The lighting fast upgrade, even for a 10-year-old PC.

Just slap in an SSD and transform your PC into a lightning-fast machine.  Imagine turning on and opening apps as fast as your phone does. Any computer or notebook with a SATA hard drive connection can be upgraded to SSD giving a blazing fast loading speed.

Is my PC too old?

Despite what you may experience today, your old computer can still be amazing. There are no minimum specs for the SSD upgrade as long as you have the right SATA connection you can make the upgrade.

Why SSD’s are better

Solid State Drives are recommended for anyone who has a computer because they speed up the performance of a computer compared to a CPU. Although most people prefer hard disk drives because they are cheaper and offer more storage; Solid State Drives are recommended because they offer better performance.

The Deep Explanation SSD Vs HDD

Here are the major differences between SSD’s and normal HDD’s;

• Hard Disk Drives have high latency, longer read times, and also have few input/output operations per second compared to SSD which has low latency, faster reading as well as writing speeds and supports more input/output operations per second.

• Hard Disk Drives consume more electrical power as they use rotating platters which generates heat and causes noise; whereas the silent SSD does not have any physically moving parts and therefore also uses less electrical power.

• HDD’s require being defragmented from time to time because the drive’s performance is dependent on physical locations of the data and files can be written in multiple locations; the SSD is not affected by fragmentation hence the defragmentation process is not required.

• HDD’s have a movable motor-driven spindle which holds one or more platters coated with a layer of magnetic material into position and the read and write heads are held on top of the platters and enclosed in a metal case, but SSD’s do not have movable parts and only use microchips which contain interface connectors.

• HDD has more weight than SSD drives because the Solid State Drives do not contain platters, spindles, and motors.

• SSD drives are rugged and able to withstand up to 2000 Hz vibration while the HDD cannot because its movable parts make it more prone to crashes and damage.

Practical Benefits of SSD’s Other Than Speed.

• SSD’s uses less power and as such they slightly increase the battery life of your device, not a huge amount, but still noticeable on a laptop.
• Solid State Drives are not affected by magnetism but are susceptible to slow discharge.
• You can be rough with your notebook as you are unlikely to damage the data in general day to day movement.

The Negatives?

Long Term Backup

All this speed does come at a cost tho, long term reliability, they suck for backups, but; so do hard drives.

HDD’s store data on a magnetic disk that over time degrades as the magnetic force of gravity weakens the written data, this happens slowly and you can still expect to have your data years after you last turned on the drive.

SSD’s however are not so long term, they store their data similar to RAM, with a tiny electrical charge holding the data in place, over time this charge leaks out and can corrupt your data. A healthy SSD can retain data for one year if stored away from heat. Older or well used SSD’s can lose data in weeks or months if not powered on.

Generally, if you are using your computer regularly, both HDD’s and SSD’s will be ok for many years as they both have a provision for this in their daily operation. HDD’s will automatically rewrite any sectors that are fading and SSD’s regularly move the data around to ensure even wear on the drive.

Limited number of writes

HDD’s generally fail due to mechanical failure, the motor or reading heads fail and the drive can not be used. If looked after an HDD can last 5 years or more until mechanical failure. SSD’s don’t have this problem, instead, they are limited in the number of writes made to the drive. This means that you have a limited number of times data can be recorded on the drive. Although it sounds concerning, the number of writes is so high the average computer would not reach the limits of modern SSD’s for up to 10 years. Basically, anything new you buy today will last longer than your computer will. To extend SSD life to the max you can use a secondary mechanical hard drive for your files to reduce the number of writes to your SSD. The main speed benefit of SSD is in the loading of apps and the OS, so a small SSD with the OS and system files will ensure fast performance, and then using another drive for your files will extend your SSD life further. This is likely overkill for most tho.

Geek section: The number of TBW.

This is the rating for the number of writes (In terabytes) the SSD can achieve before the performance and reliability degrade.  An SSD with at 120TBW rating means you can essentially write 120,000 GB before the drive will reach a level where it is becoming old. The guys below explain it much better than I could.

What about the old HDD?

If your computer is only a few years old, grab a USB drive case, and then you can use the old drive as an external hard-drive.

Is it easy to make the upgrade?

As long as you have a bit of computer background and are confident to open up the cover and install the OS again you can do this all yourself. Most SSD drives will have support on how to transfer windows and data to your new drive, this means you keep all the same software and files as before and can be a simple process.

My recommendation tho, if you are a techie, is check your computer for your Windows 7 or 8 key sticker, if you have one of those and then download the Windows 10 installer onto a USB drive then install the SSD and give your PC a fresh start with a fresh Windows 10. Once the OS is installed, copy back the documents and files you still want from the old HDD. The benefit of this is it is faster and also cleans your computer of all the old registry and crap that could be running in the background. The downside is you will need to install your programs again.

There are plenty of full in-depth guides on how to do it online and I will also create a detailed post on it later in the year.

Upgrade Now And Enjoy the speed of SSD

Hunt around for your SSD, we have great SSDs here. Don’t forget to grab one of our bargain MantisTek enclosures to convert any old drive into an external drive.