How to bring new life to your Old Laptop with a SSD upgrade

polk500

I had made thecomment below on a thread Tonyb started yesterday requesting computer help. But, I feel I should start a new thread on this topic.
Folks this upgrade will blow you away with the improvement to the performance of older and even new laptops or any laptop with a mechanical HHD instead of a SSD will benefit immensely.

As I stated below both Laptops are better then new. The 2011 MacBook had belonged to my Daughter we brought her a new MacBook last winter because the 2011 was just too dilatory for the Graphic arts course she is taking.
So the 2011 Laptop was just lying around not being used for 8 months. Then, I was having issues with my Company supplied Laptop as you could not open no more then two excel spread sheets at a time and they wouldn't buy me another one. So I started doing research on what I could do to improve the performance of the Laptop came across the SSD upgrade read a bunch of articles and decided to give it a try.

I upgraded the MacBook Pro first with the Samsung SSD and Crucial 16 gigs of RAM (total cost less then $300 Canadian) and a fresh install of the latest OS Wow this 2011 is as fast or faster than my Daughter 2015. If I had known about this upgrade I would save $1300 because the 2015 costs me $1600.
But, now it is mine so maybe it worked out for the best.

I transferred everything from the work laptop to the newly upgraded MBP, It is astounding just for example, I when into my excel work folder highlighted 40 excel spreadsheets clicked open all and BAM in 15 seconds all were opened, for just cruising the internet pages open in the blink of eye no more waiting.
Folks it is been 5 weeks since I upgraded, and I still smile every time I sit down to work.

Cheers


Hello Tony


What I would suggest is to upgrade your Harddrive to a Solid State Drive (SSD) I have done two of mine an apple MacBook pro 2,011 (with the Samsung 500 gig SSD $200.00 Amazon) and an older HP notebook 6,550 laptop with a Crucial 126 gig SSD $84.00 Amazon) these laptops are lightning fast now loads in seconds its unf#@$ing believable the improvement it made its better then new. Easy to do just what a couple of YouTube how to Videos.

And you may have a choice to increase the ram some computers will allow you to double or even triple the ram, a quick internet search on your makes and model will tell you, it is cheap like borsch and super easy to replace.

Also done a friend’s HP for her installed the Samsung Pro 500 Gigs SSD she is into photo editing, and she told on the weekend the upgrade have cut down the time it takes to edit by 90%.

Cheers
Roger

msg

Couldn't agree more on SSD. Hands down one of the best speed upgrades you can make, and with the prices dropping all the time as greater storage capacities become available, this is becoming relatively affordable. Keep a conventional 7200 rpm disk in the chassis for all your data, and get a good backup software to create disk image backups of the whole machine to at least one external, and then maybe to some cloud storage or off-site protection.

polk500

msg wrote: »

Couldn't agree more on SSD. Hands down one of the best speed upgrades you can make, and with the prices dropping all the time as greater storage capacities become available, this is becoming relatively affordable. Keep a conventional 7200 rpm disk in the chassis for all your data, and get a good backup software to create disk image backups of the whole machine to at least one external, and then maybe to some cloud storage or off-site protection.

Exactly, I took out the DVD drive installed the old 750 Gig HHD with a $8 kit and pointed all pictures and music to automatic store on the old drive.
Works like a charm.

Cheers

michaeljhsda2

Sounds like what I need for my Acer Aspire 5532 laptop. Ordering one today. Thanks!

polk500

You will need to order the USB to Sata adapter as well for cloning the drives, they are cheap less then $10 US. But, check first because some SSD comes as a kit with the cable included.

I would also suggest doing a quick search on the Crucial Site, just enter the make and model of the Laptop and it will tell you what SSD drives are compatible. I just checked 750 Gig SSD for$189 and you can also upgrade to eight gigs of RAM for $34.

Good prices you guys get down south

Cheers

michaeljhsda2

I'm doing a clean install of Windows 7 Pro so I'll transfer docs, pics, etc to a jump drive beforehand.

polk500

Prefect, thats the way to go I done the same makes for a error free Clone of the HHD.

Cheers

mrbiron

Just did this with my laptop a month or so ago. Upgraded from 4gb to 8 and threw in a cheap 120GB Samsung ssd for a whopping total of $75. I have music and movies in my tower with 10TB of storage so I didn't have to break the bank on the laptop. It's just used for Web surfing anyhow.

Fresh install of Win10 and this puppy is up and running.

polk500

Excellent choice if you don't need the storage, what your impression of going from a HHD to SSD

nguyendot

Added benefit: longer battery life. Only downside to ssds are cost / size ratio and if you leave them off long term they're known to just die.

I just added 3 Intel 800gb ssds to a server Friday. That SQL server flies now.

polk500

if you leave them off long term they're known to just die.

So what is long term a week, month, year?

I thought about intel as they review as very reliable.

Cheers

nguyendot

I left one of mine off for a year and it never fired back up. They're terrible compared to spinning disks for long term storage, but everyday usage is awesome.

gurot1

I love SSDs! First installed it in my PC five years ago or so. Loved it. Biggest performance improvement I've noticed from any one product upgrade. Converted family members to ssd shortly after that lol. I had always wanted motherboard manufacturers to include a bit of onboard memory for OS's, but I think it was probably too expensive to do that to justify it. Still using my 2007 Macbook Pro that I added an SSD to a few years ago. With the latest OS update, it takes a bit longer to bootup than before, but then again I use it mainly for surfing, watching movies and REW and with the SSD onboard, it is perfectly usable. Gone are the days I used to tax computer systems (running mutiple windows on a 486 and doing screen captures, computer would hiccup everytime I switched windows).