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    New Laptop what should I upgrade?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012.

  1. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    Asus
    N53SV-EH71 w/ Core i7-2670QM, 6GB, 500GB, DVD+/-RW, 15.6in LED HD, GeForce GT 540M, Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit

    So I purchased the above laptop for $850 and I would like to know what I should upgrade the price of the components and a link to the component.

    Thanks
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  2. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    Get an SSD. Without question.

    Look at the videos in my signature if you want to know why. An SSD is the single best upgrade you can make for any computer. It is where smart money goes to get bang-for-your-buck performance on a laptop that already has over 4GB of RAM.
     
    kent1146, Mar 17, 2012
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  3. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    Bare with me....

    whats an SSD
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  4. s2odin

    s2odin Merrica!

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    Solid State Drive.

    It's a hard drive with no moving parts. Much faster overall.
    Decrease boot time, faster application opening, quicker game loads (maps and things like that) etc
     
    s2odin, Mar 17, 2012
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  5. Peon

    Peon Notebook Virtuoso

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    An SSD (Solid State Drive) is a next-gen hard drive that's between 5x-1000x faster. The biggest downside is that an SSD is a lot more expensive than an HDD.
     
    Peon, Mar 17, 2012
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  6. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok could you post a link to one...is there different brands that you recommend?

    My current laptop is 4 years old and I am soooooooo out of touch with technology lol
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  7. s2odin

    s2odin Merrica!

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    s2odin, Mar 17, 2012
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  8. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  9. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    Another dumb question.....do you literally buy one, pop the current one out insert the new one and start it up?
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  10. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    also should I up the memory?
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 17, 2012
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  11. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    You only need one recommendation. Get a Crucial M4 128GB for $160.
    Crucial M4 2.5in SATA III Solid State Drive, 128GB at Memory Express

    The physical installation of the drive is as simple as you described. You open the laptop, remove the old drive, and put in the new SSD. To load your operating system onto your new drive, you can either use a drive imaging tool (Acronis TrueImage) to copy your existing OS installation onto the new drive, or you can choose to do a fresh installation of Windows 7 onto the new drive.

    If you are comfortable reinstalling OSes, I would recommend the fresh installation route. A large part of the fun of getting new computer hardware is giving that hardware a workout, like an OS install.

    And don't bother upgrading your memory. 6GB will be more than enough for desktop applications and gaming. The only people that benefit from over 6GB of RAM are people who are running very specific RAM-intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop, databases, or virtual machines.
     
    kent1146, Mar 17, 2012
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  12. miro_gt

    miro_gt Notebook Deity

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    nahhh, I'd always recommend Samsung SSDs, mainly for their reliability - proven record.

    but why do you need to upgrade stuff ? ... your laptop looks pretty good as far as I can see from the specs. Anyways, the only component that will make noticeable speed increase would be the SSD for sure, if you happen to get one.
     
    miro_gt, Mar 17, 2012
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  13. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    ok so lets talk cloning....how do you clone the OS? do you need another piece of gear?
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 18, 2012
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  14. miro_gt

    miro_gt Notebook Deity

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    download and install Acronis True Image, they have the software free for the first month or so, as far as I remember. Then get yourself an external USB enclosure where you would put the new drive, those are cheap - I got my last one for 17 bux shipped. Then use the software to clone your OS drive into the one in the enclosure.

    Acronis is the best tool for cloning, thus is paid. However you can still benefit from the gratice period :)

    then swap the drives and that's it.

    P.S. if your laptop can support second HDD then you can use that instead of the enclosure.
     
    miro_gt, Mar 18, 2012
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  15. Danielson761729

    Danielson761729 Notebook Enthusiast

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    If you buy your ssd from crucial you can spend a little more and get the cloning kit, a esata wire and a cloning software disk then you just have to follow the youtube video crucial send you too, easy.
     
    Danielson761729, Mar 18, 2012
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  16. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    cheftothestars, Mar 18, 2012
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  17. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    The limited capacity is another issue, especially on a single drive machine. You might want to look at the Seagate Momentus XT. It's a hard drive with a flash drive attached. Once it figures your usage patterns, it offers near SSD performance, but far more capacity than a SSD.

    The benefit of a SSD is the near instantaneous seek times. Since they're all .1ms, they'll all perform about the same for most uses. I wouldn't get too caught up in debating the performance merits of one drive versus another.
     
    ZaZ, Mar 18, 2012
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  18. miro_gt

    miro_gt Notebook Deity

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    you mean compared to the free option that I just posted ??

    .... are you really asking what I think you're asking ??
     
    miro_gt, Mar 18, 2012
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  19. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    well its not free if its 17 plus shipping plus my lack of computer knowledge.

    For $30 and peace of mind I can deal with that..

    No need to get upset sorry if I hurt your feeelings :)
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 18, 2012
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  20. Peon

    Peon Notebook Virtuoso

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    Acronis removed the cloning function from the free trial of the 2012 version, so you made the right choice :)
     
    Peon, Mar 19, 2012
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  21. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    I rock!! lol

    Also I started the other thread as I realised there was a dedicated SSD thread so I thought I would continue it there, but if the Mods don't care then I'll follow through here.
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 19, 2012
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  22. cheftothestars

    cheftothestars Notebook Enthusiast

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    Now all I have to do is wait for the delivery.

    Now to use the original HD as a storage device do I just plug it into the laptop and save straight to that unit? Then unplug?
     
    cheftothestars, Mar 19, 2012
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  23. misterhobbs

    misterhobbs Notebook Evangelist

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    You'll have to get an external hard drive enclosure like this or, if possible, remove the optical drive if you don't need it, get a caddy, and toss the hard drive in its place.

    The external enclosure is easier and there are plenty of options.
     
    misterhobbs, Mar 19, 2012
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