Install SSD in laptop?

[bikelady]

So I hear SSDs are awesome, and my laptop recently died.  Unfortunately, I can't find anything with an SSD in the larger size (15" or so) that I want, at least in the mid-range ($600 or so). 

From everything I've read, it's pretty easy to pop open the back and install an SSD.  Has anyone done this?  Do I need to make sure of anything on the laptop model that I buy? 

New Egg seems to have SSDs for around $100 that would meet my needs, and an otherwise fine laptop is in the $400-$500 range, so if I could make this work, it'd be perfect. 

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2013 23:33:25 GMT -5 bikelady said:

So I hear SSDs are awesome, and my laptop recently died.  Unfortunately, I can't find anything with an SSD in the larger size (15" or so) that I want, at least in the mid-range ($600 or so). 

From everything I've read, it's pretty easy to pop open the back and install an SSD.  Has anyone done this?  Do I need to make sure of anything on the laptop model that I buy? 

New Egg seems to have SSDs for around $100 that would meet my needs, and an otherwise fine laptop is in the $400-$500 range, so if I could make this work, it'd be perfect. 

I'm going to sound like a know it all ass and for that I apologize! BUT:


1) Absolutely double check your sizes. When you buy a laptop, you aren't buying something like a desktop or a test bay where it is designed to have swapable components. Laptop makers are getting better about this, but it is still NOT recommended unless you know what you are doing. You can easily buy one piece thinking you'll just replace the "matching" piece on your new laptop, except the replacement piece is about a centimeter too big! 

2) Make sure you get a fairly decent laptop. There is no point in buying a SSD, which range generally around here from 100$+, to put it in a 300$ laptop. I'd say that if you are using this laptop for work/school, you'd want at least 4gb of ram (make sure it is expandable, you'll want to expand in about three years to extend the life of your laptop!) and about a 250+ HD if you intend to not store all your files on your laptop. That is like super barebones, though. 

3) SSD are not really made to be your main drive just yet, especially if you see yourself using a lot of programs on your laptop that need a lot of space. Ex: video games, modeling programs, ect. I think SSDs still only go up to about 300gb right now? Which seems like a lot, but you'd be surprised what you'd use over the course of a laptops life time. What sort of programs did you want to use? How do you see yourself using this laptop in a year or two?

4) If you really think it will suit your needs, go for it. It isn't that hard and there are really good tutorials available on youtube and just be searching through google. 

Links to the components you are thinking about? 

[bikelady]

This is a cheap laptop for internet and streaming around the house. Storage for most things is on the desktop/network, and my current laptop is 4 years old and cost $400 back then. I've heard about how SSDs make your standard processes (start up, opening programs...) so much faster and I want that. I don't want a sleek ultraportable or a touch screen, I want something fairly big.

I'm thinking something like this for the harddrive: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820721107

I haven't decided on my base laptop, I'm watching for the cheapest i3 I can find during holiday sales.

To point #1, according to the internet a 2.5" drive should fit in any laptop and supposedly it's all fun and games to pull off an access panel or the back of the shell and swap it. I've done RAM on laptops, but not a hard drive. I could always practice on my current one, I planned to tear it apart and attempt to build it into a sleek streaming box for my office area, but if I wreck it I won't really care. Would hate to screw up brand new hardware.

[GilliC]

I have a 512GB SSD as the primary drive in my work laptop. I love it, but I'm not so sure I'd shell out for my own for personal use. I've been told that SSDs have a limited lifespan, and there only so many times you can write the memory before that block can't be used any longer. I have no idea how true this is (I'm a software person, not a hardware person). The firmware is supposed to adjust for this, but my drive had firmware problems, so it died just two years in and had to be replaced (yay warranty).

It is blazingly fast for accessing scattered memory, so for me and my colleagues it's a huge speed-up in compile time, because there are hundreds of files on disk that need to be accessed during the process.

Program startup tends to be a bit faster but not nearly as dramatic, since most applications end up on contiguous disk space (and you can defrag to improve this). I suppose if you don't have a lot of RAM, you could benefit from an SSD in cases where you're paging a lot, but with the price of an SSD, you'd probably be better off just going for more memory. Because once something's in memory, your drive doesn't really matter anymore. It's nice to have, but unless you're doing something that really taxes the drive (like compiling 75GB of source code files) I don't know if it's worth it. I suspect that for most users, the processor and RAM will have a much bigger impact.