Question New laptop purchase, and upgrading an existing one ?

[r_feroni]

Hello all,

Mom needs a new laptop and wants to upgrade her old one for dad! Current laptop is a HP 450 G1. I plan on putting a SSD drive in it. It also needs a new optical drive. She's tried using a external drive but is having trouble. It would be nice if I could replace the existing internal drive for her. I've searched but am not 100% sure I've found a replacement, or if I can use just about any sata intenal drive.

As for the new laptop purchase, it just needs the basics. She browses the web, email, and uses it for her craft stuff like saving files for her Cricut(Some type of craft making thingamajob). I think she may stream a movie here and there while on vacation. I can get a little bit of a discount on Dell and Lenovo. I've read to stay away from HP, but not sure if thats true. I've never really liked her current HP. Shes seemed to have issues with it since day 1, but some of that may have been self inflicted. I would be interested in what brands are good/reliable and what brands to stay away from.

Thanks!
Ron

 

[Lutfij]

Your question is two parts. the first I'll answer. The second, you should open up another thread asking for laptop suggestions. Helps avoid spaghetti brains.

You can actually disassemble the laptop using this guide;

View: https://youtu.be/2Bfx4W21kmY

If you slide out the ODD, you should be able to get it's height which is the number you need when ordering a secondary HDD caddy. My search lands me to this;
https://www.amazon.com/DY-tech-Optical-Adapter-Probook-Mounting/dp/B07ZL1HD4S
but doublecheck before purchasing.

Once you have that caddy, you can place your original HDD into it and then pick up an SSD as the primary drive or swap both drives out for SSD's.

 

[r_feroni]

Your question is two parts. the first I'll answer. The second, you should open up another thread asking for laptop suggestions. Helps avoid spaghetti brains. You can actually disassemble the laptop using this guide;

View: https://youtu.be/2Bfx4W21kmY If you slide out the ODD, you should be able to get it's height which is the number you need when ordering a secondary HDD caddy. My search lands me to this; https://www.amazon.com/DY-tech-Optical-Adapter-Probook-Mounting/dp/B07ZL1HD4S but doublecheck before purchasing. Once you have that caddy, you can place your original HDD into it and then pick up an SSD as the primary drive or swap both drives out for SSD's.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my terminology. I'm going to replace her HDD with a SSD. I'd also like to put in a new cd rom drive as the current one is broke. She's been using a external cd rom drive but that's just another item she has to pack.

Thanks for the feedback!