Help me with an upgrade.

Ok so I have a G53SW-XN1

Model G53SW-XN1
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU Type Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.0GHz
Screen 15.6" FHD
Memory Size 6GB DDR3
Hard Disk 500GB
Optical Drive DVD Super Multi
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M
Video Memory1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM
Wide Screen Support Yes

It has space to add another hard drive and 2 more slots to add another 8 GB of Ram.

I got a two part problem.

1. I was looking at adding a single stick of 4GB ram. It's not much more to buy two. BUT I'm not sure how hard it is to put both of them in. I've heard that you almost have to take the computer apart for one of the slots.

2. I'll do some gaming but I'm not a computer fanatic. Hence the cheaper design (not over $1000) BUT I am debating on the usefulness of adding an 100 GB+ or so SSD vs a 500 GB+ Hybrid drive. I hope to not spend mure than $200 for the Ram and SSD. How much does a pure SSD help over a Hybrid drive???

What would you recommend?

 

Forget the RAM, you have enough; and adding more won't do anything to improve your computer performance unless you have a specific need which few people do. Add the extra HD if you need more storage. However, the SSD will give you better performance right out of the box. But the last time I checked, they still weren't that cheap?

 

I think the G53SW you have to remove the palmrest/keyboard to get access to the RAM.

The SSD will not help for gaming performance, only decrease load times. Windows overall will be more responsive, files will copy faster with an actual SSD, but you will have to live with limited space for your OS/programs.

 

What about a Hybrid drive vs an SSD? I'd like to use one drive as a storage drive and one as my gaming drive. I have tons of music and pictures.

 

Perhaps it is bad luck for me, I've brought 3 500 GB MomentusXT drives, and they all boot as slow as mechanical drives (25+ seconds for usable desktop, my SSDs are 15 seconds to a usable desktop, not counting POST). You can get a 128 GB SSD for around 200 dollars these days, should be sufficient for programs/OS. You can also consider a optical drive caddy for a secondary large mechanical drive.

 

The G53SW has two HDD bays, get a SSD and a 750GB mechanical drive. This should suit all your storage needs.

 

Ok, so I bought an ssd drive, 120gb plus one stick of ram. Figure if I have to do surgery to add the drive I might as well add some ram at the same time. Had to, I'm from back when ram was you logjam causer.

So I have a few questions.

Do I need to swap the ssd into the slot where my drive is noW?

Do I need to premise any software onto my non ssd drive? If so what?

Any suggestions on best way to swap the OS onto the ssd drive and making the ssd the bootup disk?