[Deagon]

I bought an Acer Aspire One minutes after they were in the shops (not quite) last year.

At the time only the 8gb ssd version was available and it's performance was appalling with any OS installed other than the original Linpus Linux Lite (Fedora 8.)

After several months of frustration I finally decided to sacrifice a usb port (from the right hand side) and solder in a usb to sata adapter (from inside a lacie external hdd) and attach a 500gb 2.5" hdd.

The difference was amazing and immediately noticeable. No more 10 minute waits for debian to boot from the sluggish 8gb ssd and the luxury of actually having free space after installing the operating system. It was brilliant.

But recently I decided to reclaim my sacrificed usb port. So I went about removing the original usb to sata mod last night.

I decided to integrate the sata straight onto the motherboard instead, considering the circuitry for sata was already there, just not the socket.

1. I removed the old usb to sata HDD mod.

2. I went about de-soldering the sata socket from the usb adapter.

3. With a pair of pliers, a needle and a soldering iron I went about removing the 'filler' solder from the 22 existing holes on the motherboard (where the sata socket resides on the more expensive variant of my netbook)

4. I painstakingly soldered all 22 connections of the recycled sata socket onto the motherboard.

5. Then I soldered together two points on the motherboard near the newly attached sata connection to 'route' 12v to the socket (Otherwise the hdd wouldn't spin up)

6. I test installed Windows XP (Because I could never do that when I was running the HDD from the usb)

7. I reformatted and installed Debian 5.0 Lenny.

8. I ripped a USB a port off an old bit of circuit board I had lying around and soldered it onto the right hand side circuit board of my netbook (to replace the one I ripped off for the original Usb HDD mod several months ago.)


After 5 hours and 2 full HDD tests (just to test the newly attached socket for faults) I can safely say this mod is running amazingly and there has been further improvement in hdd access speeds.

Pic 1 The Motherboard and usb sata adapter next to each other.

Pic 2 The Motherboard without a sata connector where one should exist.

Pic 2 The Usb Sata Adapter to be sacrificed.

Pic 4 The sata connection once remover from it's adapter.

Pic 5 The motherboard held in front of a light after the solder has been removed from the blocked holes.

Pic 6 The successfully attached Sata connection.

Pic 7 The HDD in place with it's new connection (And not so visible volt mod between the socket and ram)

Pic 8 The remnants of the original hdd mod.

Pic 9 Donor Usb ports to replace the original one removed months ago.

Pic 10 The finished Mod.

***Edit*** So after the first 24 hours I have noticed several lookups where the HDD would jam and the pc would crash.

The first thing that came into my head was "it must be the mod or my soldering" but after a closer inspection I can find no short circuits anywhere and the continuity test function of my Digital Multimeter shows no broken/faulty circuits either.

I removed the jumper I had on the LPS (Low power spinup) pins of my Sata HDD and what do you know, after 3 hours and several HDD intensive operations. Everything seems to be working flawlessly.

[Ditchster]

Very interesting read, thanks.

Sadly your electrical tallent is blighted by the cr#p camera pics.

[Deagon]

Yeah, unfortunately I had to resort to my phone's camera. I couldn't use the high quality camera of the netbook for obvious reasons.

[jasba]

Wow, seems you really did a good job. I've also though about modifying my Acer Aspire netbook but didn't try it so far due to my lack of technical knowledge. But your description and the pics are really helpful, maybe I will have a look at it on my next free weekend.

[Deagon]

There are many different mods detailed for this netbook, some are simple and only involve slight modification to the casing, etc. Where as some like my detailed mod are both difficult and very risky.

I can share some links for other HDD mods I have seen 'floating around' the internet and my experiences of these (If applicable)

1...Tnkgrl's Ipod HDD mod. This is probably the simplest and easiest way to get more HDD space and performance with Acer Aspire One (8GB Variant)

Th AAO with the 8gb SSD uses a socket called ZIF and a ribbon cable to attach it. Newer IPOD's uses that same connection on their HDD's and the drives are small enough to be fitted into the aspire one with minimal case adjustment and ABSOLUTELY NO SOLDERING too.

2. Zif to CF adapter mod. Is another safe way to increase the storage capacity of this netbook with minimal case adjustment and ABSOLUTELY NO SOLDERING involved. An added benefit of this mod... It will be easy to upgrade by changing the memory card, When cheaper and larger ones come into market.

3. My Sata Method (USB to Sata)
This mod is probably the easiest way to attach a sata socket to the system. Instead of risking the Motherboard by going as Extreme as I did, it is possible (and has worked for me) to get an Empty External USB to Sata HDD Enclosure.

Remove the adapter from inside the enclosure and solder it's cable into the right hand circuit board of the aspire one. Unfortunately it does mean sacrificing a USB Port. Although, it might be possible to use the 4 points on the motherboard that are documented by Tnkgrl's Bluetooth mod.

One downside of the USB to Sata adapter is that it will be very difficult (if not impossible) to use windows from the HDD attached this way.

4. Directly attaching the sata to the Motherboard.
Documented in Post1 and there is a slightly different method documented here
This will either fully convert your netbook into a proper laptop, OR INTO A BRICK (depending upon the skill of the modder.)

***Edit***
I hope this information about the different storage mods available for the AAO will provide to be useful and/or a good read for anyone who is considering an unconventional upgrade.

Although I documented my method of upgrade, I can't actively encourage anyone to do it. As it does have the greatest risk of failure. (but sometimes we all need a good excuse for buying new computer )