Question 1

Do I need to buy an additional adapter to mount this in a standard ATX tower case or does it already come with the proper adapter?

Accepted Answer

It doesn't come with a mounting bracket, so unless your tower is compatible with 2.5" drives, you'll have to purchase one. There's one listed in the "May We Suggest" area, if you want to put a bundle together quickly.

Question 2

what kind of cable do i need to connect this drive to the mb?

Accepted Answer

It's a standard SATA connection... it plugged directly into my motherboard on my laptop, no cables needed.

If it's going into a Desktop, then it will connect directly to the SATA cable.

Question 3

Is the drive laptop ready?

Accepted Answer

Yes... That's where I put mine. It comes with a adapter, but in my case I didn't need it. I just removed my old SATA drive from the hard drive bracket and replaced it with the SSD, using the same screws, which held it in place. I didn't use the adapter.

I did install my old drive as a second drive, using a drive caddy that replaces the DVD drive. So now I have 2 hard drives. Works great!

Question 4

Does the Crucial M500 come with software to migrate the hard drive over to the SSD?

Accepted Answer

This is literally just a drive. There is no software.  I would recommend using Acronis TrueImage or Paragon Hard Disk Manager (which I used.)  Especially if your SSD is smaller than your current HDD because in that case, you can't copy the whole drive and these utilities help with that.

Question 5

I've never used a "SSD" before, how does this help in terms of "Gaming?" Does it load things faster or something? Maybe load chars or loading screens? What exactly does it do for gaming..?

Accepted Answer

Shawn,

Solid state hard drives don't rotate like a standard hard disk drive. Instead the data is stored on the drive in a solid state and a pointer is all that's needed to retrieve the data. That said, data stored on the drive is accessed much faster than on traditional drives. Games and programs open much faster and read/writes are insanely quick. There are some considerations to make when using a drive like this. A common use is to put the Operating System on the drive and programs on another HDD because the 120GB will fill up quickly. In my setup I have the 120 GB Solid state that I use for my OS and a few large programs such as Photoshop and VM Workstation and everything else is installed on a 2TB hard disk drive. If you're looking into a SSD, look for something a little larger than 120GB, as a drive this small will fill up quickly. I hope this review helps in your searches. Good luck,

Question 6

Does it include transfer software?

Accepted Answer

The SSD does not come with any pre-installed software. If you're transferring from an existing OS drive, you're usually better off doing a clean install, as the partition and blocking schemes on SSD's do not line up with that of an HDD.

Crucial does offer an inexpensive transfer kit (cable and adapter, with their version of transfer software), but you can usually just migrate your data over after a clean install. You can also look up third party transfer applications, or use the built in Windows transfer software (if you have a Windows box).

I've found a clean install and data migration to have a much cleaner feel, and better performance, than migrating existing operating systems. Having done this about a dozen times over the past year (I've been upgrading my systems to SSD), it's really not as difficult as it used to be.

If there was a particular application you're looking for, would you be able to elaborate?

Question 7

My SATA seagate drive just died. Is this Crucial unit a plug n play replacement?

Thanks

Accepted Answer

If your Seagate was a SSD you should not have any problems, but if your Seagate was a HDD you might have trouble. Some older motherboards have trouble with SSD drives and require some additional configuration to get working.

Question 8

How can I install this on a laptop? My laptop doesn't have the same SATA connectors that are on this ssd. I have already purchased the item, is there a connector I can buy to make it work? It also doesn't fit nicely or have any sort of mounting screws.

Accepted Answer

If your connectors (SATA) do not match up correctly, you are probably our of luck on this one. I am assuming that you have either a very old laptop (Probably with IDE adapters), or something newer than I've yet seen. (It's also possible that you are trying to connect externally rather than replace your internal drive.)
If the above is the case, you could always convert this to an external drive using an external drive case.
If you don't think this is the problem, posting the complete model information for your machine may shed further light on the subject.

Question 9

What purpose does the adapter serve?

Accepted Answer

It serves as a shim if you need it. I didn't need it when installing it to my laptop, because even though it was suspended in the hard drive caddy, the 4 screws on the side held it in place. Regular 2.5 inch drives for laptops are usually 9.5 mm high, so the adapter fills in the space above or below it.

Question 10

would this fit in the primary hd bay in my asus g73jw-xn1?

Accepted Answer

Will it fit? The answer is yes however you will need an adapter or kit most likely to mount it in the bay. The Crucial ssd does not come with screws which is common now but a pain because they aren't consistent whether they include them or not. Good luck.

Questions & Answers