Should I upgrade Laptop to an SSD?


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I have a 1 year old Dell laptop with a 1TB HD & I have been thinking about upgrading to an SSD.

 

Is it worth the upgrade?

 

What SSD models are reccomended?

 

Is their anything else I need to check/consider when upgrading to an SSD; is it litterally just "plug & play"?

 

 

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I have a 1 year old Dell laptop with a 1TB HD & I have been thinking about upgrading to an SSD.

 

Is it worth the upgrade?

 

What SSD models are reccomended?

 

Is their anything else I need to check/consider when upgrading to an SSD; is it litterally just "plug & play"?

 

Going to be expensive to replace especially if you want same storage.  A 1tb SSD will cost around $400 - $500.  So unless you want to pay that price, you will have to reduce your storage and get something smaller.  Of course, that is not a big deal if you dont need or use 1tb.

 

We use SSDs at work and just plug it in and go.  They use connections as your current HD and the Windows install should recognize it. 

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Going to be expensive to replace especially if you want same storage.  A 1tb SSD will cost around $400 - $500.  So unless you want to pay that price, you will have to reduce your storage and get something smaller.  Of course, that is not a big deal if you dont need or use 1tb.

 

We use SSDs at work and just plug it in and go.  They use connections as your current HD and the Windows install should recognize it. 

 

yea, I wouldn't need a 1TB. I think a 500GB would be just right.

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Put your HDD in an external case. I like IcyDock externals. Use it to save all your documents and games. And get yourself a Crucial MX100. Just saved you $300

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Yea the mx100's are getting great reviews - prices are great.

here is 512GB for $209

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100-adapter-Internal-CT512MX100SSD1/dp/B00KFAGCUM

I just get a old laptop from work for free, was a freaking dog to be honest. I put a 128GB mx100 that I got for $70 and now its actually useable.. Boots in less than 20 seconds, comes out of standby in a like 3, etc.

Now just hope the $20 replacement battery I got for it gives me a few hours charge, since the one that is only last 15 to 30 minutes tops..

I just replaced my son's lenovo g500 with a samsung 840 pro, and it like a brand new machine - thing is out of standby in time it takes to open the lid, etc.

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You will notice a significant increase in load times, thats for damn sure, 80% of standard laptops are still equipped with 5400RPM HDDs

Well, a decrease anyway.

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I have a 1 year old Dell laptop with a 1TB HD & I have been thinking about upgrading to an SSD.

 

Is it worth the upgrade?

 

Yes

 

/thread

 

You won't even believe how much of a difference it'll make

 

The Crucial drives are very good; reliability-wise I've had zero issues with them

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An excerpt from a blog post I did about having a SSD drive and how it improved things:

 

 

Before the SSD:

Time to boot the computer to the login screen ? 15-20 seconds from pushing the power button. 
Time to load all the applications and my desktop and be ready to use ? 5-10 seconds after login .
Average program load time from launching it ?- 1-10 seconds depending on the program.

 

After the SSD:

Time to boot the computer to the login screen ? 3 Seconds from pushing the power button.
Time to load all the applications and my desktop and be ready to use ? 1 second if that.
Average program load time from launching it ? instantly to 3 seconds depending on the program.

As you can see, there was a major increase in speed and performance of my system.   File operations such as program installs, moving files, deleting them, copying them, all just a matter of a few seconds.

 

I wrote this back in the end of Feb of this year when I first installed it.  I have been using the drive and it is still just as good several months later.  It is fast and does it's job perfectly well.  I am using the Samsung 840EVO 256GB drive for reference.  I never have even come close to touching that limit with about 95GB used on my system currently. 

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I have a 1 year old Dell laptop with a 1TB HD & I have been thinking about upgrading to an SSD.

 

Is it worth the upgrade?

 

What SSD models are reccomended?

 

Is their anything else I need to check/consider when upgrading to an SSD; is it litterally just "plug & play"?

 

well, without knowing much about that machine... yeah, it will make your laptop faster. But only because your laptop is pretty new; i've seen systems with Core Duo (1st gen) or low quantity of RAM that even with a SSD it was still slow because the CPU and/or RAM was one of the bottlenecks.

 

Just remember that with a SSD the ratio of price per GB is more than a HDD so for getting the same 1TB you will need to fork some good cash. Oh and that laptop could contain a M.2 connection, that would improve sky high the performance of the system by using an M.2 SSD (pure PCIe speeds).

 

finally, regarding your last question: yes, you will need to reinstall Windows or other OS in it. And if using Windows 7 remember to enable TRIM, if your SSD supports it.

Edited by Praetor
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Sounds great!!

 

Also would a SSD get any notably longer out of the battery, as I understand they use less power?

 

it will increase the battery simply because it consumes less power; "how much" is a variable.

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You will notice a significant increase in load times, thats for damn sure, 80% of standard laptops are still equipped with 5400RPM HDDs

 

Yep, so sad.

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well, without knowing much about that machine... yeah, it will make your laptop faster. But only because your laptop is pretty new; i've seen systems with Core Duo (1st gen) or low quantity of RAM that even with a SSD it was still slow because the CPU and/or RAM was one of the bottlenecks.

 

Just remember that with a SSD the ratio of price per GB is more than a HDD so for getting the same 1TB you will need to fork some good cash. Oh and that laptop could contain a M.2 connection, that would improve sky high the performance of the system by using an M.2 SSD (pure PCIe speeds).

 

finally, regarding your last question: yes, you will need to reinstall Windows or other OS in it. And if using Windows 7 remember to enable TRIM, if your SSD supports it.

 

The M2 connection can be either SATA or PCIe.  There are very few laptops (or desktop boards for that matter) that use a PCIe based M2 connection, with the vast majority (almost all, bar Apple machines) being SATA.  There are also very few M2 based PCIe drives out there.

 

I have put SSDs in some pretty low specced (in terms of processor and RAM) machines and seen significant improvement in performance.  Clearly, this is related to what the machine is being used for.

 

And no, you don't have to reinstall the machine, I have imaged several Windows installations (and one OS/X installation) off a spinning platter based drive onto an SSD.  Windows has, in all cases, detected it now is running off an SSD and switched on TRIM automatically, disabled defrag etc - I've never actually had to do anything.

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The M2 connection can be either SATA or PCIe.  There are very few laptops (or desktop boards for that matter) that use a PCIe based M2 connection, with the vast majority (almost all, bar Apple machines) being SATA.  There are also very few M2 based PCIe drives out there.

 

Very true, the amount of new computers with M.2 is still low, but since i don't know anything about the OPs computer...it could have, i dunno.

 

 

I have put SSDs in some pretty low specced (in terms of processor and RAM) machines and seen significant improvement in performance.  Clearly, this is related to what the machine is being used for.

 

And no, you don't have to reinstall the machine, I have imaged several Windows installations (and one OS/X installation) off a spinning platter based drive onto an SSD.  Windows has, in all cases, detected it now is running off an SSD and switched on TRIM automatically, disabled defrag etc - I've never actually had to do anything.

 

I assumed the OP didn't know how to image the OS, my bad. But i always thought that, in Windows 7, even after a image one must check if TRIM is enabled and if not, it's necessary to; newer versions aren't necessary.

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Side note:  I've yet to find an SSD that didn't have TRIM enabled when I put Windows 7 on it.

 

It could happen due to outdated drivers.

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I assumed the OP didn't know how to image the OS, my bad. But i always thought that, in Windows 7, even after a image one must check if TRIM is enabled and if not, it's necessary to; newer versions aren't necessary.

 

Windows 7 was the first SSD aware OS that Microsoft made.  Before that you'd have to reconfigure the system manually.

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I have a 5-year-old Lenovo laptop and about a year ago I swapped out my 320GB hard drive and DVD drive for, respectively, a 256GB Samsung EVO 840 SSD and a Seagate 500GB Hybrid HDD for about $250 total (I have no need for disks anymore, mercifully).  The SSD runs my OS and programs and the Hybrid drive is for storage (but still with quick access due to its own built-in microSSD), and I swear the computer runs faster now than it did on the first day I got it.  An SSD is perhaps the single best upgrade you can get for your computer.  If you've got the ducats, go for it!

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