How do I pick a SSD?

[Johnheld1]

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to a SSD are all SSD's interchangeable? I do not want to buy the wrong one. do I need to cross reference my old Hard Drive serial number or how do I find the right one for my Acer lap top?

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

 

[USAFRet]

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to a SSD are all SSD's interchangeable? I do not want to buy the wrong one. do I need to cross reference my old Hard Drive serial number or how do I find the right one for my Acer lap top?

Assuming you're looking for a 2.5" SSD (same format as your current HDD)...yes, they are interchangeable.

Samsung 850 EVO is the default choice. In whatever size your needs and budget dictate.

 

[captaincharisma]

thats the thing too SSD's are much more expensive then mechanical HDD's. if your laptop right now has a 500GB or a 1TB HDD right now it can be really expensive if you're trying to get an SSD with the same amount of memory

 

[Johnheld1]

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to a SSD are all SSD's interchangeable? I do not want to buy the wrong one. do I need to cross reference my old Hard Drive serial number or how do I find the right one for my Acer lap top?

Assuming you're looking for a 2.5" SSD (same format as your current HDD)...yes, they are interchangeable.

Samsung 850 EVO is the default choice. In whatever size your needs and budget dictate.

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

 

[captaincharisma]

I want to upgrade my Hard Drive to a SSD are all SSD's interchangeable? I do not want to buy the wrong one. do I need to cross reference my old Hard Drive serial number or how do I find the right one for my Acer lap top?

Assuming you're looking for a 2.5" SSD (same format as your current HDD)...yes, they are interchangeable.

Samsung 850 EVO is the default choice. In whatever size your needs and budget dictate.

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

2.5" is the standard for laptop HDD's. you may be able to confirm this by looking up the specs of your laptop model or if you can find a technical manual online about it

 

[USAFRet]

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

What is the make/model of your laptop?

 

[Johnheld1]

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

What is the make/model of your laptop?

its an Acer Aspire series model PEW71

Thanks for the help

it also has Windows 7 operating system

Do you know if I will have to format the SSD when I receive it or should it be ready to go. I have backed up my system on a external Hard Drive so all I should have to do is return it to the SSD after I install it?

 

[USAFRet]

So....

We've determined that it is a regular laptop, with a regular 2.5" HDD.
A standard SATA SSD will go right in, no problem.

As said...a Samsung 850 EVO.


Now the question is...how do you want to proceed?
Whatever 'backup' you've made is probably not the solution.


Clean install - fresh install of the OS, drivers, application...everything.
Always works, but more pain.

Cloning - Basically moving the entirety of the HDD over to the new SSD.
This usually works. Requires some investigation first.
What size is the current drive?
How much total used space is on that drive?
What size SSD are you going to buy?

 

[captaincharisma]

How do I know if its 2.5" will it say on my computer

What is the make/model of your laptop?

its an Acer Aspire series model PEW71

Thanks for the help

it also has Windows 7 operating system

Do you know if I will have to format the SSD when I receive it or should it be ready to go. I have backed up my system on a external Hard Drive so all I should have to do is return it to the SSD after I install it?

if you have windows 7 make sure you still have the key that came with it or you won't be able to reactivate windows 7. as much as i like to do a clean install of windows in cases like these i would look into cloning or imaging your current windows install because windows 7 will take a day just to download and install updates and also may still have problems getting windows update to work

 

[rgd1101]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Johnheld1 : "Can I update my hard drive to SSD"

I have an Acer Laptop and I have been having a lot of issues with speed and crashes. I was told my hard drive is on its way out. I have just been reading about SSD and I am not sure if I will be able to upgrade? I was looking on amazon and was thinking of this SEAGATE ST500LM000 SSHD 500GB 5400RPM 64MB SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5 Solid State Hybrid Drive but I do not know if it will work, any ideas?