[SOLVED] Does my HP Laptop need a SSD?

[Rooki3_N00b]

Hi everyone

Hope I've posted this in the right section.

I have a HP ENVY Notebook - 14t-j100 CTO which I've been using for about 5 years now. It has been a couple years now that whenever I run ANY programs, the "Disk usage" spikes to 100 and stays there for a solid 3 minutes before it goes down to 0. This issue started off with 20sec~ish and has become progressively worse. I've tried resetting windows and all the rest (virus checking, driver updates, bios update, dusting etc) but the issue still remains. A year ago, I upgraded my laptop's ram from 8>12gb ( did not make the issue less). I cannot play many of the games that I were able to a long while ago because of the random frame drop issue which I personally assume is because of the slow drive. One other important note: In the last week, 2 of my programs (Android emulators, Bluestacks/LdPlayer) had their instance's files deleted and one corrupted for some reason.

Here is my device specifications:

Spoiler: Device Specification

HP ENVY Notebook -
Model #:14t-j100 CTO
Product #: L8V12AV
Serial #: CND5430Q4D

1TB HDD 5400 RPM Model: ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB
12GB RAM DDR3 1600mhz
Nvidia 950m 4GB
Intel i7 6700HQ
Windows 10 Home Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044
BIOS ver Insyde F.52

So I guess what I'm asking are 2 questions:

1: What could be the cause of the extremely high disk usage and the very recent file corruption? Is it the HDD?
2: If I need a SSD, which is the best SSD for my laptop model?

If there are any other details you would like to know, please let me know.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Ralston18]

1) How full is that 1 TB HDD? If past 70-80% capacity, performance will be slowed.

Especially if there has not been any disk cleaning or other maintenance. Have you ever run Disk Clean or Defragged the HDD? (Note: SSDs are not defragged.)

2) An SSD will help considerably but basically will require a clean install of Windows and then restoring all apps and data.

The first thing you need to do is to ensure that all important data on the laptop is backed up at least 2 x to locations off of the laptop. Verify that the data is recoverable and readable.

The second thing is to plan both the physical installation of at least a 500 GB SSD if possible along with a clean Windows install. I could not confirm that a 1 TB SSD would be supported. (I would hope so but did not note any explicit confirmation.)

https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/windows-10-clean-install-tutorial.3170366/

As for SSDs start here:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-buying-guide,5602.html

 

[Rooki3_N00b]

1) How full is that 1 TB HDD? If past 70-80% capacity, performance will be slowed.

It has 2 partitions. The windows installation drive has 192GB free and other one 147GB free.

Have you ever run Disk Clean or Defragged the HDD?

I have done cleanmgr. Unless windows automatically defragmented my drive, I have never ran manually ran Defragmenter. Do I need defragmentation even if I have installed windows from scratch?

As for SSDs start here:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-buying-guide,5602.html

Thank you I will read it.

 

[Ralston18]

Not familiar with cleanmgr.

Windows should not be automatically de-fragmenting any drives. De-fragmentation is something that would be part of normal drive maintenance and set up by or done by the applicable admin person. As I understand your posts you have not done so but that does not mean that you have done anything wrong.

Reminder: SSD's should not be de-fragmented.

For HDD's:

https://www.hellotech.com/guide/for/how-to-defrag-a-computer-hard-drive-windows-10

Do the analysis. Then defrag only if required.

Reminder: As always be sure that all important data is backed up at least 2 x to locations off of the host laptop. Verify that the data is recoverable and readable.

 

[punkncat]

There are a couple of things going on IMO.

First off, it's on a HDD running at 5400 RPM. That is hampering performance in a major way. Even a humble SSD offering would make that seem like a totally different rig.

Your memory configuration would be better if it were two matched sticks. IDK if one of the populated spots has a soldered in RAM stick, or if you can change both. If you can get a matched set and you should see some improvement with the games. Even if you can only replace the one stick, if you could find a 'match' to the installed one it would likely run (games) better than using on a mismatched and different size set.

While you are in there, make sure to blow your fans and such out.

 

[Rooki3_N00b]

Thank you all for your assistance.

I manually ran disk defragmenter and it said 21% of my disk is fragmented. After doing a manual defragmentation, my PC gained a bit of speed improvement but not enough to satisfy my needs so I went and bought myself a Crucial BX500 SSD 1tb and now it works a boatload better.

 

[Ralston18]