Upgrading the Acer Aspire ONE with a 16GB SSD

My already one year old Acer Aspire One is still a very usable netbook. I have bought it in july last year to write my diploma thesis on it (during train travel). It is simply a modern typewriter which can be used for more if neccessary (even Eclipse runs on it, if you really need it). Of course, current models from Acer and other vendors are better equipped in some places, but they generally seem to get larger, more expensive and thus less netbook-like again.

Despite my general appreciation of the first Aspire One (A110L), it also has two major drawbacks: no 3G and probably the slowest SSD you ill find on the market. While the former is tolerable, the latter most definately is not! When the whole system just hangs every other click, just because the SSD cannot keep up, it is outright annoying. Surely, you can tweak some things here and there, like disabling swapping, log-files, the browser cache and similar things, but it will only help so much. A faster disk is needed. Because I wanted to keep the benefits of SSDs (silent, robust, power saving), I replaced the built-in Samsung P-SSD1800 8GB (max. 35MB/s read, 6MB/s write, hdbenchmark: 87) with the more powerful Mtron MOBI 3000 1,8″ 16GB (max. 100MB/s read, 90MB/s write, hdbenchmark: 355) instead of taking a cheaper (and larger, capacity-wise) 1.8″ notebook hard-drive.

Here is a short documentation of the installation, in case someone wants to do something similar. It requires some skill, but in principle it’s quite easy. A quick run through:

  1. Remove the battery and all screws from the bottom of the Aspire One. This also includes the two screws found under the small rubber feet on the left and right of the battery slot.
  2. Open the display and remove the keyboard by carfully pushing in on the three holders on the upper side of the keyboard. To unplug the cable from the mainboard, you just have to raise the black plastic lock.
  3. Remove all screws found under the keyboard.
  4. Now, the top half of the case can be removed. This is best done by reaching between the display and body, and pulling the edge of the top upwards. As always: do not apply brute force. The touchpad is, like the keyboard, connected to the mainboard by a cable which can be unplugged in the same way.
  5. Now you can remove the WiFi-card, the mainboard, the small additional board, and finally the built-in SSD card. For this, remove all screws and carefully take the parts out.
  6. Installation of the new SSD. Because it is larger and above all thicker than the original SSD, some plastic parts at the bottom of the case have to be removed. Also, because there is no way to fixate the new disc with screws, four self-adhesive non-skid pads are used as spacers and are glued to the bottom of the case. Then, the SSD is attached with double-sided adhesive tape.
  7. Now, the parts dismantled in step 5 can be reassembled. It is best to start with the mainboard and to connect the SSD with it. For this, you need a 0.2mm to 0.3mm ZIF cable. The connector on the mainboard requires a thickness of 0.3mm, the one on the SSD a thickness of 0.2mm. Before attaching the cable, look for the position of pin 1 on the mainboard and the SSD, and then attach the cable accordingly (in my experience nothing gets damaged, if you get this wrong, but better be safe than sorry).
  8. After all parts have been reassembled and screwed in place, the top of the case can be put back on, pressed into the retaining clips and screwed in place too. Do not forget to connect the touchpad to the mainboard.
  9. Put the keyboard back in, and also connect the cable to the mainboard.
  10. Finally, screw in the remaining screws from the bottom and put the battery back in.

After powering on, the SSD should be detected by the system and you can install the operating system of your choice, either by using an external drive, a USB key, or via network using PXE. I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix via PXE which was very quick and easy.

Lastly some photos I took during the assembly:

This entry was posted on October 10th, 2009 at 8:04 PM. It is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Comment to Upgrading the Acer Aspire ONE with a 16GB SSD

  1. Igor Says:

    vielen dank für die bilder :)
    gleiches habe ich nun auch vor, war mir aber nicht sicher, ob die mtron ohne probleme ihren weg ins netbook findet.

    March 24th, 2010 at 10:09 AM

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