Is it worth upgrading to SSD in my 8 year old Sony Vio laptop?

Hi Everybody,
I have Sony Vio VGN Cr-26 laptop which I bought in January 2008. Its configuration is as follows:

• Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7250 (2GHz)
• 14.1" WXGA display(1280 x 800)
• Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset
  
• 4GB RAM
• 320 GB (Serial ATA, 5400rpm)
  
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ X2300

I am planing to buy new SSD( SAMSUNG SSD 830 Series MZ-7PC256D 2.5" 256GB SATA III 6Gbps Solid State Drive) to replace my old HDD. I have following doubts about this:

1. Am I going to get any significant performance increase or laptops other hardware will become bottleneck for the SSD to work to its full potential.
2. Does this laptop support this SSD?
3. I mainly use this laptop to develop android apps using eclipse ide. I can feel a huge lag while running eclipse and emulator. Will upgrading to SSD can make them run faster.
4. I see some lag while playing videos on youtube while using firefox browser. Can this solve the problem?

Thanks.

 

You're better off putting that money towards a new computer. After eight years, it's safe to say you got your money's worth out of your current notebook. Even a $400 notebook today will be faster than what you have now. If you fill this out and make a thread in our What to Buy forum, the members here can help you find a suitable new computer.

The biggest overall bottleneck in your notebook is probably the 4GB of RAM, which is exhausted easily these days - especially if you have multiple programs open. The hard drive would be second; 5400RPM equates to [very] slow access times. Replacing the hard drive with an SSD would help programs launch and files open faster, but wouldn't help any RAM or CPU-limited situations.

Open the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Esc) while you're working and look at the performance tab every couple of minutes. If the CPU graph is constantly spiking to 50%+, then you'd benefit from getting a faster processor. Also look at your RAM usage - if that's 2.5GB or above, Windows is likely using the page file heavily which is extremely slow. Finally, keep an eye on the hard drive activity light (if your notebook has one) - if it's on frequently, then it's probably being thrashed by your programs and/or Windows using its page file.

Charles

 

Agree with Charles.

The platform you're using is outclassed by the workload you require of it.

The ~$55 USD for that used SSD may be worth for you to experiment with - but that Samsung SSD was the beginning of my experience with the infamous 'laggy sammy' ssd's.

It will still be faster than the HDD you have installed now (boot up, shut down and launching programs), but other than that, it won't give you one iota of more power for your workloads. And that $55 could have been put towards a new system instead (no; I do not recommend to use it on any modern platform either).

 

May I jump in here, because I am same situation with a 8yr old laptop.

I got me a Gateway P-7811 FX and it needs a "hard drive". I want to get an a 500-ishGB SSD. I read that the SanDisk Extreme PRO is good, but could my laptop take advantage of it fully or should I get a lessor drive? My questions are the near the same as the OP's.

 

The SanDisk Extreme Pro is excellent, but it won't shine in an 8 year old platform.

If your platform is at least dual core, has 8GB RAM and you'll be running Win10x64 as an O/S, anything above a Crucial M4 (512GB) will be overkill for the platform you're on.

Buy the cheapest SSD (equal to or above an M4 512GB) to maximize your bang for the buck.

But again: expect no raw performance increase. Simply a more responsive system (because of the SSD). But this may be enough to increase your productivity above the cost (time and $$$) needed to properly get an SSD and modern O/S running on such an old platform.

Assuming you won't run into any show stopping incompatibility issues too, of course.


Good luck.

 

I'd say another big problem you have is that screen. 1280*800, and my guess is its probably not a very good one either?

If you're looking to upgrade on the cheap, just look around for a quality used business-grade laptop, put in a reasonably-priced SSD, and you should be set.

 

Agreed, buy you a good used business class laptop with a Core i5 or Core i7 and then add an SSD to that and load it up with RAM. Something like a Dell Latitude E 5510 or higher or a Lenovo ThinkPad T510 or higher and you'd be good with that processor.

 

Thanks guys for your suggestions. I have purchased a new laptop Dell inspiron 5459 (Core i7 6500U, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD).
Ill upgrade its RAM and HDD to SSD now

 

Great! I would suggest you do your upgrades in steps. Yeah, it will take longer to have your system running optimally, but you'll also be able to depend on the new setup for a long time too.

First, I would install the new RAM. I suggest at least 16GB's of the fastest RAM modules you can afford (and slightly above what your platform would support too). For example, I would buy 2x 8GB DDR4 2600MHz or above modules.

After removing the battery, the AC power and carefully removing the existing 4GB RAM stick, replace with the new RAM. Now, I would be testing the RAM, in your system, for the next 24 to 48 hours (depending on how patient you are). MemTest is what I would use for this.

After successfully passing an extended memory stress test as indicated above, remove the 1TB HDD and install the new SSD. Without even needing to know your workflows; SanDisk Extreme Pro 480 or 960GB is highly recommended with 30% (I use 33% or more) OP'ing for a storage subsystem that will give you the best sustained performance over time no matter (almost) how you use it.

Perform a clean install of Windows 10 on the SSD with no other drive installed.

Install any drivers required for your system. Update the O/S as needed. Install the programs you need and finally, assuming your experience with the system so far has been nothing but stable, install your data too.

I would recommend that you don't run an SSD/HDD setup if you can help it for a mobile setup. Either buy a bigger, single, SSD, or, buy two SSD's to comfortably hold the O/S+Programs and DATA along with at least 25GB of free space on C:\Drive (minimum, at all times, in addition to the OP'ing) and enough capacity on the D:\DATA drive or partition to satisfy your always available data needs for the next couple of years or so.

(This would be in addition to multiple external drives and/or an NAS to do backups to - depending how important your DATA is and how hard it would be to replace, if possible).

While the above may seem like a lot of 'work' to get your system configured to 2016 standards... in reality it means that (assuming you have the parts today), you can have a system tested, optimally setup and running by Monday, February 1st, 2016. A great way to start next month off with.

Keep us posted on how your journey is going. Take care.

 

Well, I'll have to say the people saying its not worth upgrading a core2duo are wrong.
The major thing holding back old laptops is the harddrive which is the slowest part of a computer, on laptops the 4200rpm/5400rpm drives were even slower than regular desktop drives.
For basic web browsing and other desktop duties a core2 is enough for many people, as a secondary computer etc.
Of course don't spend a big amount on an ssd for an old computer, but 50-100 is not much to turn something old into something usable.
I've done it with two and while they were capped by sata 3 speeds, the majority of windows/application accesses are the random read writes which aren't going to be 500MB/s regardless.

As for ram, 4GB is enough for basic usage, you can have quite a bit loaded, and the ssd will make sure the swapping is next to invisible. If you are trying to do really heavy duty multitasking on a laptop, its a bad idea regardless.

 

i agree with the above. the other great thing about buying an SSD is that you can usually put it in a new laptop easily, unless you get an ultrabook or whatever.

generally when people give the advice "you money would be better spent on a new laptop" they are forgetting how much of a hassle it can be for people to decided what they want, how much to spend, then get used to a new operating system, interface EG keyboard touchpad and port layout.

those of us who've used many laptops in our lives often don't care as much about these changes, as long as the build quality is OK.