Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Just wanted to pass on results of my laptop upgrade.

As a bit of background, 4 years ago I purchased a Dell Inspiron 15-5547 laptop running Windows 10, which came with a 1 TB HDD and 8GB of memory. The speed was initially OK ... but once I started adding programs, and editing photos the performance started to really suffer.

It's gotten so bad lately that it would take two minutes to boot my system, and approx. another 4 minutes before the system was really use-able. Running Luminar 3 has been a "joke." It typically takes 120-150 seconds to save an edited file. Just ridiculous!

So, what to do? I started doing research on new Windows 10 laptops, and the more I researched, the more expensive the laptop I wanted was becoming. I decided to watch some YouTube videos on performance upgrades, and determined that changing my HDD to an SSD and adding more memory might be the answer to my performance problem.

I have a software development background from many moons ago, but have never opened up a laptop and changed any parts. Never had the time or inclination to want to do that. But, now that I'm retired, I said "what the heck, I'll give it a shot."

After watching some more YouTube videos on SSD and memory upgrades for my particular laptop, I then ran free software from Crucial.com to determine the type of memory I had in my laptop, and how much more I could add (my laptop only supported 16 GB). The software recommended the specific memory type for my laptop. I researched and also bought a Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SSD. Bought both memory and the SSD on Amazon. I then bought Acronis True Image Backup 2019, and learned how to do a complete image backup of my HDD (and create a boot drive, for emergencies). I then "cloned" the internal HDD to my new SSD, which took about 45 minutes.

I then watched another YouTube video on opening up and installing my new SSD and memory for my particular laptop model, which took me another 35 minutes (if there is a next time, it would go much faster). It was a very straightforward, and actually easy process. I was actually amazed at how simple this whole process was.

I turned on my newly upgraded laptop, and it started up in 16 seconds, and became use-able in less than a minute! This laptop now flies! Luminar 3 started up in 11 seconds, and saving edited images went from 120-150 seconds to less than 20 seconds, which is good enough for me! I also use PSE 14, and edited images save in about 3 seconds! The memory, SSD, and Acronis software all cost me less than $250, and I now have great image backup software to boot!

So, why did I bring all of this up? For the simple reason that, if you're the least bit technically inclined, with a little research and time it's really not that difficult to upgrade your laptop to greatly increase the performance of your system. I kick myself for not doing this sooner. I really had no idea it was pretty easy to do.

Something to think about if you're having performance problems with your laptop ... unless you have a G.A.S. attack and just want to get that shiny new laptop!

Haydon

You'd probably get an additional boost in speed with a clean install with Windows. Over a period of time OS's seem to degrade no matter what safeguards you take. Congrats on your performance increase.

I installed a Samsung M2 SSD 250 GB on an 8th generation i3 and went from 30 seconds to 13 seconds with just 6 gigabyte of RAM so I can appreciate your enthusiasm.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Thanks for the advice!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

That’s a good story and thanks for posting. It demonstrates no need to toss old machines if they have a decent CPU and you can add memory and change disk. Converting to SSD will make the largest single improvement/$ that you can make, and more memory is #2 (especially if some operations involved paging to disk).

I second the suggestion of a fresh installation of Windows, but before you do, make a copy of your download file (which should have copies of most/all of your application installation files), backup up your data, and make sure you have your windows and application authentication keys. Hopefully Windows installation will find drivers for all your hardware (including peripherals such as printers and scanners), but I always create a drivers folder and download the latest drivers for every piece of HW (modem, sound, display, printer, etc.) so that I know where to find them if Windows can’t. Know that after you get everything working, you’ll need to reinstall all your applications. This will all take awhile.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Thanks for the advice. Actually, by creating an "image" of my internal HDD, I was able to avoid having to reinstall all of my applications, etc. That does take a long time. For me personally, as long as my system is performing well, I will hold off on that. I know there will come a day when I probably will need to do that. Thanks again.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

(Smile) that would probably be my decision as well.

Cheers.

repleo Loc: Boston

I was about to scrap my 5 year old laptop but thought I’d try a 1 tb SDD upgrade first. I was going to clone and install the SDD myself but chickened our. I got the Best Buy Geek Squad $200 service plan. They did the whole thing including a good clean up and 1 year anti virus service. They also cleaned up my wife’s laptop and did a fresh windows install on a third laptop that had been completely locked up by a virus. I got a new battery for my laptop and couldn’t believe the difference the whole upgrade made. The BB plan covers all of your computers plus substantial discounts for any at home services including wifi problems, dishwashers, TVs etc
Good deal

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I wonder which made the greater difference, the doubling of memory or the new SSD. How did your final price compare with the price of a new laptop?

Haydon

The HD being the slowest component will be the bottleneck in this case. My laptop has only 6 gigabyte but boots in 13 seconds now after the SSD upgrade.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Glad to hear about your success. Sad to say that we have members here who don’t have a clue about where their photos go when they put them into the computer. Before I retired I would help the folks in our office with their computer problems. The first thing they would say is "I didn’t do anything." Rarely was that the case. 😉😉

Haydon

This reminds me of the line my Dad use to feed me that drove me crazy. "It's seldom the machine and usually the operator." He was mostly correct :)

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Good for you!! I've been upgrading my PC's for years. Mostly, it is not difficult. I have used Acronis for 15+ years, have upgraded my operating system drive and recovered an Acronis backup image many times. Sounds like you learned a great deal and are PC happy!
Mark

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Everything I read said a SSD would result in the best performance gain. The 1 TB SSD was about $110. I had to remove the old memory, which was 2 X 4GB, and replace it with 2 X 8GB. It was only about $80 for the new memory. I knew in general that more memory would result in less swapping of data to/from the SSD.

All told it cost me about $250, including the new Acronis backup/cloning software. New laptops I was looking at to replace my current one was around $1,000. If I had gone that route then I would have had to deal with re-installing all my apps, etc. which I wanted to avoid at this point.

Plus, now I know how to do this type of upgrade in the future. It’s no big deal.

uhaas2009

Thank for the advice. My Sony laptop what runs good enough but not for graphic programs. I had to find out that the graphics card isn’t strong enough.....

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

Thanks! Mark, being a long time Acronis user, maybe you can answer my question if you don’t mind.

I use Carbonite for my Cloud backup. Now that I have Acronis, I did a full image backup to an external HDD, and set up Acronis to do incremental backups each Friday night. I set it up so that 5 incremental backups would occur before a new full image backup would be created again.

My question is, how can I tell if the incremental backups are actually occurring? When I look at the directory on the HDD, I see the file for the initial full image backup, but don’t see a separate file name for the incremental backup. Does Acronis just append the incremental backups to the original full image backup, and not create a separate incremental file? I have a feeling the incremental backups are not occurring for some reason.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.