneck, the performance of a disk connected via USB 3.0 is no different from the performance of a disk connected via SATA. Let's see how things are with a faster SSD. Similarly, first also a direct connection:

And then via USB 3.0:

If there were no special problems with writing, then for reading we have a rather significant performance decrease. In this case, the limitations of the current controller models come into play. However, it's still not bad, three times faster than via USB 2.0. Given that no one will install SSDs in external boxes for economic reasons, and the speed of the most productive mass HDDs does not exceed 100-130 Mb / s, the result is simply wonderful. Already today, the performance of hard drives connected via USB is not inferior to drives connected via SATA.

Finally, we decided to check how the external box behaves when connected via USB 2.0. For connection, we used both a microUSB 3.0 cable and a regular microUSB, since the results differed only by the size of the error; we will give only one of them.

HDD:

Solid State Drive:

We did not find any significant differences from connecting via the "native" USB 2.0 controller (), except that the write speed is slightly lower. Therefore, with backward compatibility, everything is fine.

findings

Whether you're thinking about getting a new device or wanting to improve an existing one, USB 3.0 is the obvious choice. This will allow you to use any modern hard drive without losing performance. There is also a temptation to replace a slow 5400 rpm drive in an external box with a faster 7200 rpm drive, but here one must take into account the power consumption of the drive and the fact that not all USB ports 2.0, which is still the majority, will be able to provide him with food.

Also, before buying, you should pay close attention to the compatibility of your controller and the device you are purchasing. You may need to purchase an additional board and cables, since the box's native short cable is not always convenient to use for connections to the back of a PC. This can overshadow the purchase and significantly increase financial costs.

Perhaps some will be disappointed, but modern USB 3.0 devices do not allow you to use all the bandwidth provided by the standard, real performance is limited to a transfer rate of about 1 Gb / s (125 MB / s), which was confirmed by our tests. Therefore, the use of SSD via USB 3.0 remains, to put it mildly, a suboptimal expenditure of funds, which cannot be said about classic hard drives. Purchasing an external box with a 3.0 interface for any of them would be a great purchase.

Connection various devices to a computer for many users is difficult, especially if the device needs to be installed inside the system unit. In such cases, a lot of wires and various connectors are especially frightening. Today we will talk about how to properly connect the SSD to the computer.

So, you have purchased a solid state drive and now the task is to connect it to a computer or laptop. First, we will talk about how to connect the drive to the computer, since there are more different nuances, and then we will move on to the laptop.

Connecting an SSD to a computer

Before connecting the drive to the computer, you should make sure that there is still room for it and the necessary cables. Otherwise, you will have to disable one of the installed devices - hard drives or drives (which work with the SATA interface).

Connecting a disk will take place in several stages:

• Opening the system unit;
• Fixing;
• Connection.

At the first stage, no difficulties should arise. You just need to unscrew the bolts and remove the side cover. Depending on the housing design, it is sometimes necessary to remove both covers.

For mounting hard drives in the system unit there is a special compartment. In most cases, it is located closer to the front panel, it is almost impossible not to notice it. SSDs are usually smaller than magnetic disks. That is why they sometimes come with special sleds that allow you to fix the SSD. If you do not have such a sled, then you can install it in the card reader bay or come up with a more tricky solution to fix the drive in the case.

Now comes the most difficult stage - this is the direct connection of the disk to the computer. It takes some care to do it right. The fact is that modern motherboards have several SATA interfaces that differ in data transfer speed. And if you connect your drive to the wrong SATA, then it will not work at full capacity.

In order to use the full potential of SSDs, they must be connected to the SATA III interface, which is capable of providing data transfer rates of 600 Mbps. As a rule, such connectors (interfaces) are highlighted in color. We find such a connector and connect our drive to it.

Then it remains to connect the power and that's it, the SSD will be ready for use. If you are connecting the device for the first time, then do not be afraid to connect it incorrectly. All connectors have a special key that will not allow you to insert it incorrectly.

Connecting an SSD to a laptop

Installing a solid state drive in a laptop is somewhat easier than in a computer. Here, usually the difficulty is to open the lid of the laptop.

In most models, the hard drive bays have their own cover, so you do not need to completely disassemble the laptop.

We find the desired compartment, unscrew the bolts and carefully disconnect the hard drive and insert the SSD in its place. As a rule, here all the connectors are fixed rigidly, therefore, in order to disconnect the drive, it must be moved a little to the side. And to connect on the contrary, slightly move it to the connectors. If you feel that the disc is not inserted, then you should not use excessive force, you may just be inserting it incorrectly.

In the end, having installed the drive, all that remains is to securely fix it, and then tighten the laptop case.

Conclusion

Now, guided by these small instructions, you can easily figure out how to connect drives not only to a computer, but also to a laptop. As you can see, this is done quite simply, which means that almost anyone can install a solid state drive.