IDguy Loc: Idaho

I bit the bullet this week and installed a 1 TB SSD in my somewhat aged Lenovo (maybe five years old). The drive was $139 and they charged $99 to install and transfer all my programs (including Windows 10) and data to it.

The improvement was much more gratifying than I expected. It had degraded to taking several agonizing minutes to start up. It now does so in seconds. And, the important part for photographers, Lightroom and Photoshop perform on steroids.

I did this a year ago on my primary photography computer and it had the same effect there. I hadn't done it to the Lenovo, which was my wife's computer, because I didn't use it much. But I decided it was time to take it along in the RV so I could do better editing than on my iPad. Looking forward to it when we head south late January/early February.

So,
1. If you buy a new windows machine be sure to get one with a SSD. It isn't that much more anymore.
2. If you have an old guy that is agonizingly slow spend the $250 to spice it up. You'll be glad you did.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

fredpnm Loc: Corrales, NM

If you do decide to get a new computer make certain that the SSD is NVMe, not the standard SSD. NVMe is much, much faster than the original 'standard' SSD.

Most older desktops/laptops cannot use NVMe, so don't hope you can retrofit those to your older machines.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Most Windows PCs come with at least 2 NVMe PCIe m.2 slots - which are 4x - 10x faster than the SATA SSD you installed on your Lenovo. In fact, I just purchased a laptop this past summer, and getting a mechanical drive for a boot drive wasn't even an option, nor was a SATA SSD. The computer can accommodate (2) m.2 drives - and a 2TB drive cost me $290 installed by the vendor, XoticPC. So I agree for the most part, but I would get a machine with at least (1) m.2 slot, preferably 2 - for a boot up and program loading experience that is even faster than a SATA SSD.

Schoee Loc: Europe

Glad to hear of your greatly improved performance but I also agree with the other people who commented that if getting a new machine make sure you go for m.2 NVME type of drive. Mine is 7 times faster than normal SSD.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

And if your computer is too old to have an NVME m.2 slot, a cheap/simple PCIe adapter ($15-20) will allow you to use it if you have an open PCIe slot (use the one with the most lanes if you have a choice). There is no real performance hit vs an m.2 slot, but an older machine may not allow you to boot from a PCIe slot

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes, these on the MOBO m.2 "C" drives are ultra fast; my 2/2020 Home-built has one. I do not understand why people make Home-building of computers be a fearful thing. Yes in 1980-90s it took luck and skill, but now the skill level is that of a lamp in the wall, and is nose-picking easy. A will not plug into slot B, all things only go where they should. Set your price level and do a You-Tube search for a video on how2 and what to buy.

Here are examples:
https://techreport.com/blog/3470923/ryzen-up-the-1000-pc-build/
https://techbuyersguru.com/1000-gamingproductivity-pc-build

Cloning drives is not difficult nor is installing. Once you see a couple of videos you have the process down cold. You take 5 minutes to set up, press go, and walk away and it will auto clone. Many free programs out there for cloning.

One should backup their HDs monthly. Also, restore points are important.
https://techjourney.net/force-automatic-system-restore-points-creation-change-trigger-schedule/

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

My very first experience with personal computers was in 1983, when the two choices were Compaq and IBM. I bought all the components to build a desktop PC - 384 kb of DIPs to populate an AST Multifunction memory/I/O board, a Tecmar Graphics Master 16 color graphics card, an IBM mono graphics card with a parallel port, two 5.25" half height floppy drives, 13" Amdek mono display, 14" NEC color CRT - It cost me $4500, but it was still cheaper than buying an IBM with less capacity. It took me half a day to build it, and another 3 days to figure out how to get to a DOS prompt and load Multimate, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase III, and a pirated copy of Autcad v 1. NO tech support, no internet, no youtube to refer to - totally flying by the seat of my pants and constantly checking for smoke each time I hit the power switch. The other funny part was trying to get my serial printer - a daisywheel style printer to properly connect - I had read about a "breakout box" to get the pinouts required by the printer and the serial port, but had never used one - that was "fun". The rest is history.

jcryan Loc: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic

I upgraded my 12 year old Dell Inspiron Laptop to 16 gig ram and a 1TB SSD last week. I run Ubuntu and it is almost instant on. One trick I found is to detach external hard drives before booting.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, wise move. Even better is the M.2 drive, which is a tiny circuit board.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

When I built a couple of PCs four years ago, the M.2 was PCIe. I have a new motherboard from that time period, and I decided to build another PC. Luckily, I read the manual and saw that I must get a PCIe M.2 because it cannot take the NMMe. The PCIe is cheaper, though. Prices have come way down since 2016. I'm getting a 1TB M.s for $94. I paid $279 for a 500GB M.2.

SonyBug

Now if you buy the fastest Samsung m.2, it may cost a little more, but it is blazing fast.

CaptainPhoto

Had a HP laptop I bought for mobile - photo processing. It was one of the few 17" screens with a DVD drive that you could buy. As LR and PS got bigger the spin up drive was a little slow so I upgraded the drive to SSD and put in more RAM - works great. I have two SSD drive on my custom desk top.
Love the speed.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

Built my first one before there were any color systems, but much like you it was by the seat of my pants. Eventually put a 20MB hard drive in it. Like most, I thought who in the world will ever need that much data space. Little did I envision what the future would hold.

Bubbee Loc: Aventura, Florida

[quote=IDguy]I bit the bullet this week and installed a 1 TB SSD in my somewhat aged Lenovo (maybe five years old). The drive was $139 and they charged $99 to install and transfer all my programs (including Windows 10) and data to it.

The improvement was much more gratifying than I expected. It had degraded to taking several agonizing minutes to start up. It now does so in seconds. And, the important part for photographers, Lightroom and Photoshop perform on steroids.

I did this a year ago on my primary photography computer and it had the same effect there. I hadn't done it to the Lenovo, which was my wife's computer, because I didn't use it much. But I decided it was time to take it along in the RV so I could do better editing than on my iPad. Looking forward to it when we head south late January/early February.

So,
1. If you buy a new windows machine be sure to get one with a SSD. It isn't that much more anymore.
2. If you have an old guy that is agonizingly slow spend the $250 to spice it up. You'll be glad you did.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.[/quote
I' m presently going through the same experience...and comparable price...and I'm worried sick! Just left my older Asus with Best Buy's Geek Squad which I had to join for $199 to change my filled 1TB with a 2TB. I'm so worried about the cloning or alternate process that I called and ordered an exterior 2TB for backup. More $'s! I feel better after reading your blog....Thanks!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Glad you’re implementing a backup. Why not just add a 2nd drive and move some data to the new drive rather than replacing and cloning the original?