[SOLVED] Is it worth upgrading a laptop by adding a SATA Solid State Drive?

Nov 8, 2019
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Dear Community,

I have an older laptop which I stopped using after I built myself a computer, however, now I would like to start using my laptop as well. It is because I need it for college and I thought, I could make use of it whilst commuting and just use it on the way when I do not have a computer by hand. I was looking at the new Surface devices and they caught my interest, but since I already own a portable device then why not make use of it. The problem is that it is running a little bit slower then what it used to be. I would not mind waiting a while until it boots, but when it finally enters the OS, it is running the disk at 100% and therefore, all applications feel so slow and it rarely drops the usage of the drive. It is one of those laptops which came with Windows 8 and after some time, I upgraded to Windows 10. It used to run just fine but now it feels not as responsive as it used to be. Do you think that by replacing its current HDD with SSD would do the trick? I would probably prefer to buy an SSD than an entire laptop because if I were to buy a new laptop, I would go with something which would be worth it. I hope you know what I want to say by that. My question, therefore is, what kind of SSDs would you recommend. I was looking at various models such as Crucial BX500 and MX500, SanDisk Ultra 3D and Samsung Evo 860. The Crucial BX500 does not come with DRAM which means that data will be written immediately on the disk and so it will reduce its longevity faster, but with the promised 100 TBW does it really matter? One the other hand, Samsung Evo 860 seems to have a good reputation, but it is a little bit pricy. What I find a bit odd is that I find it difficult to find all the specs about DRAM and the type of cells those SSDs use. As if their only selling point was the read and write speeds. So what would you recommend? Is it even worth paying extra for the Samsung Evo 860 if it will not be used to its maximum efficiency due to CPU limitations which will become the bottleneck? And do laptops support SATA 3s with transfer speeds up to 6 Gb/s or does it depend on the laptop model? Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts.
 
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I would go for the MX,500, Ultra3d or the WD Blue 3d. There is no need to pay a premium for a Samsung drive for an old laptop imo. I have an old core2duo laptop still trucking along just fine on W10 and an old intel 530 I had left from when another system was upgraded.
Agree with the above. I am currently running a 7 year old laptop, running with Win10 without a problem.
Really don't have a preference on which SSD, don't forget it's still an old laptop so really not worth spending a lot of money on it particually as m.2 is here so even SSDs are beginning to look old!

That said, I have been running CRUCIAL SSDs and never had one fail. I have also had SANDISK, not so many, but did have a failure.
 
It is even more worthwhile than a newer laptop. Usually the performance improvement is more noticable. It gives you better battery life and higher reliability. No down side.

So far this is my choice to go. I do not know how well the battery will cope as it has not been used for a year or two. Replacement batteries are a bit difficult to find and they cost way too much in my opinion. And I am afraid of buying some weird clones from eBay as I do not want it to catch on fire or explode. So now, the only question is which SSD should I go with? I have added SanDisk Ultra II to my computer after a while and it was the best thing I could have done. I believe, they are not being sold anymore as they got replaced by the new models which come with the new 3D NAND technology.
 
Nothing to do with SSDs, but have you considered building your own battery pack? There are plenty of videos on youtube and the packs are all standard!

You will not believe me, but I actually came across some videos recently. The inside of the battery looked as if it was made up of pairs of regular AA batteries but obviously different. I thought it might be difficult to find the right models for it to work, but since you are saying they are a standard then I will look in more detail into it. Thank you.
 
I would go for the MX,500, Ultra3d or the WD Blue 3d. There is no need to pay a premium for a Samsung drive for an old laptop imo. I have an old core2duo laptop still trucking along just fine on W10 and an old intel 530 I had left from when another system was upgraded.
 
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