Upgrading your laptop’s HDD to an SSD will significantly boost its performance and boot-up speeds. It’s the best upgrade for an old laptop.
One of the major bottlenecks of older computers is their internal hard drives. They are very slow and can only deliver around 100–150 MB/sec, which is what most spinning mechanical hard drives can manage. However, that speed is not enough for today’s software and programs. That’s why SSDs, short for Solid State Drives, were created, as they can be significantly faster.
Upgrading your laptop’s internal HDD to an SSD is not easy. It can be even more difficult when you are unsure if your notebook supports SATA or M.2 SSDs.
Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the writer’s opinions.
How To Check SSD Support on a Laptop
While some manufacturers mention the type of storage interface their laptops support, others do not. Therefore, the best way to check the SSD interface is to open up your laptop and physically inspect it. Since your notebook has an HDD, it will support SATA drives. However, there could also be an M.2 or mSATA port.
You must physically inspect and confirm which port you have before buying the SSD. You should only buy a solid-state drive that has an appropriate connector.
How To Upgrade Your Laptop’s Storage: A Detailed Guide
The upgrade process for your laptop’s storage will depend on which storage interface it has. For example, if your notebook has only SATA, then you will have to replace the HDD with an SSD, and there is no way to keep both inside. However, if your laptop has an M.2 or mSATA port, you can install a solid-state drive alongside the HDD, which would certainly be more convenient.
Here’s a simple guide on how to upgrade from HDD to SSD:
Note: The following steps require some knowledge of computer hardware/electronics.
For M.2 or mSATA SSDs
Follow these steps to install an M.2 or mSATA SSD on your notebook:
For SATA SSDs
Follow these steps to replace the HDD with a SATA SSD on your notebook:
Now, you mustclone your OS from the hard drive over to the SSDto take advantage of its faster speed. We have already detailed this process previously, so check that out. For this process, both the hard drive and the solid-state drive must be connected to the same laptop, which is not a problem with M.2 drives.
However, if you connected your SSD by replacing the HDD, then you must connect the hard drive to the laptop externally through special drive enclosures for the cloning process.
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