Hi guys,
I have a Samsung NP550P5C Core I7 8GB RAM laptop, 650m nvidia gpu, with a slow-arse ~650GB 5200rpm hard disk, regularly hitting average response times above 5000 milliseconds, very slow boot up, and I even disabled my swap file so I'm better off now as my usage pattern or whatever leads to a lot of swap file accesses, now I don't have a swap file, response is much faster (read: instant) when switching applications.
So I thought the best I can do to prolong my laptop's life is to add some juice to it, but I'm low on cash currently and I won't be able to buy one of those >200GB ones that cost an arm and a leg, plus I need the storage space right in the laptop.
I'm thinking of:
I'm not sure if the latter is always possible because my blu ray drive bay's cover is shaped like the bottom right edge of the laptop (it's curved), any standard cover would stick out like a sore thumb. My limited googling revealed standard issue DVD bay replacements as ATA adapters (there are both for ssd's)
My alternatives would be to get hybrid drives but I'd want complete control over the partitions (one partition just ssd, rest is spinning disc). Is this possible?
What is the lowest acceptable SSD size these days? (I do some "photoshopping", do some web programming, lots of web browsing)
Is there already a thread for this?
I have a Samsung NP550P5C Core I7 8GB RAM laptop, 650m nvidia gpu, with a slow-arse ~650GB 5200rpm hard disk, regularly hitting average response times above 5000 milliseconds, very slow boot up, and I even disabled my swap file so I'm better off now as my usage pattern or whatever leads to a lot of swap file accesses, now I don't have a swap file, response is much faster (read: instant) when switching applications.
So I thought the best I can do to prolong my laptop's life is to add some juice to it, but I'm low on cash currently and I won't be able to buy one of those >200GB ones that cost an arm and a leg, plus I need the storage space right in the laptop.
I'm thinking of:
- Getting a low capacity (120GB tops) ssd
- Keep the existing hard disk, remove the blu-ray drive which I never used till now, and use an adapter for the hard drive.
I'm not sure if the latter is always possible because my blu ray drive bay's cover is shaped like the bottom right edge of the laptop (it's curved), any standard cover would stick out like a sore thumb. My limited googling revealed standard issue DVD bay replacements as ATA adapters (there are both for ssd's)
My alternatives would be to get hybrid drives but I'd want complete control over the partitions (one partition just ssd, rest is spinning disc). Is this possible?
What is the lowest acceptable SSD size these days? (I do some "photoshopping", do some web programming, lots of web browsing)
Is there already a thread for this?