Thinking about a SSD for an old laptop, HP 2000-208CA, just want to try if SSD can help in general usage like browsing Internet, viewing photos etc.
Intel has its brand reputation, so no doubt after comparing other name brands like Samsung, Kingston, I narrowed down to Intel 530 series, which always has some promotion in this or that big reseller. To replace the HDD on the laptop, I just need a similar size, 240GB is enough for the O/S Windows 7 or 8, and maybe Office, nowadays we don’t really need a lot of local disk space. Also this laptop is not really for running as a VM host.
After quite some search, basically on the physical size and interface. I cannot really tell the difference between SSDSC2BW240A4K5 and SSDSC2BW240A401. There is always about 20 dollar difference. According to this Newegg page, they are almost twins.
But looked further, I found there is a big issue in this series SSD – BIOS recognition after restart. In many laptop models, install O/S won’t be a problem, but the system cannot see the SSD after a (warm) reboot. Many users told that cold restart is not an issue. It sounds a big concern to me.
Here is the Q&A in Amazon, a big chuck is about this issue: Intel 530 Series 240GB 2.5-Inch Internal Solid State Drive (Reseller Kit) SSDSC2BW240A4K5
Even Intel itself has a forum thread regarding this: Intel SSD 530 startup problems – Bug in SSD?
Before reach any decision, I also need to check this HP page for the laptop BIOS upgrade, which I found through another thread. If everything works, I might also consider upgrade the memory, like this.
Hope there is a fix in the Intel SSD, although I don’t know how to upgrade an SSD firmware.
Process Studio 