New Laptop or Replace HDD for SSD

[klitschk0]

My dads laptop has a 250GB HDD but he always has 150GB of free space, i sometimes use it for general use like surfing the web etc. I am just wondering it is worth buying a new laptop or upgrading to an 64GB SSD (Crucial M4) and how much of a difference do you think it will make?

The model is Acer ASPIRE 5542, and here are the specs:

AMD Athlon II x2 M300 2GHz 1 MB L2 Cache
ATI Radeon HD 4200 with up to 1919 MB HyperMemory
4 GB RAM

 

[tomatthe]

That machine seems fine for web surfing, why do you want to change anything on it? It would feel more responsive with an ssd, but if you are just web browsing I don't see a lot of benefit there.

 

[klitschk0]

Internet Explorer crashes when i have more than 6 tabs open which makes me very angry.

 

[tomatthe]

That sounds like a software issue more then a hardware issue. Without trying to get into all of the reasons ie may be crashing, have you tried using a different web browser?

That machine should be more then enough to run 6 web tabs imo.

 

[po1nted]

+1

The HDD is not your problem.

 

[RetiredChief]

Concur, Crashs are either a hardware problem or more likely in your case a software problem. is NOT related to speed of Hard drive.

Let's see Old HDD is 250 Gigs with 150 free = 100 gigs used and you want to stick in a 64 gig SSD???

For a desktop (SSD + a HDD) the Mininium size is 64 gigs With a recommended size of 120/128 gig.

For a laptop with a single drive bay, the MININIUM is really a 120/128 gig drive.

Think this: a 64 gig drive is really only 60 gigs. Manuf count using fingers (base 10), computers use Base 2. Manuf like base 10 as they can advertise a Higher capacity, But they can't fool the computer. Just like HDDs when you format the drive you LOSE about 6%.
So Now you are down to 60 gigs, OOPS forgot MUST leave a Min of 10 ->15% free so that wear leveling, Gargage Collector and trim can work their magic, else the performance will drop considerably.
So 64 gig really is 60 - 6 = 54 gigs. That could be the same as trying to put 10 lbs of Shi* in a 5 lb bag.

To top that off, you need to be careful which SSD you get, Some SSDs can be fussy when placed in older sata II laptops, and to complicate that your running an older amd chipset. NOT KNOCKING your AMD laptop it does what you want to do with it, this is a NEGative directed @ SOME SSDs.

 

[Ubrales]

+1 Chief!