Can I replace my traditional hard disk with SSD in XPS 15 (2010)?

[Windows Central Question]

Hello,

I have a Laptop, model XPS 15(L502X) with 1 TB harddisk.
The performance has decreased manifolds. Partly due to lack of updated drivers (yeah, I cannot download updated drivers anymore, bummer :\ ), and partly because I think my hard disk is not performing well.

Is it feasible to change the hard disk in a model which is 7 years old ?

Is it worth it ? What are the other ways to improve the performance ?

Thanks
Chintan

 

[TechFreak1]

Hello,

I have a Laptop, model XPS 15(L502X) with 1 TB harddisk.
The performance has decreased manifolds. Partly due to lack of updated drivers (yeah, I cannot download updated drivers anymore, bummer :\ ), and partly because I think my hard disk is not performing well.

Is it feasible to change the hard disk in a model which is 7 years old ?

Is it worth it ? What are the other ways to improve the performance ?

Thanks
Chintan

If the hard drive is easily accessible, then definitely however given the cost of SSD's you are going to be sacrificing storage space for speed. As a 1tb 2,5 solid state costs about £306 (as of 7th of November 2017) on scan.co.uk. Compared to a mechanical costs about less than £70 or so - massive difference in price.

If you want a balanced product in terms of cost, speed and space - than you are looking at a hybrid disk drive but most consumer grade solutions only have 8 Gigs of Nand Storage (the solid state part). So you're not going to be install windows and some applications on that partition.

Plus there are some drives that use that portion as a cache, so you will have to tinker around the settings to use that cache and prevent the drive from obliterating your data.

Never the less, the easiest solution would be to get a external 2.5 hdd enclosure and stick your laptop hard drive in that and get a 500 gb ssd.

Personally I'd recommend getting a 3.5 1x2 tb hdds + enclosures and backing up your laptop hdd on that one of them and getting a 250 gb ssd. Use the other 1 tb hdd for bulk data storage and install your apps and games on the ssd. For storing work I'd suggest something like onedrive now that they have finally fixed placeholders.



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[xandros9]

As for whether you should, if you're happy with the computer's performance (and I mean primarily graphics performance like in games) and don't care for buying a newer PC, an SSD can breathe new life into a PC that old, which is still relatively modern.

 

[Katie2016]

If you don't have any plan to purchase a new PC, it is worth to try a new SSD. Maybe your laptop will serve you a couple of years.
Even if you purchase a new computer in the future, the SSD you purchase now can be used to that computer as well. So why not enjoy it now?
One more thing, if you want to keep everything intact from old hard drive to new SSD, it is good to do disk cloning or backup&restore.
For a laptop, backup&restore is more reliable. Just in case you need: SONY laptop hard drive upgrade. With steps and screenshots.