Dell Studio 1747 - Adding an SSD drive

Hi guys. I've just ordered a Dell Studio 1747 and I was wondering how I would go about installing an SSD, so I have some noob questions and would be grateful if anyone could answer them:

- Are there any brands to be avoided? I was reading some OCZ reviews yesterday and some people were reporting problems. I'm happy spending around £150 on a 128gb SSD.

- Do I need to purchase any other equipment? I watched a tutorial yesterday on installing a second hard drive and I don't think it had the metal casing already inside the Dell 17xx. Where would I purchase the casing for an SSD drive? Do I need to purchase 1747 specific casing?

- Can I easily make the second hard drive slot the main hard drive? I'd like to run Windows 7 on the SSD drive. Would installing Windows on there make it the C Drive?

Thanks.

 

If you want to add a SSD as a boot drive and use your disk drive as a back up yes your going to have to get that metal hd bracket.

When you do put your ssd in just remove your second hard drive completely and do a fresh install of Windows 7 on it.

Now once you have W7 installed and all drivers up to date you need to run W7's Windows Experience Index (WEI) When you do the W7 will realize there a ssd and adjust things for you (TRIM)

 

- OCZ has higher problem rates (drives disappearing, not booting), but also they were scamming customers with 25 nm SSDs selling them as 34 nm and were caught red handed. It is a company I would avoid. There are other SF manufacturers out there (Corsair, Patriot, Mushkin, GSkill)

- No you should use whatever you have with your laptop. You will need a 2nd HDD caddy if you want 2 drives.

- Yes installing Windows on the SSD would make it the C drive.

 

Unfortunately I was caught up in that when I bought mine but they did take it back and replaced it with the right size and speed version.

But yes what Tsunade said I would avoid them if I was you.

 

Thanks a lot guys - appreciated!

 

Please post how it goes or how it went.