SSD question.

[Micknasty]

Is there anything I should make sure my computer has before I buy an SSD? My computer is about 4 years old and I'm not sure what a SSD needs. Probably a ridiculously stupid question, but I just want to know.
Thanks!

[SneakyDave]

Is there anything I should make sure my computer has before I buy an SSD? My computer is about 4 years old and I'm not sure what a SSD needs. Probably a ridiculously stupid question, but I just want to know.
Thanks!

*You should probably do this before ordering the SSD.
*To be most certain, find pictures: the connectors on the back of an SSD need to match an open set of connectors inside your PC.
*As a refinement: your SSD works best on a SATA6.0 connector: be sure you have an internal SATA6.0 port free and a free power connector. And a cable, of course. If you don't have SATA6.0. SATA3.0 will work fine... the performance increase increase over your spinning disk will still be profound.
*Finding out the speed of your internal SATA connectors will probably require looking in the manual - while you have the case open, look up the board model and find the manual. Finding the manual will make this easy. Also, vaccuum out those dust bunnies. =)
*You should probably have a plan for migrating the data to your SSD from your spinning disk, if you plan to use the SSD as your main disk drive- I used Paragon's migrate OS product and it was simple and bulletproof, for $20.

[Lilfrier]

If you don't want to open up your case to find the motherboard model number, install CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html), then go to its "Mainboard" tab.

[Hottage]

If you want to buy a current generation SSD it will be SATA-600, and if you have an older motherboard it will automatically scale down to SATA-300 (which is likely for a 4 year old mid-range board). The advantage is, however that if you upgrade your motherboard, your SSD is already future-proof.

There is barely any reason to pick a slower SSD because of your motherboard, you want quality anyway, and the price between SATA-300 and SATA-600 with quality drives is negligible anyway.

[Micknasty]

My computer is pretty old. I'm buying a new one when I get my taxes, I just figured I'd buy an SSD now since I have a little bit of extra money.

[Cyrops]

Is this your board:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...c01925534#N360
Looks like prebuilt HP system, and no it only has old Sata, maybe even the Sata 1 instead of Sata 2.
But yea you can go ahead and buy an SSD now for your future build, but you will need to reinstall the OS on it. But you won't see much improvement while playing games, not sure if it's worth it.
If you do decide to buy an SSD, consider one of these:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/crucial...-ct120m500ssd1
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung...ive-mz7te120bw
My personal SSD:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/kingsto...ve-sh103s3120g