Laptop for a friend.

[PP Mguire]

You don't need a huge SSD. My SSD is 119 right now (last time I checked) and 120GB. More than plenty and I have games, CS6 Master Suite, and a bunch more installed.

Anything that depends on, or access the HDD for anything will become faster. Game loading time and responsiveness will be faster, but not FPS. Mainly, the overall general speed and snappiness of any PC will become much faster with an SSD. Loading Windows, loading programs/games, loading browsers, browser cached files (large pics), renders, ect. Here is a good example of general performance improvement. Take note, they won't have a state of the art SSD in these stock things. If he got something like my Corsair and put it in his laptop it would be even faster.

SSD vs. HDD Performance Comparison - YouTube

 

[neilsugg]

Geeze that is clearly noticeable. I am sure he'll want one. What brand is yours or would you re commend and I guess I'll have to find out for him which is compatible with the laptop. I'm really wanting one for the computer in my other post now.

 

[PP Mguire]

I have a 120GB Corsair Neutron GTX. It will work in the laptop.

 

[neilsugg]

Alright I'll save name! Thank you

 

[XGC Forsakend]

Holy balls PP, that is a huge difference between HDD and SDD. regretted not getting an SDD and that video just made it worse. anyways.

Since this thread is relevant to a thread I was going to make in the future, thought i'd just post here too.

Girlfriend has been looking for a new laptop, mostly for school and web browsing and probably the occasional FB or flash games. The only thing she really wants is fast boot times and an HD screen. Considering simply looking for one that has an i3 or so and swapping out the HDD for the SSD like suggested for the OP.

Question. Is there a way to save the OS the laptop originally comes with and transfer it into the SDD so I wouldn't have to buy a whole new OS?

 

[carnageX]

Holy balls PP, that is a huge difference between HDD and SDD. regretted not getting an SDD and that video just made it worse. anyways.

Since this thread is relevant to a thread I was going to make in the future, thought i'd just post here too.

Girlfriend has been looking for a new laptop, mostly for school and web browsing and probably the occasional FB or flash games. The only thing she really wants is fast boot times and an HD screen. Considering simply looking for one that has an i3 or so and swapping out the HDD for the SSD like suggested for the OP.

Question. Is there a way to save the OS the laptop originally comes with and transfer it into the SDD so I wouldn't have to buy a whole new OS?

Clonezilla the drive to the new drive. If the partition is too big, use GParted to resize it smallerthan the SSD.

I recommend cloning to an image on a secondary drive, then "restoring" the image onto the SSD. That way, if uou mess up the clone to the SSD, you still have the original, untouched drive intact. Happened to me once, and spent about 12 hours trying to recover my friend's Windows install.

 

[XGC Forsakend]

Clonezilla the drive to the new drive. If the partition is too big, use GParted to resize it smallerthan the SSD.

I recommend cloning to an image on a secondary drive, then "restoring" the image onto the SSD. That way, if uou mess up the clone to the SSD, you still have the original, untouched drive intact. Happened to me once, and spent about 12 hours trying to recover my friend's Windows install.

Thanks for response

OK. Quick Google showed that I needed Linux to be able to run clonezilla under license usage, but I am gonna assume it works for windows as well.
A thought popped in while reading about clonezilla. Since the laptop will be brand new and not have anything on it, would it be easier to just make a 'recovery' disc as soon as we boot it up and then just use that instead?

Or does normal recovery discs created through windows not allow recovery and install of the OS?

Other than that, I will keep this in mind for the future. Will make a recovery disk and copy of the new laptop into 1-2 USB drives before attempting to install the SDD as an in case. I predict me messing up at least once hehe =]

 

[PP Mguire]

Acronis is rather good too. I used it to clone my fiance's drive to her SSD. It's ridiculous how quick it is even with an install that is 3 years old lol.

 

[carnageX]

Thanks for response

OK. Quick Google showed that I needed Linux to be able to run clonezilla under license usage, but I am gonna assume it works for windows as well.
A thought popped in while reading about clonezilla. Since the laptop will be brand new and not have anything on it, would it be easier to just make a 'recovery' disc as soon as we boot it up and then just use that instead?

Or does normal recovery discs created through windows not allow recovery and install of the OS?

Other than that, I will keep this in mind for the future. Will make a recovery disk and copy of the new laptop into 1-2 USB drives before attempting to install the SDD as an in case. I predict me messing up at least once hehe =]

Clonezilla is a LiveCD. You don't need Linux - it is it's own bootable Linux.
Clonezilla live

Same with GParted.

IMO, just stick with CloneZilla + GParted. You can get both of them on a single LiveCD if you download + burn PartedMagic to a LiveCD (or LiveUSB): downloads

And like I previously mentioned, have an external or secondary drive that you can clone the original HDD to an IMAGE and then "restore" that image onto the SSD. That way if something goes wrong during the clone, you won't mess up the install on the original drive. I recommend this procedure for any cloning software, be it Acronis, CloneZilla, Ghost, etc. Less of a chance to mess up, as I've been there like I previously said...and it's a pain if you don't want to just reinstall.

Always a good idea to backup important data before doing anything with partitions or cloning, anyway.

 

[PP Mguire]

Let me back that up with, it's always best to do a fresh install on a new SSD anyways.