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I have a Toshiba Satelite L50-B-1LN, and I want to upgrade the hard drive to a SSD. However, I do not know what type of SSD to buy. I need to know if my laptop uses SATA 2, SATA 3, IDE, etc. How do I find out?

Edit:

Here is a picture of the HDD and port. Can anybody confirm if this is SATA?

enter image description here

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  • Simplest method would be to look at the label on the drive itself.
    – Ramhound
    Aug 29, 2015 at 19:08
  • Search for a manual at Toshiba. You'll see that your model isn't listed. The closest I've found was a Satellite Pro L50-A where the manual states it's "SATA". You could search for reviews or shops who still lists your exact Laptop model. But most of them don't go into detail enough. You could search on youtube to find an open Toshiba Satellite Pro L50-B (the -1LN is missing!). You will see a SATA connector and a HDD label which reads MQ01ABD075. According to Amazon, this is indeed a SATA 3.0 drive
    – nixda
    Aug 29, 2015 at 19:45
  • @ramhound I opened it up and took a few pictures but there is nothing that identifies it as SATA 2 or SATA 3
    – Blue7
    Aug 31, 2015 at 14:08
  • @Blue7 - SATA 2 vs SATA 3 does not matter. SATA functionality of your device is backwards compatible.
    – Ramhound
    Aug 31, 2015 at 14:29

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Open device manager, expand disk drive, you can see the model of your hard drive and the type of connection, for sure write down the model and search on google the hard drive model specification, you will find whether the original hard drive is IDE, SATA, SATA 2 or SATA 3 from the specification of the original hard drive.

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  • The hard drive itself is SATA 2.0. I used hardware identifying software to check this. However the port /interface into the motherboard could still be SATA 3.0 couldn't it? In that case it would be best for me to upgrade to a 3.0 hard drive.
    – Blue7
    Aug 31, 2015 at 14:07
  • @Blue7 - Unlikely. So purchase a SATA 3 device, it will work, even if you have a SATA 2 port.
    – Ramhound
    Aug 31, 2015 at 14:30
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Yes, this is SATA.

You can use any SATA SSD.

For more general reference, practically all laptops made after 2006 have SATA. SATA versions are all backwards and forwards compatible (barring specific buggy devices) and have no real limitations below 2TiB.

SATA 6Gbps drives will work slower in a SATA 3Gbps port but the difference will not be noticeable in normal day-to-day use.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8142/~/difference-between-sata-i,-sata-ii-and-sata-iii

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    Well, but size limitations can significantly restrict what drives you can put into a laptop.
    – ChrisInEdmonton
    Aug 31, 2015 at 16:34
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    @ChrisInEdmonton: What size limitations?
    – qasdfdsaq
    Aug 31, 2015 at 16:36
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    Many laptops won't take full-sized desktop hard drives, for example. I'm not sure what the specific size restrictions are for this particular laptop, but I'm not necessarily sure all SATA SSD's would necessarily fit.
    – ChrisInEdmonton
    Aug 31, 2015 at 16:38
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    @ChrisInEdmonton: Practically all laptops won't take desktop HDDs but I'm not sure how that's relevant. SSDs are not full size desktop hard drives. All consumer SSDs will necessarily fit any laptop that has a slot for a hard drive.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Aug 31, 2015 at 16:39
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    Many laptops take 1.8" drives (spinning, or SSD) only, but you can buy 2.5" or (much more rarely) 3.5" SSD's.
    – ChrisInEdmonton
    Aug 31, 2015 at 16:44

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