2 upgrades to significantly increase laptop performance

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Upgrade 1: Replace your Hard Drive (HDD) with a Solid-State Drive (SSD) 

What is a Hard Drive (HDD)?

If your laptop takes ages to start up and load programs and apps, it’s probably got a regular hard drive.  A regular hard drive has a “disk” which rotates at a speed of between 4200-7200 rpm. A hard drive works like an old fashioned record player. A disk rotates and an arm with a head moves around the width of the disk to read and write data. This is an age old mechanical method which generates noise and heat. This type of drive is slow, but it is much more cost effective and hence we see most laptops with this type of hard drive.

Advantages – Cheap

Disadvantages – Slow, generates heat and noise, failure due to shock 

What is a Solid-State Drive (SSD)?

A solid-state drive is a storage device like a regular hard drive. It gets its name from the fact that there are no moving parts and hence the drive is “solid-state”. Data is stored on memory chips. Since there is no disk and arm, data can be accessed virtually instantaneously, making them much faster. The prices of SSDs have come down significantly and they are now very affordable.

Advantages – Speed, low weight, longer lifespan, low failure rates.

Disadvantages – Price is comparatively higher for the same capacity.

ssd

A hard drive (HDD) (left) and a Solid State Drive (SSD) with memory chips (right).

 

 

Upgrade 2: Increase Memory (RAM)

What is Memory?

Simply explained, a laptop has a processor, memory and a hard drive.

Think of yourself sitting at a desk with a single filing cabinet next to you. You would be the processor; your desk would be the memory and your filing cabinet would be your hard drive. A laptop works pretty much the same way we do. You remove a file from the filing cabinet, put it on your desk and then process it. Now imagine if you had to process a lot of files and you had a very small desk, your processing speed would decrease significantly! It’s very important to have a large enough desk, right?

In the same way, we should always ensure that we have sufficient memory.

Memory is available in various sizes from 1 GB to 64 GB on a single chip. Also, memory should always be installed in pairs on a laptop for optimum performance. So, if we wanted to have a total of 8 GB we would ideally install two chips of 4 GB each. If only a single chip is installed, then we should purchase another chip of the same capacity and speed.

Ideally, I would recommend a minimum of 8 GB of memory.

laptop ram

Laptop Memory Chips (RAM)

8 thoughts on “2 upgrades to significantly increase laptop performance”

  3. A 1TB SSD drive would be in the range of 25K! I would recommend that you go for a 120-256GB SSD. Once the current HDD is replaced by the SSD you can insert the HDD in an HDD enclosure effectively converting it into an external HDD and still use it. If you are a basic user (internet browsing, Netflix etc.) then 8GB is plenty but if you tend to have a lot of programs running at the same time, the extra RAM would help!

  6. Some 450 Gb of my 1Tb hard drive I mentioned above is already occupied, you suggested above to change to an 120-256 Gb SSD , does SSD store files in a “smaller” size format ie would a say 100 Mb file on my 1Tb hard drive occupy the same space on an SSD or would it be of smaller size. If this is not the case I would somehow have to trim down the stuff I transfer to my SSD.Is this possible ?

  7. Hi. A file (for example 100mb) would occupy the same space on an HDD or SSD. So you have the following options
    1. Remove some files. These could be movies etc. that you may not need. You could also go for a 480Gb SSD which would cost more. Check Amazon.in for prices.
    2. Go for a 120-240Gb SSD and buy a portable hdd enclosure (available on amazon). You can put your existing 1TB HDD in the portable enclosure and use it as an external hdd.

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