Archos G9 101 Turbo 250GB UPGRADE HDD to SSD STEP by STEP

UUK3 · Feb 29, 2012

The HDD version of Archos G9 (example A101H) can be upgraded to SSD or a bigger HDD!

First try:
I have used a 1.8'' Samsung 128GB SSD (microSata) with adapter to Sata 2.5'' and 3.3V.
The UPGRADE works fine!

Second try:
720GB HDD 2,5" 9mm device.
Upgrade works fine with one little issue.
The HDD is thicker then the original so there is a small spot on the screen from the pressure. It is only visible at black or white screens.

----------------------------------

Original HDD details:
Seagate Momentus Thindrive 256GB 2,5" 8mm

UUK3 · Mar 29, 2012

FAQ

FAQ:

# Why SSD?
No mechanic inside.
No annoying sound from it.
Less battery consumption.
Less heat.
No on/off delay.
More speed (full SSD speed is not supported).

# Why 1.8''?
Because it takes only ~1,0W when active instead of 2,5W with an 2.5'' HDD device. The battery should hold much longer.
It makes the heavy device a little bit lighter.
Attention: This devices work with 3,3V. You will need an 2,5'' adapter which will make this. Because SATA gives 5V. (ebay 12€)

# Can I use any Sata 2.5 device?
Yes you can use Sata, Sata2, Sata3.
But not @ full speed.
Watch the Voltage Supply need to be 5V.

UUK3 · Mar 29, 2012

Step by Step Guide

HowTo step by step

S0
- You need a Torx T5/T6 screwdriver.
- Don't buy a SSD which is to big. Watch the size before buy. (better buy a thin drive)
- There is no significant speed raise with SSD!
- Drive current has to be 5V. (3.3V only with active adapter)
- I am not responsible for any damage on your device and your self. So work carefully and open your eyes.

S1
Shut down your device.
Remove power supply and USB cable!
Open the 4 screws on the backside with a Torch 5 Screwdriver.

S2
Open carefully the clips with a flat screwdriver. They are all around on the 4 sides of the Archos.
DON'T BREAK them!

S3
Flip the side with the display away let it stand in a position of ~90°.
(Because one cable is a little bit to short. If you want to lay it completely you have to remove this cable first.)

S4
Put the long battery away from the HDD.
You need the space for the next step.

S5
Remove 2 screws over the HDD
and
2 on the side, where the long battery was.

S6
Remove the foil near by the SATA connector.
Put the HDD out.

S7
Pre-Format your new HDD or SSD with EXT4 (EXT3 will work too)
Use a partition tool like EaseUS Free Edition.
Or use a Ubuntu Live CD/USB if you want to transfer your files from your old HDD to the new one.

S8
Do the steps S6 till S3 reversed.

S9
Start your Archos and check if all works fine.
Ckeck the memory in system menu.
Transfere some big files.
If all works fine, do steps S2 & S1 reversed.
If the SSD is not recognized, format it in Repair menu (you will find it in settings)

S10
Hope i could help some of the people who wants to make the device a lot better.
Post your Quadrant scores and Battery consumption here together with your HDD type if you want.

cajl · Mar 30, 2012

great i waiting that

baari21 · Apr 1, 2012

Can't wait to see the quadrant scores.

Can't wait to see the quadrant scores. Thanks for the tutorial.

nicoloco · Apr 2, 2012

I would be more interested by the change in the power consumption saved by this change ?

Any comparison between the autonomy before and after ??

UUK3 · Apr 2, 2012

I have to wait till the active adapter arrives to me. then I can post this two things.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

scholbert · Apr 2, 2012

Hey UUK3,

cool stuff... this is a hack i really like

BTW...

S2
Open carefully the clips with a flat screwdriver. They are all around on the 4 sides of the Archos.
DON'T BREAK them!

Any advice on how not to break them?
I'm going to open mine the next days, to do some research on the technical side (as usual)

I got the flash version not the HDD variant, but the housing should be very similar i guess. At least there seems to be only one screw.

Keep on your nice work!!

scholbert

UUK3 · Apr 2, 2012

scholbert said:
Hey UUK3,

cool stuff... this is a hack i really like

BTW...

Any advice on how not to break them?
I'm going to open mine the next days, to do some research on the technical side (as usual)
I got the flash version not the HDD variant, but the housing should be very similar i guess. At least there seems to be only one screw.

Keep on your nice work!!

scholbert

Use a small flat screwdriver and compare my fotos with you devive to find out where the clips are. Then pull the side upwards with the screwdriver don't push the clips with the nose down. Sorry my English is not the best hope you can understand what I mean. Good luck and don't use to much power.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

realismo · Apr 2, 2012

What do you mean?

RAM Upgrade:
Maybe the RAM too?
(from 1x 512MB RAM module to 2x 512MB RAM modules)

UUK3 · Apr 2, 2012

realismo said:
What do you mean?

Before I opened the device I saw some pictures from others. It seems that we could sold another ram chip on the side. So after I opened it I saw that my device isn't the same as I saw on the pictures.
Think this can't be done.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

nashi20002003 · Apr 3, 2012

Don't Expect better battery or speed...

I tested battery drop after in 3 different gen 9 archos...one with original, one with a massive 1TB, one with M4 SSD...

No significant battery improvements...Giving it's not scientific test but still.

Every time I measured battery after one how of playing video and always had a drop of around 25% to 27% in both of them..

I also tried a hybride SSD/HDD seagate and same thing.

So please do the SSD replacement for other reasons; quite operation, less, heat, less weight, less failure. As af as speed and power consumption not very much to gain acording to my tests.

The only explanation may well be that since Archos is already pairing Flash to HDD and caching...the HDD is turned off as needed. Ran seveal speed test reading and writing...and did not see much change...I guess it'all just go thru the cache flash used by the HDD versions of Archos.

That was my experience. I reverted back to my 1Tb HDD..No gain for me with an expensive HDD. The hDD is very cheap and if it fails I can still replace it just like that.

UUK3 · Apr 3, 2012

nashi20002003 said:
I tested battery drop after in 3 different gen 9 archos...one with original, one with a massive 1TB, one with M4 SSD...

No significant battery improvements...Giving it's not scientific test but still.

Every time I measured battery after one how of playing video and always had a drop of around 25% to 27% in both of them..

I also tried a hybride SSD/HDD seagate and same thing.

So please do the SSD replacement for other reasons; quite operation, less, heat, less weight, less failure. As af as speed and power consumption not very much to gain acording to my tests.

The only explanation may well be that since Archos is already pairing Flash to HDD and caching...the HDD is turned off as needed. Ran seveal speed test reading and writing...and did not see much change...I guess it'all just go thru the cache flash used by the HDD versions of Archos.

That was my experience. I reverted back to my 1Tb HDD..No gain for me with an expensive HDD. The hDD is very cheap and if it fails I can still replace it just like that.

Thank you to share your experience with us.
Could you give some technical data from the different drives you try?
One important data is Ampere and the second is Volt. As you can see in first post it is not high with the original drive (2.5W). But with a drive which will use only 1W it must be a less battery consumption.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

scholbert · Apr 4, 2012

Hi UUK3!

UUK3 said:
Before I opened the device I saw some pictures from others. It seems that we could sold another ram chip on the side. So after I opened it I saw that my device isn't the same as I saw on the pictures.
Think this can't be done.

Just thought to give a comment on that, to avoid confusion:
In our Gen9 devices RAM is soldered as PoP on top of the CPU.
These chips could not be easily replaced.

The free footprint your are talking of is only present on the mainboard of the S models (flash based devices). In theory you could place a second NAND chip on these solder pads to increase flash memory.

On the H models (HDD based devices) this area is used for the USB2SATA logic.

Please do not mix up RAM and NAND based memory, this often leds to confusion.

Cheers,

scholbert

nashi20002003 · Apr 7, 2012

UUK3 said:
Thank you to share your experience with us.
Could you give some technical data from the different drives you try?
One important data is Ampere and the second is Volt. As you can see in first post it is not high with the original drive (2.5W). But with a drive which will use only 1W it must be a less battery consumption.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

I tested an Archos 101 G9 with the original drive. Tech Specs are the same you mentioned above...Seagate Momentus Thins 5200 RPM...8MB cache. ALso G9 80 Original Drive. Then I replaced in them my 1 TB drive Samsung pinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB. Checked the drop in battery % after one hour of playing the same video. Then I tried the same thing with Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive Review (ST750LX003). I did not notice a difference in speed test performed by SDTester app and same with power consumption after playing the same video.
In my research Samsung SSD 830 and Crucial m4 are some of the best. with quality and performance. I was going to buy the 512 mb M4 Before I do so I bought the 64gb version...( Crucial 64 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT064M4SSD2) replaced that and did the same test...with no significant difference in battery drop. Even speed did not change...(which I expect since the Archos tablet is always going thru it's flash caching for reading and writing.) I wa more looking for power consumption. M4 is a 2.5 SSD with lower power needs the Hdd and have the below listed specs:

Power Consumption (Idle)
< 65 mW
Power Consumption (Active)
0.15W
Operating Temperature
0°C ~ +70°C
Storage Temperature
-40°C ~ +85°C
Max Shock Resistance
1500G

UUK3 · Apr 8, 2012

I tested my device now for a few days with the new SSD (1.8'' 128GB).

My impression is:
- nearly no loading times
- no heat building
- better battery life (standby 3 days, videoplay 5hours, mixed use about 10hours)
- device is lighter but the heaviest things are the 2 batteries.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

rickwyatt · Apr 10, 2012

could someone how has the archos 80 g9 turbo 250gb hhd post a adb of the partition layout

adb shell
#df
#cat proc/partitions

And post it here thanks

UUK3 · Apr 12, 2012

rickwyatt said:
could someone how has the archos 80 g9 turbo 250gb hhd post a adb of the partition layout

adb shell
#df
#cat proc/partitions

And post it here thanks

When you tell me how exactly to do that i can post it from the 101G9 Turbo 250GB

Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

rex_4321 · Apr 13, 2012

nashi20002003 said:
I Then I replaced in them my 1 TB drive Samsung pinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB 1TB. Checked the drop in battery % after one hour of playing the same video. Then I tried the same thing with Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive Review (ST750LX003).

Do 9mm 2.5" drives fit into the case alright ?
As the original 250GB drive is 7mm, I was wondering whether there was enough room ?

UUK3 · Apr 13, 2012

Yes they fit, but not perfectly. After put it in i have some screen issues. Like flikering backlight touching the screen and on black or white Backgrounds a light ugly circle which comes from the pressure the 9mm device do.

Sent from my ARCHOS 101G9 using XDA

Archos G9 101 Turbo 250GB UPGRADE HDD to SSD STEP by STEP

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Attachments

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Member

Senior Member

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts