Any Solid State Drive (SSD) Compatibility Issues/Concerns with Dell D820/D830?

Question

Are there any compatibility issues or concerns for a SSD with a Dell D820 or D830? We're looking to replace a failing drive in a D830 with an SSD. Any SSD recommendations? Gotchas?

Answer 1

If you stick with brand-names SSDs (Intel, OCZ, Samsung, etc), I can safely say there will be no issues at all. The SSDs reports itself like a hard disk to the computer.

Your Dell D830 uses a 9.5mm SATA 2.5" hard drive caddy, and most 2.5" SSDs are of the same dimensions and specs.

If you got the money, and simply want the best, go for the Intel SSDs, especially the latest Intel X-25M G2 series. It's probably the best SSD money can buy now. For a more budget-aligned SSD, go for the OCZ Vertex or Summit series. My only advice to you (since this machine is a workstation class machine, and I am assuming you are using it for workstation purposes), is to avoid SSDs with the JMicron controller, for it had potential longevity and random write issues.

Also another tip : learn how to optimize your OS for SSDs. For example, since SSDs are so fast, but suffer from slow random read-writes, alot of SSD users including myself turn off Windows Indexing. Look at the growing tips base found on the OCZ forum.