Sony Vaio VPCYB3V1E Hardware Upgrade

Hi all,
I have a sony vaio vpcyb3v1e and at the moment i am not able to buy something better due to financial reasons. So i would like to make the best possible hardware changes so i can get the best performance. I am thinking of Samsung SSD drive. Also the maximum RAM according to the manufacturer is 4GB but i wonder if i could give it something more.
Any ideas appreciated.
Thanks

 

Just upgrade your HDD to an SSD. If you're on a tight budget, you don't need to do ANYTHING else - just this one change will give you a massive performance boost. Look at my signature for the SSD that I upgraded to. Very cost effective, and the upgrade was totally painless. You might need to check the thickness of the old and new drives. Avoid getting something thicker than what's already in there. If the SSD is thinner, cut out pieces of thick paper or something to make up the difference so the new drive is a snug fit.

 

Thanks for the response. SSD is the first step for sure! RAM extension isn't going to be useful somehow?

 

Meh. Unless you use some applications that use massive amounts of RAM - eg. HyperV with multiple guest operating systems on virtual drives, or maybe Photoshop with large images, 4 GB is plenty. If you need it, you could always do it a little later when you have more money saved up, but the first order of business is to get that SSD. Replacing an HDD, just get a 2.5" SSD and do the swap. I'm assuming you do not have UEFI BIOS and you have recovery disks or you know how to do a clean install of the OS of your choice. If in doubt, find the clean install guide for your model on this forum.

 

I use multiple operating systems but not with hyperV but with multiboot. So i guess an extra 2GB will be needed. Anytimer thanks for your advice a lot!

 

With multiboot, only one OS is running at any one time. With virtual machines, on the other hand, several OSs are running simultaneously, and each needs a certain minimum RAM, hence the need for humonguous quanities of RAM.

Run task manager on your existing system and monitor how frequently you run low on RAM. I just checked - I'm using 2.7GB of my 4GB right now, out of which Google Chrome is using a massive 700MB!!!!

 

Yeah good point. BTW i am interested in SAMSUNG EVO 850 250 gb and SAMSUNG PRO 850 256 gb. Which do you recommned? I don't want any compatibility issues with my notebook..
Thanks again

 

I agree, an SSD upgrade is your best bet. Going from a 5400 RPM drive to a SSD should give a considerable boost.
Either of those SSD's should be fine - but again check the height requirement.
One review of that model said it has a Toshiba MKxx59GSXP 5400 sata drive with a height of 9.5 mm.

The only thing of note is SSD's with the "odd" sizing, ie: 250gb instead of 256gb usually have internal trim software and backup cells to replace cells that die theoretically to give the SSD a longer life. I would probably buy whichever is the better price unless you need the storage space since the 256gb gives you 6Gb more. (when formatted the 256Gb will lose 17.9Gb to formatting and the 250gb will lose 17.5Gb)

 

Also note that although the SSD you choose might be lightning fast, the hardware still needs to be able to take advantage of the SSD's capabilities, and the CPU and RAM still have to process the data that has been pulled off the drive. For your system, this means that you will not see much difference between a top of the line SSD and a cheaper, slower model because even the slower SSD will push the rest of the hardware to its limits. Use common sense; get the drive that gives you the most bang for the buck.

I got my SSD from a laptop dealer who sold a bunch of laptops to a company that wanted a larger capacity drive installed, so he had to sell off the ones that were taken out. I got a nice discount.