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Solid State Drives (SSDs) have been around for a good while now, and it’s no secret that replacing a hard drive with an SSD can put most any computer on virtual steroids.
But it’s also well known that SSDs have one huge issue that has been holding them back from mass adoption in the PC marketplace…
Compared to traditional spinning hard drives, SSDs are both expensive and relatively limited in storage space. [Read more…]
I’ve written several posts in the past explaining how you can speed up your computer dramatically by replacing its hard drive with a Solid State Drive (SSD).
Installing an SSD is, quite literally, the best single upgrade you can make on virtually any computer. That being said, installing an SSD in a laptop does have a downside…
Byte for byte, large capacity SSDs are still relatively expensive when compared to hard drives with similar capacities, and since most laptops only have one drive bay, leaving your larger hard drive installed to hold your data isn’t usually an option. [Read more…]
Question from Andy: The 750GB hard drive in my laptop has started making strange noises and I’m afraid it’s about to go out on me. I need to replace it ASAP but I don’t know which drive I should buy to replace it with.
I’d really like to get an SSD to make the laptop run a lot faster, but my budget for the drive is only about $100 (or preferably less).
I checked around and the largest SSD I can get for that price is way too small for my needs. I really need something that’s at least as big as the drive that’s in the laptop right now.
Can you help me find the fastest hard drive I can get for $100 that’s at least 750GB?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
A while back I wrote a post explaining the benefits of replacing your hard drive with a Solid State Drive (aka SSD).
Of course the greatest benefit is the amazing speed increase you’ll gain by replacing your hard drive’s spinning platters and read/write heads with an SSD’s lightning-fast memory chips.
You might recall that in that post I recommended paying a PC Tech to swap out the drives for you, but since then I’ve had a couple of emails from folks who really wanted to try upgrading their laptops themselves, prompting me to decide to write this post explaining the procedure.
But before we get to that, if your laptop was made in such a way that the entire case has to be partially disassembled in order to access the hard drive, I still strongly recommend that you hire a qualified PC tech to remove the hard drive and install the SSD for you. Just sayin’.
On the other hand, if your laptop’s drive bay is easily accessible via a small removable cover you can swap out the drives out yourself. Just follow the instructions below.
Question from Darla: I have an HP Pavilion laptop with Windows 8.1 on it.
I recently started seeing this message every time I turn it on:
“A hard drive in the system reports that it may fail.”
The thing is the hard drive is working just fine.
Can you tell me what do I need to do to get the computer to stop showing me this message?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]