HDD to SDD - should i do it ?

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gksbk

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Sep 29, 2014
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I bought a laptop about a year ago, it's acer aspire not sure which model.
It has the following specs:


  • - 10 Gb of Ram
    - Quad Core Processor (Amd Something)
    - 500Gb HDD or 1TB
    - And other stuff

It started getting slow, boot time used to be 10sec-15sec, it takes more than a minute now.
Once its at the login page, it takes another min to authenticate. And finally at the home screen, it takes another couple of minutes for the computer to load everything it needs. So in the end, it takes my laptop around 10min to get started. And don't get me started on the battery..

So now after all that, should i upgrade to an SSD ? If so which one ?


  • - I know it's expensive and im willing to put 150$ on a good SSD.
    - I know i will start from scratch
    - I hear that SSD have short life spans, so im scared to do this
    - I know that I will be limited on storage

 
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matt_b

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Jan 8, 2009
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Windows accumulates a lot of garbage over time within the registry that slows down responsiveness and overall drive speed over time. Add and remove items and programs and over time, this compounds the problem. You also have to take into account how much is on your drive. The more you store on a HDD, the slower it gets. Go below the "standard" 10% free space level, then they can get really sluggish. SSD upgrades are a very huge improvement always. For $150 though, you need to ask yourself if something less than a 500 gig drive will suffice, because you can only get solid 256 units for a bit less than that. Unless of course you're lucky and have two slots and can add a drive. If restoring your drive for a fresh start (OEM condition) isn't interesting to you, then read below.

Stay away from the TLC drives, they are a cheaper solution and last much less than MLC (the ones you should look for), and SLC is out of the question due to price. Longevity is not a huge deal, they usually all have over-provisioning to help wear-level over time and replace bad cells with ones that still work fine over time; minimize as many unnecessary write cycles as possible though and you'll get a long life out of one. Crucial and Samsung are hard to beat, although the better Samsung drives seem to have a bit of a premium on their price tag, so they are not as affordable as the old 830 was. To me, the M500 is still hard to beat right now though. The other I would look at would be the ones Corsair puts out, they too are usually solid. Controller-wise, Sandforce has largely fixed their issues, but the ones with a Marvell controller have never had any reliability concerns, so I try to steer towards those as well. Good luck!
 
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Murissokah

Murissokah

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Yes, you have the right idea. An SSD will greatly improve you experience with your notebook. As for the lifespan of an SSD, this concerns were raised when they first became widely available at reasonable costs. Because the technology was new, people were afraid the unit might fail after repeated re-writes.

While it is true that any SSD has a limit to how many times it can write on a block, current technology is well developed (both on the drives themselves and the OS) and this is no longer a big concern in usual scenarios. The most common way of guaranteeing longevity to the drive is by reserving some extra space so that it can arrange data properly, avoiding excessive stress in some blocks and also for replacing eventual dead blocks as they come. This is all done by the manufacturer and works on-the-fly.


If you were to host a database server, you might consider an enterprise class SSD, but for the everyday personal/work use any decent SSD should last. They are also backed with at least 3 year warranty, usually.

In contrast, HDDs usually come with up to 5 year warranties, but in my experience are much more likely to fail then an SSD, specially on a notebook, considering all the movement.
 
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velo3100

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Jun 22, 2014
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Before you think about changing what you have, think how you can make the current system faster. Here are a few ideas;

1. Disable any startup programs that are not needed. This makes a huge difference in the boot time.
2. Clear any programs that are not needed.
3. Never put any program to start automatically unless it is needed, like an anti virus.
4. Choose a lightweight anti - virus program. These can take up a lot of ram and can slow the laptop down very easly
5. Check for viruses regularly
6. Clean your laptop if you think there is a build of dust.
7. Make sure that when you are using your laptop it is in a cool room and on a flat surface. This is so non of the vents get blocked which can put pressure on the battery.

If you are doing all that and still want to upgrade to an ssd here are some questions to think about:

1. Do I need the current storage space of the hdd? If you don't use much storage then ssd are good.
2. Do I need a speed upgrade? Hdd can get slow if there is too much on it or it is a budget end and has slow read/write speed. Sometimes it might be better to just get a faster hard drive or a hybrid drive for a cheaper price.
 
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gksbk

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Sep 29, 2014
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Everyone thanks for your help, i've decided to go with Pr3di's answer, its a win-win for both drives and i never use the disc drive so its perfect!
 
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