Could I do this myself or is it worth paying?

Hi, I'm looking to replace the hard drive in my Acer Aspire V3-571 with a 240GB SSD, but I have absolutely no technical experience with laptops! So I have a few question...

Would a Samsung EVO 2.5" fit?
Will I need a SSD mount or case? (sorry if these are stupid questions )
Apparently I would need to leave some space free to maximize performance?

Also, PC World said it was complicated as 'certain things need to be configured' to optimize performance, and they would charge me £40 for the service if I were to provide them the SSD I wanted to replace the hard drive with.

Is this a lot of money for a relatively simple process or is it worth paying to make sure it's done right?

 

Yes, it's a lot of money for a relatively simple process. You will need a couple more pieces of equipment, but they costs a lot less than £40. What you need is something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/1-Year-Warr...8875187&sr=8-2&keywords=usb+3+to+sata+adapter and a #0 Philips head screwdriver
Once you have that, you can plug your new SSD into one end of the connector and attach the USB ends to your computer. Then you can use a program such as Macrium Reflect to copy everything from your current hard drive to the SSD. After doing that, power off your system and use the guide here: http://www.manualslib.com/manual/440323/Acer-Aspire-V3-571g.html?page=92#manual to take out your current hard drive and replace it with the SSD.

 

Thanks for the reply. I've heard hard drive cloning software usually comes with Samsung SSDs, do you know if this is true? Also, what were PC world talking about when they said certain things need to be configured for optimal performance?? Thanks

 

You could also use the included cloning software that comes with the SSD. It's mainly a matter of personal preference.

The optimizations they were talking about can include arranging data in 4KB blocks for more efficient erasing & rewriting, leaving some unallocated space on the drive to leave room for extra program erase cycles and increase performance (known as overprovisioning), turning off disk defragmentation (which isn't needed for SSDs), turning off prefetch & superfetch (which can increase performance with hard drives, but typically aren't necessary on SSDs), disabling hibernate (if you don't use it), disabling search indexing (to reduce unneeded drive writes), and more. Samsung Magician allows you to adjust most of these options from within the program, so you don't need to have anyone else do them for you.

 

Thanks, this has answered lot's of questions . Do you know if Samsung Magician supports Windows 10?

 

From looking around, it seems like at least some features of Magician do NOT work in Windows 10.

 

Ok thanks, are you able to estimate how long it would take to get supported? Weeks or months?

 

I can't say for sure. You'd have to ask Samsung.