Is it worth upgrading to an SSD?

[TiernO]

So I am going back to college soon, and I have this laptop:

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/model/NX.G2KSI.009

I have found it pretty slow tho, and I am not sure if it is the CPU that simply isn't good enough, or is it the fact that the HDD is slow. It is 1tb which i wouldn't use up for a college laptop, so I was wondering would an SSD speed it up. Btw, it has 8GB of RAM, contrary to what the link I gave says. It is also free of virsus.

Thanks in advanced

 

[nitinvaid20]

SSD will just gonna improve your Read/Write speed of the Programs and applications and boot time of your overall system other then that all depends on the CPU RAM and other things

 

[grmnlxndr]

SSD is always a good choice 😀
There is a lot of difference of load times between a HDD and SSD, even using the cheapest one.
It won't speed the processing, but load times (hence the sense of speed) is much improved.

Best Regards

 

[joz]

The CPU is rather old and outdated. An SSD will help with most tasks - but I'd wager a fresh install of windows will fix the majority of slowness.


SSDs really only help improve boot up times and opening large files and programs (by a few seconds.) Actual computing tasks are CPU, RAM and GPU dependent. If your other hardware is slow, an SSD isn't going to change much. However, I don't think an A8-6410 is slower than my old Q6600 was, and I ran Windows 7 on that for a few years...

 

[madmatt30]

I stuck a cheap 240gb ssd in an old (but fairly decent spec) dell laptop - i5 3230m (2c/4t) .

Difference - chalk & cheese - like a brand new laptop in all honesty.

 

[dextermat]

windows 10 = ssd or your pc will be slow

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Here's the boot times for various storage options:

SSD - 15.6 seconds
SSHD - 16,5 seconds
7200 rpm HD - 21.2 seconds

When folks add an SSD to an existing system, they are usually amazed at the difference in performance. Problem is most of that change is associated w/ a fresh Windows install rather than the hardware change.

Those boot time numbers above were based upon a test box w/ all 3 installed... OS and apps was installed in triplicate, one on each device. Each morning, I'd go into BIOS and select what drive the machine would boot from. A 4th drive (SSHD) contained all data. Users were told that the PC was acting weird (slow) sometimes and we couldn't figure it out. After 6 weeks of usage by 5 users, no one "noticed" any difference in performance other than one user on one occasion said "seemed to boot a little slower today" on the HD boot. The other times same user booted from HD didn't notice anything.

My youngest son is in college and his box has an SSD plus an SSHD. The SSD started "disappearing" and booting from the backup OS on the SSHD. We figured a workaround by entering BIOS and manually selecting SSD but after a few weeks he just stopped bothering as the backup OS on the SSHD had no discernable disadvantage. It took longer to enter BIOS (say 8 seconds) than to wait the extra 0.9 seconds in boot time.

All the kids reinstall their OSs each year during Xmas vacation and when he did that, the SSD started functioning properly ... but after another 5-6 months it died and he hasn't replaced it. I should note that since they were 12, they have been buying their own parts and building their own boxes.

The thing is the user is the bottleneck. When doing anything on a PC that takes more than a second... said user might

a) Stare at screen and concentrate to see if its faster now
b) Say when preparing to edit a document ... and say it takes 0.5 seconds versus 1 second to load, does it matter if you are reading your red markups on the paper copy for 15 seconds while it loads ?

I have 2 SSDs and 2 SSHDs... when I boot my machine I do one of the following:

a) Listen to phone messages
b) Grab some cawfee
c) check my inbox ... the metal wire thingie on my desk not my e-mail

Each of those takes longer than any difference in boot time.

I expect that your issue is a old and bloated OS install and reinstalling fresh will bring a world of improvement. As that cost nothing, thats certainly something i would do before spending money. Your hardware is somewhat confining and adding an SSD isn't going to get ya homework done any faster.

 

[madmatt30]

There's a much much more pronounced difference going from a 2.5 inch 5400 rpm laptop drive to an ssd though than a decent desktop 7200rpm 3.5 inch drive.

I would also assume he's going to fresh install windows anyway because for someone with average knowledge cloning a laptop install is a pita at best .

I could fairly happily use a desktop without an ssd in
If I had to , a laptop though ? -no don't think I could at all.

 

[RolandJS]

My "battleship/carrier" group boot/load/startup can take up to 3-5 minutes before coming to full desktop. My computers have been like since DOS 3.3/Windows 3.1/dial-up days, WFW .311/dial-up days, Windows 95/98/98SE--Windows 7 DSL days, and presently throughout my Windows 7 Professional/Spectrum (similar to ATT U-verse) days. I'm not sure if any SSD or Hybrid will speed things up much.

 

[dudeman509]

A SSD in a worthless turd of a computer can make it FEEL like an entirely new computer.

Yes, put a SSD in it, and I bet you'll find it much zippier and more usable.

FWIW, I have never had a platter drive start up a modern OS, startup apps, and be at the point where it can pop open a web browser in <1 minute, even in SSHD form. SSDs will do exactly that in 30 sec or less.