Is it worth installing an SSD in my 6 year old laptop PC

Hi. I have a Vaio VGN FW490 Laptop Pc which I purchased in mid 2009. I have upgraded the PC by installing an additional 4GB of ram to bring the total ram up to 8GB. In addition, a couple of years ago I switched out the existing hard drive for a Seagate Momentus 750GB 7200 6.0Gb/s Solid State Hybrid Drive. Pure SSD's were quite a bit more costly than they are now. I am now considering switching out the hybrid drive for a Crucial or perhaps a Transcend 500 GB SSD for approximately $220 CDN ($165,USF).

Would there be a noticeable performance increase if I made the switch? Or should I save the dollars and consider purchasing a new laptop PC. Thanks for any advice.

 

Well, unless your future laptop cannot fit a 2.5 HDD then there's nothing stopping you from just moving it over to your next machine when the time comes to upgrade/your machine breaks. I installed one in the 2010 Dell E6410 that I run and it made a noticeable difference in startup and shutdown times, as well as speeding up opening programs etc... If your current machine has enough CPU and memory to suit your needs then I'd consider an SSD.

If you don't need the CD driver on an ASAP basis, you can (probably, worth checking) swap it out for a HDD caddy and use a secondary HDD. This would allow you to save some money and use a smaller SSD for the OS and frequently used programs and the larger HDD in the optical bay for large files such as films etc...

If you're planning on going for a laptop that won't accept a 2.5 HDD in the future (Such as thin and light/ultrabook etc...) then it's less of a no-brainer since you can't just swap it over.

 

I'd bet your PC is SATA II, so probably not worth it.

 

If you're not CPU/GPU bound with any of your applications, you should see a huge difference, enough to breath new life into your laptop for quite some time.

 

My E6410 uses Sata II and the speed increase was very noticeable over a mechanical HDD - I don't doubt it'd be even faster with a Sata III connection but I'd still say it's worth it - although I also wouldn't worry about getting the very fastest SSD.

 

Even if your laptop is SATA 2, a SSD still has .1 ms access time, which is far faster than a mechanical spinner hard drive. Plus, like it was stated above, if you don't plan on buying an ultra thin laptop, you can always reuse the SSD if your current laptop dies, and you get a new one. The question is, do you want to spend ~200-250 up front now or later? Once you get an SSD in a machine, you won't EVER want to go back to a mechanical hard drive.

 

I was saying it's not worth it cost-wise. I know SSD's run faster than HDD's at SATA II, lol. Another $300 and you can get an entirely new PC with many more improvements, not only boot speed.

Something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX305...F8&qid=1440950462&sr=1-6&keywords=asus+laptop

Or this:
http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX305...F8&qid=1440950462&sr=1-6&keywords=asus+laptop

There are a lot of options.

 

Oh I'm not saying buying a massively huge SSD for an old laptop is a fantastic idea. There are a couple of factors:

- Was OP already considering a new laptop?
- I'm going to assume that his current Sony is in okay condition
- Is his Sony's performance not to his liking aside from OS/loading perspective

If his Sony meets his computing needs, than buying like a 250 GB SSD wouldn't that bad. 2009 puts him in Penryn Core 2 Duo range, which should be sufficient for web browsing, and moderate tasks. I don't think it's a complete throwaway, but if it isn't sufficing his current needs, I think he should entertain an moderate machine to get comparable specs. The FW490 had a 1080p screen and Blu-ray, but otherwise was an entry/mid spec machine hardware wise. He'd likely have to spend 500-600+ to get a decent screen and if he used a Blu-ray, not buy a cheapo 300 dollar computer.

 

I have been torn between upgrading to a 500GB SSD or perhaps replacing this laptop with a Surface Pro 3 with an intel I5 processor and a 256Gb ssd for about $1500 cdn. Also, I am somewhat nervous about how the cloning process will go with a new SSD and my current hybrid drive. I've read that it may not be as simple as cloning from a regular hard drive.

 

Why not just perform a fresh install?

As for the SSD, if the machine satisfies your needs in other respects and is in decent condition, it will be a worthy upgrade.

 

I am nervous about a fresh install because of the hours i will have to spend installing all of my programs. Not to mention installing Windows 10 on the new SSD.

 

I don't trust cloning from a (mechanical hard drive) to a SSD. I've seen where Windows runs horrendously necessitating a clean install anyways.

 

Hmm.interesting. Thanks for your advice.

 

+1 right here.

By the time you're done tweaking the cloned image which will *never* perform as good as a clean one you'd be better off just installing the OS from scratch.

 

Yes def worth it. SATA II vs. SATA III hardly makes a difference in the real world, just the upgrade from HDD/hybrid to SSD alone is a massive improvement. My family has an even older and slower laptop than yours (C2D T7300 2.2 GHz, 8GB DDR2-667, 8700M GT) and they were complaining to me about the slowness. Swapped the HDD for a 250GB SSD and they were very happy.

 

I think it would be a good upgrade, and you should be able to feel the difference.

I agree with ajkula66, a fresh install and manually coping and pasting information back into the new system would avoid your concerns with cloning software.

With such an old computer, you might want to check whether your operating system supports SSD and whether you need to do anything to enable TRIM.

 

Thanks.i checked in the Crucial website, and they show several compatible SSDs for my PC.

 

I just finished doing this to an old Acer Travelmate 7730G (circa 2008) with a P8400 cpu and 8GB RAM. I installed 4GB RAM extra, an old 256GB Intel 520 Series SSD I had lying around and donated the work and the SSD to the young couple.

This is a system that is SATA2, DDR2 and about 130 lbs (lol... not that last one...).

Before this, the system was thought to be throw away. Opening up IE was a 30+ second chore. Opening a real program (Word or Excel) was a get a coffee and a donut too type of wait. With the SSD (OP'd, of course) the system was competing with anything 'stock' up to $1K for the workload (low/light usage) that the couple needed). Even if I had charged for the RAM, SSD and my work, they would still be further ahead with an SSD based system than a new HDD based 4GB system for $600 or more (they need/want the screen size and resolution and the separate number pad the old TM has).

What I would recommend (and what I did) is to upgrade to Win10 on a clone of the old HDD to the SSD and then, do a clean install again on the SSD and 'Skip' the 'enter key code' part (twice) during the setup. Once you boot up into Win10 and connect to the internet, you should see (like I did) that the O/S was activated already.

As many have mentioned; if the workflows that you require is accomplished by this platform, an SSD will only make that experience better.

Best is when you put in the latest O/S and do a clean install. I am guessing that this system is now usable for at least another half decade for the light uses (browsing, email, word documents and light youtube and skype) demanded of it.

Btw, Win7x64Pro installed on the old HDD felt absolutely molasses-like. Even on the SSD after upgrading to Win10x64Pro the process did not seem like a win overall.

Doing the clean install and letting Win10 select the main drivers is what made it feel like something current from this decade.

The only caveat is that the system is capable on it's own of the workload demands (an SSD doesn't increase performance - maximizing the RAM will do that - but it will increase responsiveness of the O/S and any multitasking demanded of the user or the O/S itself (updates, virus scanning, multiple tabs in a browser, etc.).

If it is capable of the workloads expected of it; adding an SSD with a clean install of the latest O/S will just make you enjoy the system on a different (and longer) level all over again.

Good luck.

 

TRIM is OS level, as long as he has Windows 7 and beyond, it supports TRIM. The system should support an SSD, it's just a 2.5" drive..

 

Thanks very much for this information. I already have Windows 10 on my old laptop. So I would clone the old drive to the new SSD, and then do a clean install on the SSD via the reset option on the settings menu of windows 10?

 

Ah, didn't realize you already had Win10 running. Yes, I would clone it and see if it still stays activated with the new drive.

If it does, a clean install is always the one that will give the best long term results (stability/performance) on any hardware.

 

Thanks. I just ordered a 500gb Crucial BX100 for $200 Cdn (equivalent to approx. $150 USF. Now the fun starts!

 

alstein, although you have the best SSHD out there, SSD is always worth it. Oops, my advice, was too late - have fun, then. =)

 

I installed a basic 128GB SSD into our old Dell E6520. Works like a charm, Windows 7.

Reduced vibrations/noise are a large (and often overlooked) benefit to a SSD.

 

And no more worries of data loss due to movements.

 

For those that are interested, there are videos in my signature comparing boot times and application load times on a Dell XPS M1330 (manufactured in 2008), running a Core 2 Duo CPU.

It does A/B comparisons between a then-current SSD (Intel X-25M model) and Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm mechanical HDDs. Given the nature of this discussion thread, I'd say it would be a very close analogue of what you'd expect from putting an SSD into a 6-year old laptop.

 

Last year I installed an SSD in my dad's MSI notebook that's about the same age, and it made a world of difference. For the basic web surfing and word processing he does, the hardware is otherwise more than sufficient.

 

Have an old Latitude E 5510. I see 4GB RAM and an SSD as a means of extending the life of an old friend. And for sane money!

 

Absolutely yes. Upgrading to 8GB of RAM and getting an SSD will make that laptop feel like a new computer again.

Spending $200 - $300 on those parts will turn that Latitude E5510 into a machine that will be more than powerful enough for a non-gaming laptop (web browsing, movie / media, and office productivity) for the next several years. People who use computers for that purpose don't really need anything more powerful than that.

 

I received my Crucial BX100 500gb ssd yesterday. After running into snags when I attempted to clone using EaseUS Todo backup free, I found success when I used Seagate DiscWizard. While I also ran into a couple of snags, once I launched discwizard in administrator mode all went smoothly. My laptop booted to Windows 10 with my new SSD perfectly. I also verified that Windows was activated. It was.

My laptop is definitely much faster, so I'm wondering if the effort it will take to reset my PC will be justified.

 

Well, there are two ways to look at a clean install:

1) Your laptop will be faster after a clean install of Windows for a time. But after a few months of use, it will probably end up performing identically to how it does today, once it has a chance to accumulate some "gunk" in the engine over time. So whatever benefits you see, will be short-lived.

2) Doing a clean install lets you run a disk-intensive activity on your machine. An activity like this is a perfect way for you to play with new hardware, simply for the fact that you can marvel at how fast things are now, compared to what you had before.


Personally, I always do a clean install after getting new hardware. Even if the performance benefits are marginal, I like to just watch how fast Windows installs are on my new gear.

 

so you basically remove all programs and files for the clean install? And then reinstall all the apps and copy back the various documents, pics, music etc? I'm getting tired already!!

 

To me, a clean install is justified by a system I can trust and depend to work as expected. Any upgrade I've ever seen has left me looking at using another system (I have many at my disposal) rather than fight whatever carried over and is interfering with how things should work.

Stability, dependability and availability is what a clean install offers over an upgrade of the O/S. Even on the fruity systems that some of my clients swear by, a clean install made one client say 'I can't believe this is the same machine' - yeah; almost twice as fast/responsive as it was before.

If what you do on the system is not important to you, leave it as is. But if the work and the use of the system is of any importance, I'd rather spend a few hours or a day to get it to a known/stable state rather than fight or live with little glitches and bugs that may or may not be because of an O/S install that was not from the metal up.

 

Backup (all) your data. To two different (and tested/trusted) storage devices.

Turn off the system.

Insert the USB drive with the Windows installer.

See:
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/create-windows-10-bootable-usb-flash-drive/

See:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

Download the Win10 installer and check the option to create an ISO file. Use Rufus (see first link) to make the USB stick bootable.

Install Win10x64Pro, perform any and all Windows updates (WIN+I for settings), download and install any device drivers specific for your system, reboot as required. Install your programs and test that they work.

Now, copy your data back and... enjoy!

 

Ahh. I assumed that I could use "settings/reset this pc/remove everything." in Windows 10. Would that be the same as reinstalling from a USB?

 

Not even close.

You need to go to advanced settings, delete every partition on the drive and then install (with OP'ing and proper partitions setup at this stage).

 

Congrats on your SSD upgrade. Although I'm late to the party, I'm in agreement with the others in this thread that recommended the upgrade as opposed to buying a new computer. The Core 2 Duo processors of what seems like an eternity ago are still more than capable; as a matter of fact, they're still faster than many of the processors sold in devices today (Intel Atom, Core M, and relatively competitive with U-series Core i3's).

I"m also a proponent of the clean install - that is, completely wiping the storage drive (deleting the partitions as stated) and then installing the operating system. Most Windows users who complain of a "slow" computer would benefit greatly from a clean install. Over years of usage, Windows can get clogged up with old software, broken registry entries, bad settings and so on - none of that likely intentional, of course, but something that nonetheless requires attention.

Charles

 

It's honestly not as bad as you might think to do a fresh install. A few things that can make this easier are:

1. Find your Windows and MS Office licence keys, as well as other software. It's ususally about the time you format the disk that you realise that *that* piece of paper with licence keys has been misplaced. **There are numerous apps that can do this if you have already lost the physical redcord of the product keys (MS Office cd boxes or that COA sticker on the back of your laptop that inevitably gets worn away so you can't read it...) - 'Magic Jellybean' and 'produkey' will do this without much drama,
2. Use Firefox or Chrome sync to store all your bookmarks, settings, history etc - these will be restored quickly and easily when you reinstal these browsers.
3. Backup personal documents and files to an external USB drive, or use Dropbox or Skydrive or another cloud based backup. I've used the second option for a while now and I've been very happy with it but check out which option works best for your needs. The second makes it a case of just installing the app and adding the files to the folder so they can upload, followed by reinstalling the app once the disk has been wiped and sitting back while all the files are restored.
4. Copy your network profiles to a USB stick - Windows can do this for you or there are third party apps that also do it. You can just double click the exported file on the USB stick to restore these settings once the OS has installed on the new disk.

TBH, if you're swapping from HDD to SSD then you buy a USB caddy (very cheap on ebay), you can insert the old machanical HDD into it and then connect it to your newly installed system. Your docs will be in the 'users' folder (followed by a folder named after your user name) which you can just copy over to your new system.

Installing the OS won't take too long on the SSD and installing the various software shouldn't take too long, depending on just how many bit of software you have. The last time I did it, it took about 5 hours, including getting all of the licence keys etc... installing quite a bit of software and doing Windows Updates.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

I have 2 laptops that are from 2009 and 2007, and both are running ssd drives. It makes them nice and speedy. I have no want to update my computers. I now have to install a 1tb ssd into my HP touchsmart. It has a deathstar drive in it. I think it will be a winner with the ssd in it.