Could use some direction/help with upgrading laptop!

Hello,

I have a Toshiba Satellite P855-S5200 I bought in 2012 and it's seen better days. The casing on it is damaged just about all around and I'm sure inside as well. Its causing problems with the DC port. I have to jiggle my charger a bunch to get it charging properly. I'm sure within a few weeks it will need to be repaired.

So naturally the question came up of whether I should repair or upgrade to a new device. I have a 3rd generation i7-3610QM which I think still holds up.

The additional upgrades I'm considering doing are:

1) Replacing my optical drive with a 2nd hard drive. Ideally I would install a 250GB SSD and have my operating system(currently windows 7) and a few select programs running off of this drive. I'm not sure how the logistics of this would work though. Any guides on setting up a second hard drive for this use while using the existing HDD for media storage? Can you transfer an OS to another drive? Would I have to format my HDD and do a fresh install on the SSD? Is this a viable option even? Dual drive setup like this vs just replacing my HDD with a 500GB SSD?

2) Upgrading RAM from 8GB to 16GB. I dont know if I'd really appreciate the added benefit of this. The most intensive thing I do is record music and I'd love to really minimize my recording latency. Don't really know if this will help with that. I often run two recording softwares simultaneously (Reason+Cubase through ReWire) and to be honest I have been limited with my current setup in how many tracks/effects/plugins/etc I can use.

3) Upgrading Wifi card from centrino Wireless-N 2200 to something 450Mbps. Not sure if this is worth it, though its a cheap enough upgrade.

What do you guys think?

It's probably clear that I'm no expert on computer hardware but I do have some experience working with electronics and am generally handy so i'm comfortable doing all this work myself. The SSD and the RAM basically plug in I believe and I can do the soldering for the DC port and the wifi card if necessary. I know the SSD will require a mount to fit properly in the optical bay.

Cost of all the parts would be about $340, and that includes a 1TB external hard drive to backup everything before I start fiddling. If I were to buy a $340 computer it wouldn't come close to the setup above.

Im wide open to ideas/suggestions! Any of the above upgrades not worth while? Any other upgrades I should consider?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Wanted to add that while I'm not an avid gamer by any means, if my laptop handled gaming better I would definitely take advantage of it.

 

You should be able to replace your optical drive with an SSD easily if you get the right adapter. NewModeUS is a good place to look. It's also not difficult to clone your operating system to the new SSD. However, you would see more benefit from getting a 500GB+ capacity SSD, as they are faster and last longer than lower-capacity SSDs.

Since you stated you're running into memory limitations now, upgrading to 16GB RAM will certainly provide benefits. That's an obvious upgrade.

To upgrade your wireless card, it's important to consider its form factor, how many antennas are in your system, and to what you are connecting. For instance, if your notebook only has 2 antenna leads, getting a 3x3 wifi card won't help. And if you want to connect to an 802.11ac network, you need to make sure you upgrade to an 802.11ac wireless card.

But the big question to ask yourself is: is it worth upgrading a system that's physically falling apart to the point that you may only be able to use it as a desktop, if at all? From my standpoint, I'd rather spend some extra money to get a business system from the Dell, Lenovo, or HP outlet stores that you can be sure can take some abuse and still function well and be mobile. And then I'd focus any upgrade efforts on that.

 

Thanks for the input djembe. Very helpful.

As far as my system physically falling apart, part of the $340 budget includes all new casing. I took a look inside my laptop and I'm confident that the new casing will completely solve the structural issues I'm having now. I don't think ill be limited in my mobility at all. Doesn't look like the actual DC port is damaged at all, just the bracket that holds it in place. I think I'd be in close to $1,000 to get another system with equal hardware.

Thanks again

 

Djembe already gave excellent advice. I just want to add that the newmodeus caddies are the way to go. They are more expensive than the cheap Chinese caddies on e-bay but they are solidly built. I would also keep an eye out on e-bay for people selling casing for your laptop. It shouldn't cost too much to replace the casing.