What is the recommended brand and size of a replacement SSD in a G23 MLD V2?

[Solsurvivor]

I have a G23 MLD V2 with a 625 brain box, an e4690 video card, and 4GB Ram.  I'm running Family 14 games and will reinstall them on the new drive. The currently installed HDD was manufactured in 2010.  I want to replace the HDD with a recommended SSD.

What is the recommended brand and size (GB and physical dimensions) and source of a replacement SSD?  Thanks.

[sixcardmark]

I use crucial 120GB SSD.  I have one brand new left for 40 shipped USA.  PM if interested.

[sccarlso]

Any 2.5 in SATAIII SSD should have no issues at all.  There's nothing "special" about the SSD drives in AVP's.  Which is nice.  The SATA interface on the brainboxes aren't even SATAIII, but that's all you can get these days and that's fine.  They're all backwards compatible with SATAI/SATAII so the AVP has no problem, and it will get the max transfer rate its SATA interface can handle.  But there's really not a "most compatible", or "best" SSD drive for AVP's unless we have some kind of vote here.  Would be interesting to see the results!      Nothing wrong at all with Crucial SSD's.  I've used them as well, and they have no issues either.  But the Kingston ones have been just as reliable in my machines, and $15 cheaper for a 240GB model with same day shipping from the old Amazon.   Everyone has their own preferred brand/model.  All the "well known" brands work just fine.

For the last few years, 128GB SSD's were the most commonly used.  It's more than enough size to hold the most games you can load at once with plenty of extra space.  You'll run out of NVRAM before using 128GB.

But as SSD's get larger and the prices drop, companies stop making the smaller SSD's since demand really drops off for them as larger drives become cheaper.  So it no longer makes sense to get a 128GB SSD anymore when a 256GB SSD is now cheaper than the older 128GB one was last year as they no longer make tham, they are out of stock everywhere and it takes a week to get one.  There are still companies making really cheap 128GB SSD's for $15, but they're unknown brands with little history on reliability.

I always used Kingston 120GB A400 SSD's when they were available on Amazon for $25 or less and had same day delivery, very reliable and have been around for ages.  When those went out of stock, I switched to the 240GB ones, exact same drive, just larger.  120GB was always more than enough so now it's just get the 240GB as they're in stock, and cheap.  And the 240GB A400's have same day delivery from Amazon unless you live in a rural area. 

The original 80GB SSD's in AVP's are about 10GB too small to load the most games, so you can run out of disk space before hitting your NVRAM limit.  A fully loaded machine with enough games loaded to hit that 90% NVRAM usage, which is still a bit high but has generally ok.   Is about 90-95GB.  The A400 model line is reliable and highly rated.  And its price for the 240GB models has dropped to what the 120GB versions used to be.  $25.

I have five AVP machines and they all have Kingston A400 drives in them, never had a single issue.  Plug it in, do a full wipe of everything, and load it up.   Even though the ones readily available new are the larger 240GB drives.  Great, nothing wrong with having more space, if blocks ever do go bad which isn't that common, there's 140GB of unused blocks that are available even if you loaded all the games you could run at the same time.   Just my personal preference as they've never had any problem in my machines, they're fast, reliable, and inexpensive.  Eventually the 240GB models will also disappear as well.  For the price, I'd get two for $50 as it's always good to have a spare SSD, and you'll probably never need another one unless you get a second AVP machine.  lol

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-240GB-Solid-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q    $24.99  (of course a penny below the price for free same day shipping).  Typical Amazon.  But we're all spoiled by same day shipping these days!
   

[Solsurvivor]

Thanks!  I really appreciate the detailed information.   

[Solsurvivor]

Is there a recommended stand-alone economical device to clone the old HDD to the new SSD?

[sccarlso]

Not really.  It's also hard to clone it to a different size drive.

A lot easier to simply replace it, wipe the machine, and just reload the OS and Games.