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Upgrading your laptop to a Solid State Drive

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Solid State Drive

Have you ever been intrigued by the idea of opening up your laptop, taking the hard drive out, and replacing it with something else entirely?  In today’s post, I’m going to talk about the process I used to replace the hard drive that came with the laptop when I bought it — a 5400RPM 1 TB hard drive — with a new 1TB Solid State Drive (SSD).  Hopefully these steps will help you decide if it’s worth it to you to upgrade your hard drive to a new Solid State Drive.

What is a Solid State Drive?

In a traditional hard drive, the drive itself contains metal disks, known as platters, that spin at a certain RPM speed.  For most hard drives, they’ll spin at 5400RPM, some spin at 7200RPM, and some even spin at 10K RPM.  As they platters spin, there are parts known as drive heads that read and write data to the hard drive so it can be used or recalled later.  All of this generates heat, as well as takes time, so often the hard drive is the slowest component for why your computer runs slower.  Also, with the heat generating aspect, eventually that heat will cause degradation of the hard drive, which leads to disk crashes and loss of data.

In a Solid State Drive, or SSD, though, the hard drive is composed of memory chips instead of platters.  Since memory can be read from and written to at a much faster rate than a hard drive can be, a SSD is much faster than a hard drive, thereby improving the performance of your computer instantly for only a small investment of time and money.  The rub with SSD drives had always been that you paid more for them because of the newer technology, and that you didn’t get as much storage space with an SSD as you did with a traditional hard drive.

Replacement Steps Overview

Here is an overview of the steps I performed to replace the hard drive in my Toshiba Satellite L55D-C laptop:

  1. Research the size of the drive required and the steps to open up the laptop.
  2. Purchase the SSD drive.
  3. Clone the existing hard drive to the new SSD drive
  4. Install the new SSD drive
  5. Boot up the computer with the new drive

Most laptops have space reserved for a 2.5″ laptop hard drive.  A standard hard drive for a desktop system is bigger, usually 3.5″, but for laptops usually they are 2.5″ form factors.  A quick Google search for my laptop pointed me to all sorts of information on how to disassemble the laptop.  For the Toshiba, there are 12 Phillips screws that need to be removed and set aside. They are all the same length, but this isn’t always the case, so I suggest keeping them aligned to where the screw came out from so you can put it back in later in the same location.

The Mushkin 1TB SSD can be purchased through NewEgg or NewEgg Business.  I bought it through their Business line, for home consumers, you may need to purchase it from NewEgg.  The price on NewEgg is $259.99 for the 1TB drive.

Cloning your existing drive

There are probably a million and one ways to clone a drive, for me, the easiest way was to keep the original hard drive in the computer and connect the new SSD to the computer using an external USB -> SATA enclosure.  They make a ton of different ones, the one I have I like because you just plug the drive into it like you are putting an 8-Track tape into a player and it sits while it works.  Once you have done this and turned it on, you should be able to format the new drive so it can be read in Windows.

At this point in the operation, you’ll have your existing hard drive appearing, most often as drive C in Windows, and your new SSD showing up as a different drive letter.  At this point, download and install the program EaseUS Todo Backup Free 10.0, I’ve linked to it for you so you can grab it easily.  They have versions for Windows or Mac, I am running Windows 10 so that’s what I downloaded.

Solid State Drive

The process is fairly simple, here’s what you do:

  1. Run the program if it isn’t already running.  If prompted by User Account Control, click yes to allow the program to run.
  2. Click on the icon labeled “Clone”.
  3. The Source disk is the existing hard drive, click on that checkbox and then click next.
  4. The Target disk is the new SSD, click on the checkbox that relates to that disk and click next.
  5. You’ll see a summary of what you are doing, click Proceed.
  6. Lastly, click OK to the warning message “The data on the destination disk will be lost.  Do you want to continue?” to start the process.  Click cancel if you change your mind.

The time required will vary depending on how much data there is and the size of the disks, but it appears to work well.

After the cloning is completed, power down the laptop, open it up to get to the hard drive, and replace it with the new drive.  After that is complete, close it all back up and put the screws back in place, and lastly, boot up the system with the new solid state drive.

I have seen an incredible performance boost on my laptop by doing this, and I think it will help anyone looking to get more life and usability out of their system.  I did this specifically for my laptop, but this process also works for desktop systems with just a few variations.

If you want to discuss with me getting this done with your system, reach out to me, I’m here to help!  Call me at 919-606-6725, email me at mike@techsolutionsnc.com, leave me a comment on this post, send us a Tweet, or message us on our Facebook page, whatever is easiest for you!  Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Computer Components: What’s important to have?

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computer components

When you start talking about computer components, just about everyone has an idea of what that means.  As computers age, and new purchases are considered, the thought inevitably turns towards what sort of system you should have.  In this post, I’ll help you weed through the clutter, the keywords, and the confusion. Together, we’ll help you determine the best computer components to look at for your next computer.

Question #1: Desktop or Laptop?

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether you looking to purchase a new desktop or laptop.  For the purposes of this article, in my opinion a system that is an “all-in-one” with everything contained in the monitor is a desktop unit.

There really isn’t a lot to consider in determining whether to go with a desktop or a laptop.  The obvious answer is whether or not you want to take the system with you on the road.  If you do, then you will want a laptop.  If you don’t, then perhaps look at a desktop.  Keep in mind that the computer components in a laptop verses in a desktop are more tightly configured. As a result, it can be more difficult to increase those things. Additionally, space constraints at your house could also lead you towards the purchase of a laptop.  One other thing to consider in the case of a laptop is the size and weight of the laptop.  For example, if you get a laptop with a big 17″ screen, then that may have some hefty weight to carry around as well. The end result of that is that your big laptop may function more as a desktop.

Question #2: CPU Considerations

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on the latest Intel based processors.  Currently, the ones you can find in most systems are the Intel i3, i5, i6, and i7 processors, each with it’s own various speeds of operation.  What really matters, though, is what you intend to use the computer for.  Are you getting this computer to be a gaming computer, or are you intending it to be strictly for typing letters and creating spreadsheets?  The answers you supply to these questions will guide your decision on how much processor you need.  Also, as you probably know, the newer the processor, the more expensive it will be.  For most people, something in the i5 range will be all you will need.

Question #3: How much RAM?

The more RAM (also known as memory) you have, the better off you will be.  The good thing about RAM (Random-Access Memory) is that it is incredibly inexepensive, and is one component that you can easily add more later — although keep in mind that each motherboard has limitations on how much RAM you can add to it.  For most systems, though, the minimum you will want to have is 8GB of RAM. RAM is important is because the more RAM you have, the more programs can be loaded into that space. That increases the speed of the computer because RAM is faster to read from than traditional hard drives.

Question #4: Traditional Hard Drive or SSD?

Recently, the growing trend has been towards replacing your traditional hard drive with a SSD drive. The biggest differences are that traditional hard drives use disk platters and heads to write the data magnetically, and the platters spin at various RPMs (usually 5400 or 7200 RPM).  With a traditional hard drive, you get more storage capacity, but you really are looking at a piece of equipment that will fail over time because of heat buildup.  With SSD technology, the platters and disk heads are replaced with memory chips, so you have the immediate speed increase from that.  For many people, adding RAM and replacing their existing traditional hard drive with an SSD drive will make it feel like their system is brand new.  SSD prices have been coming down, but generally speaking, you will be looking at a smaller capacity drive when compared to a traditional hard drive.  However, if you can, go with the SSD.  You won’t be disappointed.

Final Tally: The Computer Components to strive for

So, with all of that said and done, here are the computer components you should look for in your next system:

  1. For portability and space considerations, go with a laptop.  For ease of access, though, go with a desktop.
  2. Regarding the CPU, stick with i5 or greater.  Don’t go with an i3 processor because those types of systems have been around a while.
  3. For RAM, start with at least 8GB, but try and determine what your system can accommodate.  Most product sheets will tell you the maximum amount of RAM you can have in your system.
  4. For storage, go with a larger size SSD, perhaps a 500GB SSD or greater.  The greater the space for the SSD though the more it will cost, so keep that in mind.  It also depends on how much you data you have to store as well.  If you have to go with a traditional hard drive, start at 1TB and try to get one that is at least 7200 RPM.

Of course, I’m here to help as well.  If you need me to help price out a system for you, just reach out to me.  I’m at 919-606-6725, or you can email me at mike@techsolutionsnc.com.  Also, sign up for our newsletter and you will receive a special coupon to use on your next service.  Just fill in the information below!