Can I buy an SSD and swap my computer's Hard drive with it?

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drainadin

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Nov 17, 2011
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Note: I am not a computer-whiz, by any means.

Hi,

I feel as though my computer's old Hard drive is really having a poor effect on my computer's overall performance. I found a great deal on this Solid State Drive and I thought that if I could swap my computer's hard drive with it my computer would run much better. Is this possible, and if so, what would I specifically need to do in order to swap drives? I don't mind if my computer must be rebooted or if I can backup the memory from my old Hard drive (although the latter would be more convenient)... my priority is really just to improve my computer.

So, is this easily possible? Also, what exactly would I need to do to accomplish this (besides physically removing my Hard drive and installing the SSD)?

My computer is a Dell XPS 720.

Thanks for your help in advance!
 
Solution
Dragonburn
It is possible, but you need to confirm that your motherboard will be able to connect the drive, i.e. that you have an available sata port in the motherboard and that your power supply has a spare sata power cable etc... you can do all of this by turning your computer off and opening the case and looking inside the system, do note, that if your computer is under warranty, opening the case will void your warranty (just a warning as you've stated your not a computer genius :))

If you have an available slot, you would not need to remove your existing HDD, just connect the new one to an available sata port and plug the power lead into the drive and make sure that it is secured in a drive bay inside the case, then when you turn on the...
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drainadin

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My Hard Drive is 155GB free of 465GB. The SSD i'm looking at is a 120GB Kingston SSD
 
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Dragonburn

Dragonburn

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It is possible, but you need to confirm that your motherboard will be able to connect the drive, i.e. that you have an available sata port in the motherboard and that your power supply has a spare sata power cable etc... you can do all of this by turning your computer off and opening the case and looking inside the system, do note, that if your computer is under warranty, opening the case will void your warranty (just a warning as you've stated your not a computer genius :))

If you have an available slot, you would not need to remove your existing HDD, just connect the new one to an available sata port and plug the power lead into the drive and make sure that it is secured in a drive bay inside the case, then when you turn on the computer, insert your OS installation disc and install the OS on the SSD. Doing this will potential make your system a dual boot system, unless you plan to delete your old partitions during the OS installation. Just to clarify by Dual Boot it basically means that when you boot your system, it will stop and ask you each time, which OS you want to boot to, your old installation or the new one.

My recommendation, if you are planning on proceeding, maybe look at getting an external usb storage device as they are a really good way of keep your main drive uncluttered and it looks like you were about to run out of space pretty soon :)
 
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drainadin

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Ok, thanks a lot! Thanks everyone for the feedback!

 
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