[SOLVED] HP 250 G4 HDD - SSD?

[cydewaze]

I recently inherited an HP 250 G4 laptop. It's an i3 machine, and fairly slow, but it's basically brand new with little use. I use the laptop to run software for my guitar amp, so it doesn't need to be fast, but what annoys me is the slow as molasses boot times.

Since it's a Win7 machine, I've decided to upgrade it to Win10. I've ordered 16GB of ram, which is the max it can take, but I'm also considering replacing the hard drive with an SSD. I'm thinking I don't need anything special, and that something like this would work: https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-500gb/p/N82E16820250087

But I don't really fiddle with laptops much, so I figured I'd ask rather than order something and have it be wrong.

 

[taeioum]

That WD SSD should work fine. All tests I've seen conclude that the Crucial MX500 performs better while only being 2 dollars more expensive.

The 16 gigs of RAM is probably a waste, as more RAM won't speed up programs and I assume that 16 gigs of RAM is going to be extreme overkill for your usecase. Replacing your HDD for an SSD will possibly help with program start times but what is most limiting you is your processor, something you can't replace.

 

[cydewaze]

16 is probably overkill, but the ram was cheap, so not a big deal. Although I probably won't need 500GB of space either now that you mention it. Thanks for the tip on the Crucial.

 

[taeioum]

I'm a massive fan of Western Digital HDDs. I've needed to wait for a WD Blue to be released in their SSD line, but when it came out I was majorly disappointed. A lot of reviews show that it doesn't perform like other drives with the same price/technology. Personally never had a Crucial drive, but I know plenty of people that have and they've all been very content with their drives. Maybe a 250 gig version fits your needs better though, never even came to mind.

 

[cydewaze]

I too am a WD fanboy. My primary desktop has a WD Black M.2 boot drive and a 1TB WD Gold storage drive. It's Linux, so the apps are stored on the M.2, and they launch faaaast! The fast boot and program launch on this machine is probably what makes the laptop seem so painfully slow.