Solid State Harddrive
 

Hi I have a Dell E6510 windows system I 5 processor...is it worth it to upgrade to a SSD? Thanks I am not really a computer savvy person

Instantly better performance. Yes.

Yes, it's worth it. You can buy one, use an external USB -> SATA connector, and use something like Macrium to clone your existing drive to the new one. Install the new one and you should be good. Make sure you look at the read/write performance. They are not all equal.

Yes!

I upgraded my older Dell M6300 with an SSD and it's like having a new machine. Do it - just be diligent with back-ups.

Keep in mind that you will be having to choose what goes where if you get a normal sized drive. I got a 60 GB about three years ago and ran out of manageable room. Then went to a 120 GB which has about 65 GB free. I put Windows and most programs on it. I use "junctions" to put most of the user files on a 1.5 TB drive - Windows thinks they are where it expects them to be. All music, pictures , videos, files get placed on the 1.5 TB drive. Windows should really make this easier since it is such a common performance move.

Am I doing this all wrong?!

Hi thanks for the great advice..I am considering a crucial or a samsung....any additional advice?? Thanks

I updated my older Dell Laptop with a Samsung. Great performance. I was also surprised at how much faster it booted up. Was so impressed, went out and bought a full set of SSD drives for my other computers.

- Vibration resistance is a good thing.
- But when they fail, there is rarely a warning (e.g., no noise, etc.). Places a bigger emphasis on good backups (which you probably do anyway).

I did Samsung 840s in all my laptops and they have been fine, about 1 year so far.

I doubt there's an appreciable difference between major brands.

Samsung 840s are a really nice drive. The 250GB one is on sale until 10:00 pst today

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I put SSDs in all of my builds, they are lightyears faster than mechanical platters. Usually price/performance wise a small/medium ssd and a large hdd for storage is the way to go. Although that's not feasible with all laptops.

This is true. Usually you have to sacrifice your DVD drive for the extra bay and get a replacement caddy. IMHO still worth it - I haven't had to burn a DVD in almost 3 years.

I just put an OWC SSD in my 2012 MacBook Pro. The computer is lightning fast now where before it took almost a minute to startu it does it now on just a few seconds. Everything runs much better now.

That is exactly what I did; I sold my internal DVD/R for $30; a brand new LG USB2 DVD burner was $25.

Now I have a 256 for my system and a 1.5TB in the old DVD bay for my crap.

Buy two USB external HDDs of size equal to or larger than the HDD. Plug both into the computer. Move all files, photos, music, etc to one of the external HDDs. Set up a weekly backup to the other external HDD.
Replace internal HDD w/ SSD. Use Crucial or some other vendor who supplies the cable and software to clone your HDD to the SSD, then it is a simple remove and replace operation (no reinstalling software etc).
While you're at it, max out the RAM.

To paraphrase the Governator: "Welcome to the party, Richter!" I bought a new laptop last week and they had two model options: a $350 version with a 1TB 5400 rpm drive., and a $600 version with a 256GB SSD. I bought the cheap model and spent $80 on a 256GB SSD from Crucial, figuring I'd save a few bucks and have both storage options. Windows 10 went from booting in over 90 seconds to booting in 15 seconds once moved to the SSD and programs load pretty much instantly. Heck, installs are darned quick as well, and my laptop uses the old SATA drives, not the new, superfast PCIe drives!

Samsung will give you software to clone your existing HDD onto the new SSD. This can save hours, if not days of hassle.

You may need a cable.

Absolutely - and less likelihood of failure too.

That machine is quite old. While the SSD will breathe life into it, you might be better off getting a new machine. I'm helping my sister get a couple of laptops. Dell Depot has some decent deals.

My criteria:

i3 or i5-7xxx or i5-6xxx processor (no more than 2 generations old)
256MB SSD drive
14" screen
1920x1280 screen

Dell Latitudes for the above specs are around $700-800

At least 4 years old... :p

The processor used in that machine is about 6 generations old.

The thread is 4 years old

I can second that. Had a drive since about 2012 which was pretty good. Went downstairs and all it said was cannot find boot device. Zero warning signs. It died on black Friday so that was a fantastic excuse to buy a new one!

Did not see that! :eek:

People need to start new threads not revive ancient history. And I need to read closer...SmileWavy

I do daily backups on my PCs with SSD drives, for this reason. In fact, I usually put in a second, standard hard drive to be the backup system. On the NUCs, I buy the extended unit which allows a Hard disk. I use the M2 SSD for booting, etc, and a real and cheap hard disk for automatic backup.

I'm going to need one of these. The laptop before last died on me (spilled coffee in it) and I replaced it with a 10" subnotebook with 128MB of space - much less room than what it replaced. Now that I've got more drive space, I'll finally have access to all that old data again. That was my last subnotebook, btw - at 55 I can't hack a 10" display anymore...

I'm not quite at 55, but I do use a 10" display (older Surface Pro 2) and know what you mean.

Usually it's running a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. But when traveling, I bring reading glasses to ease the readability of the tiny text. I like to travel light.

I'm looking at the Lenovo ThinkPad X1. 12" Windows 10 Pro tablet with stick on keyboard. I havdd a Samsung Tab S3, which I can connect to my office PC, but the screen is a bit too small.

I find it funny, 12" was standard for PCs, back in the DOS days.

For me is not worth it.. frankly I can wait a few seconds here and there when I open the applications I use..
SSD is great if you need it (or if you have a the money burning a hole in your pocket). For day to day... I don't see the value.

The SSD are much smaller in capacity compared to regular HDDs, so it all depends what you want to have locally in your laptop.. cause if you have to rely on a network drive or cloud to access your files it will defeat the purpose of having a fast Hard drive in your laptop...

It depends what you want and why...

Even though the thread is old, my understanding is that SSD is great for the Operating System fast boot up but a 2nd optical drive is more reliable for storage.
Has there been any advancement in recovering an SSD or is it still the same - perfect or paperweight but nothing in between?

FWIW I have MANY dead HDD's and zero dead SSD's. The oldest is ~8years. I must have 9 SSDs (not counting the SD cards and such)

My theory on the HDD's breaking has been that they never could survive the harsh ride of the 911 over Seattle crap roads.

Did they ever find the Lindbergh baby?

For day to day, the speed increase is exactly what you need it for. Try it first.

Ive had several SSDs die. 2 from wrong application (NAS), and 2 in PCs. I run 10 Pro, so network backups daily.

I think it's like most technology advances, from fuel injection to smart phones - you'll be fine with what you're used to as long as you don't try it. For instance, installing the OS took about 5 minutes.

To me, the irony is that with an SSD writing at 6GB/s, a 2.4Ghz CPU and 8GB of RAM, Windows is finally loading and running as quickly as it used to back when I had a 486-50Mhz with 16MB pushing Windows 3.1 on top of DOS. I've been grousing about Windows load times since Windows 95 and finally, it's solved. :D