Laptop Hard Drive Replacement with SSD

[ENES]

My kids have been using a couple of older lapptops (HP EliteBook 840 & Toshiba Satellite C50) to do their school work while on lockdown.
Both laptops are painfully slow & i'm considering upgrading them both with new SSD drives (+ maybe RAM if cheap enough) while they are on the Easter break.

I've had a look at both & can access the existing 2.5" HDD's fairly easily - but would appreciate some advice on the SSD choice, cloning software / cable, best methods etc.
Both laptops work (although slowly) & don't really want to risk putting one out of action by getting something wrong - the thought of brother & sister sharing one laptop fills me with dread!

Both laptops currently have 500GB drives, but i'm thinking i'll just get replacement 250Gb SSD's to save a bit of cash unless the 500Gb aren't much more - I was looking at Samsung 860 Evo & Sandisk Ultra II SSD's as possible options - any input on best drives & where to purchase would be great.

Thanks.

[TBKBABAB]

I’ve bought everything to upgrade my PC but hadn’t got round to it and decided better wait further as if something goes wrong while we are in lockdown SWMBO wouldn’t be happy.

you need to check the size/type of connection the current hard drive has and make sure the SSD is the same,
I bought a Samsung 970 eco SSD and intend to use Macrium reflect to clone the hard drive, cable or enclosure
should be ok.

I am only upgrading to SSD to handle large photo files,
personally I would upgrade the RAM first if it’s possible, if they have spare slots for extra RAM you just plug them in.

[tertius]

Samsung drives are decent - have just upgraded a laptop from 500 GB to a 1TB SSD (both Samsung) - it was less than £100 for a 1TB drive so I would imagine 500GB is c. £50. The old 500GB drive is going into my son's PC

I used the Corsair kit (from amazon) as it provided software and cable. Remember if you go to a smaller drive you may need to muck about with partitioning the old disk appropriately so it can copy cleanly. I have previously just downloaded free software to do partitioning and cloning but this time I thought for £17 I would take the easy option.

For memory and SSD I would normally recommend Crucial but their stock seems very low at the moment, so I got everything from Amazon.

[ENES]

Remember if you go to a smaller drive you may need to muck about with partitioning the old disk appropriately so it can copy cleanly.

Good point - didn't consider that issue if downsizing.

[Kingstepper]

If going from HDD to SSD check partition alignment is ok. Can't remember exact details but had this problem few years ago and until sorted SSD wasn't as quick as expected.

[IAmATeaf]

Unless there’s a specific reason for cloning I’d just do a clean install of Windows 10 and then copy over the data. Also before deciding on 250 vs 500 check the current disk usage and has been pointed out if you decide to clone then moving to a smaller drive can be a right royal pain.

For cloning I also use Macrium reflect, if you plug in an external drive then you can clone the drive to the external drive. Also create a bootable usb from which you boot back off when you’ve fitted the new drive and want to restore. Another tip, make sure to test the bootable usb that Macrium creates to make sure you can boot off it before ripping things apart.

[Chabsy]

Samsung come with their own cloning software if you buy retail version.
The 970 that was listed above wont fit your laptop. you wil need the 860 evo.
Any well known nake will be OK but if the price is similar go for the Samsung

[Mr Pointy]

OP:
What OS are the laptops running at the moment?

Do you have any software or data on the drives that you can't reload?

How much RAM is installed?

[SydR]

Check out https://uk.crucial.com and let it scan your computer. It’ll check what you currently have an say what upgrades in terms of memory and SSD are available.

[xellos99]

Get the Samsung with the 5 year warranty ( I think its 5 from memory ) I get them from Amazon usually.

If they are used to 500GB drives then replace with 500GB drives or they will forever moan at you about disk space

[miguelh34]

I have had a number of SSDs be honest even the cheaper no branded ones are decent. Performance is relative if your using it for windows basic ish use they will be fine.

[T1ckT0ck]

Samsung gets my vote. Fitting a SSD is THE best performance upgrade you can get for a relatively small upgrade.

My old Dell XPS went from minute and half down to twenty second startup.


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[Kaffe]

Another vote for Crucial. Have used them for several ssd's and RAM upgrades. Excellent. However, don't expect a massive speed increase if your processor is slow in the first place.

[MB2]

SSD makes a huge improvement to boot up etc. as said i wouldn't worry about which disk you buy as there will be another bottleneck in the system not one SSD vs another.

For cloning the machines that copy disks are 30 on Amazon so if your not very technical and have access to a PC these are very good - just make sure the new SSD is larger than the disk you are replacing- i think this is the case for software too.

When you have finished your upgrade either keep the HDD as a quick DR solution of buy a caddy from eBay and make them into portable storage.

[ENES]

Thanks for the input everyone.

OP:
What OS are the laptops running at the moment?

Do you have any software or data on the drives that you can't reload?

How much RAM is installed?

Both on Windows 10 & both have 4gb of RAM onboard (upgradeable to 16gb max) - so could add another 4gb for £25 each.
Not sure if this is more cost effective in machines mainly being used for MS Office, internet etc.?
Probably would be able to reload most software / data - certainly on one of the laptops in any case

[Captain Morgan]

Thanks for the input everyone.



Both on Windows 10 & both have 4gb of RAM onboard (upgradeable to 16gb max) - so could add another 4gb for £25 each.
Not sure if this is more cost effective in machines mainly being used for MS Office, internet etc.?
Probably would be able to reload most software / data - certainly on one of the laptops in any case

Have you confirmed the existing memory spec, you might find it’s 2 * 2gb rather than a single 4gb dimm in each machine.

[Tooks]

8GB in each laptop and an SSD will give them a new lease of life.

I’ve currently got 6 SSDs in my main desktop, ranging from branded Samsung and Crucial drives, to Amazon special Sannobel etc drives that you’ve never heard of. They all work well, and there isn’t much difference in speed.

I’ve also resurrected a couple of old laptops along similar lines, they make them much more useable.

Like others, I also use Macrium Reflect to clone the old drives to the new SSDs, the software copies the boot sector across and resizes the partitions as required.

[Rob (NZ)]

ENES,

Are you sure it's not a bloated OS folder?

My mother had a laptop that was unusable.

Got her a desktop, and done a clean install on the laptop to send it to relos overseas. Worked like new with the clean install.

What temperature are they running at? Load open hardware monitor to find out. If the CPU is too hot, it can slow it down.

Rob.

[JohnnyE]

I needed to clone my dad's HDD as he'd lost installation discs for a few items.. so I cloned his drive using one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LN0GX..._rLBLEb11AN6YE

Worked a treat..... Although a clean install is always best. The only factor to watch is that the destination SSD drive is at least the same size as the source HDD.

[Xantiagib]

used Acronis (not free but worth it) which lets you resize the partitions on the destination
so if your data size is still below the new size no problem

[sjdavies47]

Worth checking the specs of the laptops before spending the cash. Two reasons for saying that. The first is that you can get used ex corporate laptops with 8GB ram and 5th gen Intel processors for £180, which are pretty good (I got 2 for my kids). The other is that the laptops may be too old to speed up materially. Imho (this is very subjective) anything older than a 3rd or 4th gen processor will just not have the horsepower anymore. If you have a good enough processor then 8GB ram is advisable (if you check task manager and ram utilisation is above 70% this is probably bottlenecking). Then look at a ssd, ssd speed will help start up times and anything that reads/writes a lot. Often the new ssd will come with cloning software (the one I bought from crucial did).

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