Speed Up Your Desktop, Laptop, Notebook With SSD
I have been doing SSD upgrades to speed up desktop PC’s, laptops, notebooks and even Eee PC’s for several years now. The difference is amazing, especially if you have been suffering with a slow 5400rpm (or slower) conventional hard drive.
(High quality hard drives have been 7200rpm – or above – for many years and they often cost only a few dollars more, especially to high volume manufacturers.)
Recently I upgraded the 128GB Crucial M4 SSD in my desktop PC to the larger 256GB Crucial M4 SSD pictured at left. Not that the 256GB is any faster, I just needed more room because of the video production I do and the increasing amount of virtual machines I run.
One thing holding people back from an SSD upgrade on their computer is the thought that it would be a difficult, complex job.
Well, there are certainly some precautions you want to take, but for the most part it’s not that tough, and the video that I recently recorded and have embedded below hopefully shows part of that.
SSD’s Are SATA Only, IDE Not Allowed!
Now if you happen to have an OLD laptop or other computer with an IDE drive and not the newer SATA architecture you will NOT be able to upgrade your computer with an SSD. My personal laptop which is approaching 9 years old now is in that category. SATA become commonplace about 7 years ago if I’m not mistaken.
Fortunately, my Asus laptop at least has a fast 7200rpm IDE hard drive.
Here is a post I did to help identify your hard drive type
Before You Begin Your SSD Upgrade
Before you go buying an SSD to replace your current hard drive, make sure you know what type of system you have (use the link above if that will help) and confirm that you are comfortable the physical disassembly needed to install the new SSD in place of the old SSD or conventional hard drive.
If you are working on a notebook or laptop computer, be aware that there is sometimes an adapter on the drive that needs to be removed and put on the new drive. Not all have something like that, just saying…
Next, make sure you have a complete backup of your hard drive, and a second backup of important data is a darn good idea. Online backup services are a great option especially for important data, not so much for entire drive backups. Windows 7 will do an image backup to an external hard drive very easily.
Don’t forget to VERIFY your backup by retrieving and opening a couple of files from the backup media or cloud.
If all goes well your old hard drive will be an exact clone and work as a backup at least for a while. After time, you can use it as a 2nd drive in your desktop computer or put it into an external hard drive housing (appropriate for whichever size drive it is – mobile or desktop) and reformat it to be used however you wish – but only AFTER a couple weeks (minimum) of all going well with your new SSD upgrade.
In my case, since I am upgrading to a LARGER SSD, the old SSD, which is just as fast as the new one, can be an SSD upgrade in another machine.
Steps In SSD Upgrade
Here are the steps to making an SSD upgrade, and if you have questions or think I missed a step, please leave a comment!
- Determine that you do have SATA architecture
- Pick your SSD upgrade product, choosing a desktop kit if you need an adapter (2.5″ drive to 3.5″ drive bay) or a drive with separate adapter
- Find out where the cloning software will come from: an upgrade kit that includes a limited version of Acronis True Image or buy the full product
- Backup your drive, data; there is no such thing as too many backups! (Acronis True Image does computer backup as well as cloning)
- Verify your backup by restoring and checking several files (Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PDF, video, song, photo)
- Make sure you know how to get your computer to boot from the CD/DVD drive so the cloning software will take control
- Shut down your computer
- Connect the new SSD upgrade product
- Desktop: Internal connection / external SATA cable / Upgrade kit / Vantec USB HDD Adapter
- Notebook: Vantec USB HDD Adapter / Upgrade kit
- Boot with Acronis True Image
- Select current hard drive as source drive
- Select new SSD as destination drive
- Clone!
- Shutdown
- Install new SSD as primary (or only) hard drive
- Boot to new SSD
- Test, test, test
- Old hard drive is either:
- External drive with appropriate enclosure (2.5″ or 3.5″)
- 2nd hard drive if desktop PC
- SSD upgrade to another PC if old drive is SSD
Video of SSD Upgrade With Vantec USB HDD Adapter and Acronis True Image Cloning Software
Links For Products Mentioned
- My old SSD: 128GB Crucial M4 SSD
- My new SSD upgrade: 256GB Crucial M4 SSD
- Versatile USB Adapter: Vantec USB Hard Drive Adapter
- Cloning (and backup) Software: Acronis True Image Home full version
- SSD Drive Kit (cloning software included): Crucial m4 256GB 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s with Data Transfer Kit
- 3.5″ Adapter for 2.5″ SSD’s: Thermaltake 3.5 Inch to 2.5 Inch SSD HDD Bay Drives Converter Kit AC0014 (Black)
- Hard drive enclosure (USB powered, get the right size for your old drive): USB powered hard drive enclosure
We have three computers but we don’t currently have one SSD, but I see now the advantages of having one. Better to start out with a 256G SSD, do you think? And what about external Hard drives, do they help in any way?
We love external hard drives for:
1) HUGE storage for reasonable price that can be taken OFF SITE such as a bank safe deposit box
2) Image backups, like when you want to Upgrade to an SSD 😉
3) Duplicating locally an Online Backup Strategy
4) Occasionally transferring large files to another location
Thanks for stopping by Pat
I appreciate your tip on verifying your back up by retrieving and opening files from it. That’s something I haven’t done and it would be awful to discover it’s not accessible after a crash. You have a knack for explaining this fancy tech stuff in layman’s terms and it’s greatly appreciated by this luddite.
Roger, you’ve probably heard it said that with a Hard Disk it’s not a case of if it will fail, but when!
Many people think their hard disk will last forever, unfortunately simply not true.
These SSDs presumably are more reliable, aren’t they?
I haven’t seen any figures, and they do have a finite life, but that life is longer than one would expect to need it under ordinary usage. One key is that there are no moving parts; and if nothing else, that means that when you “bump” your PC, there is no threat of damage. Then in notebooks, they use less power and the battery will last longer.
Win all around.
thanks