Will an SSD upgrade make a difference on an HP ELITE 840?

[makugx]

Greetings

I JUST bought this HP ELITEBOOK 840 from amazon. Refurbished.
I had an 8 year old HP that I'm upgrading from and the difference in speed is HIGHLY DISAPPOINTING.

I was thinking of upgrading the HD to SSD EVO.
Samsung 860 EVO 250GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E250B/AM)

Would it be worth the $80 cost in terms of speed and performance?
the current HD took about 43 seconds just to access "disk management".

specs

HP Laptop HP 840 G1
Core i5-4200u 1.60GHz
8GB
320GB HDD HGST HTS725032A7E630
Win 10 Pro

thank you!

 

[USAFRet]

2 things to do:

1. Clean OS install
2. Add the SSD. It WILL make a visible difference.

 

[makugx]

Thank you!

THE OS is brand new install from package. It went through the install process and everything.

 

[makugx]

Won't there be comparability issues?

 

[reedo_43]

No and definitely do it. Just did it to similar laptop, same drive. Gets to usable desktop in 13 seconds from power on.

 

[USAFRet]

Won't there be comparability issues?

Not at all.

Drive choices, in no particular order:
Samsung 850 EVO
Samsung 860 EVO
Crucial MX500

250GB minimum.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Have you installed device drivers from HP website?
This is especially important for laptops and retail or oem or refurbishers versions of windows

Examples :- power management, video-graphics, wireless networking , usb 3.0
Sound-audio

Is your windows pro disk a HP recovery disk?

If so it may have installed the device drivers and many useless programs which slow down the start up process

Investigating sleep and related power management options also make a difference to start up times

But may cause propblems in older systems which did not originally have win 8 or 10 as standard

A ssd will make a big difference to the time for windows to be ready for use

And has the advantage of not being damaged by vibration when in use

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[das_stig]

We use 840 G1's at work and yes, HDD performance can be disappointing, switching to an economically priced SSD makes a big difference.

With it being a refurb and if you have a recovery disk use to it clean it up.

If not, I would get a 16GB pen drive, download a copy of Win10 Pro ISO to it using Microsoft Own tool, put the driver pack on the pen drive, use the licence to activate a clean version with bloatware.

 

[makugx]

Alright! I'm good with all these answers! thank you ALL so much!!

USAFRet : I got the EVO 850 250GB! ty!

reedo_43 : this info is helpful! thanks!


mbarnes86: No I didn't because I assume it comes with all this installed since it's certified refurbished by amazon.
I"ll have to do a reinstall anyway with the new drive and do the pen drive thing. TY!

das_stig : Very cool to know! very helpful!
Thank you also for the instructions!
I'll have to hunt an iso somewhere now. I don't think amazon provides this.

Thank you!

 

[USAFRet]

I'll have to hunt an iso somewhere now. I don't think amazon provides this.

Thank you!

Create your own Win 10 install USB here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Download that tool, run it. It will create the bootable install on a 8GB or larger USB stick.
NOTE: You want a blank USB stick. Whatever is on it will be wiped out.

 

[makugx]

OOh thanks so much! you're so helpful and accurate!
very appreciated! will so as such!

I'll have to hunt an iso somewhere now. I don't think amazon provides this.

Thank you!

Create your own Win 10 install USB here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Download that tool, run it. It will create the bootable install on a 8GB or larger USB stick.
NOTE: You want a blank USB stick. Whatever is on it will be wiped out.