This is going to be a quick post about upgrading / migrating / cloning your hard drive to a newer, faster solid state drive. I plan to have a few more in-depth guides on this process, but this post will be a generic overview if you’re thinking of making the upgrade. The plan is discuss what you will need and what to look out for when purchasing a new solid state drive for upgrading.
Why Upgrade?
Computers, including most you can still purchase today, will include a mechanical hard drive. Mechanical hard drives are cheap, dependable (for the most part), and get the job done. They are however very slow in comparison to the other parts of your computer. Because of this, upgrading your mechanical hard drive to a solid state drive can make a huge performance impact (in the positive direction). A solid state drive has no mechanical parts and instead uses memory chips similar to your computer’s RAM to provide a fast way to read and write data.
Sold? Let’s talk about upgrading…
If this sounds good so far, let’s discuss upgrading. There are a few considerations with upgrading that you should definitely keep in mind.
For one, solid state drives are becoming cheaper but are still expensive if you compare the amount of storage space per dollar to a mechanical hard drive. You can purchase a 1 Terabyte mechanical hard drive for between $50-$60. However, a 1 Terabyte solid state drive will run you between $250-$300. That’s a significant difference that should be considered before choosing to replace your drive. Lastly, unless you’re trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your computer, you can choose a cheaper solid state drive. I will say that Samsung drives have proven to be the fastest option on the market (for the most part), but a cheaper drive is not a bad choice as it will still be significantly faster than your older hard drive.
The second thing to consider is actual required drive space. Just because your computer has a 1 Terabyte hard drive that does not mean you need a 1 Terabyte solid state drive. Most people can get by just fine with a 256GB or 512GB solid state drive. You should check how much space your computer is currently using and purchase a drive with that much space and some additional room for the future. This can be a much more affordable option than shelling out $300 for a 1 Terabyte solid state drive.
The third consideration is cloning your old drive to a new drive. This process is not terribly complicated, but it does require having some specialty cables / docks available to make the process easy. You will need to connect the new solid state drive to the computer you want to clone. You can get a cheap USB to SATA cable from Amazon to make this simple (linked). You can also use a completely separate computer to perform the clone in which case you would want a two-drive docking station to connect both drives (linked). You can then use free software like Macrium Reflect to clone your current disk to the SSD. They have a great guide located at: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Cloning+a+disk
Too much for you? Skip the trouble!
If you’re not interested in doing the research on a new drive and spending the time cloning your old drive, MarpTech is here to support your computer upgrade needs. We can provide assistance with selecting a new solid state drive and perform the clone for you. We can get most solid state drives in 2 days and perform a clone in just a few hours.
As always, we appreciate you making it this far in a post. If you have any questions/concerns, feel free to drop a comment below.
See also
- The Season of Scamming: Dealing with Scams During the Holidays
- WiFi Woes and How to Solve Them for Cheap
- It's Almost Fall, Time for that Late Spring Cleaning - Dusting your PC/Laptop for Improved Performance
- Recover Your Data When Your Computer Stops Working (Basic Data Recovery)
- Windows 10 Start-Up Repair/Recovery - How to fix your Windows 10 PC when it fails to boot