My background has always been computers from back in the age of the floppy disks. I’ve gone through the motions of wanting to design games, play them, do video editing, building websites, graphic design, and more through the old days of AOL dial up to now gigabit internet service. Technology keeps changing, but some tech doesn’t change, or it changes, but the old tech is still in use today when it should just be thrown out and replaced. Not all tech mind you, but some tech really shouldn’t be offered anymore in MANY instances. The main piece of tech I’m talking about will save you SOOO much time and headache, even with other older gear, that it’s worth upgrade it in any piece of equipment that will let you!

Your Hard Drive

When I say hard drive, I mean only that single piece of your computer.  Your computer/laptop is mainly two big pieces. The simple piece is your monitor, then the complex piece is the rest of it, or what really is your computer.  Now your computer has many different parts to it, from your motherboard, to your RAM, the power supply, a graphics card/chip, other pieces (USB controller, NIC, Sound, etc), and storage. Your Hard Drive is your storage in the computer. Now this piece is the long term storage in your computer, and if you weren’t aware, can be the main bottleneck in MOST computers in the past 10 years or so.

Think of it this way, your Hard Drive is your desk/filing cabinet.  How big of a desk/cabinet you need depends on what work you do. So many computers offer up to space like 1TB or more of storage, which is pretty big for the average person. Do you need the biggest desk around, or the biggest desk you can get?

The thing with these big desks, is they are clunky, almost harder to organize, and with the cheaper price, you get an older squeaky desk with drawers that get stuck and break easily. Sure they are big, but they are limiting you! Now do you want the older style huge desk, or would you like something the right fit for what you do, sleek, with the better drawers, built in storage, cable management, and more? You could get by with the older clunky desk, and it’ll work for you, but something that is much easier to manage will save you so much time!

Now how do you know if you got the right hard drive, or you need something better? How frustrated are you with your computer? Do you remember what it was like on dial up internet? The difference in changing your hard drive is almost as drastic as going from dial up to high speed internet.

Solid State Hard Drives

If you look at new computers, usually desktops, you’ll notice the budget versions will list a 1TB, 2TB, or more HDD (Hard Drive Disk). These are almost always the old slower drives with a lot of space. If you have an older computer you picked up somewhere and kept the sticker on the side of the case, chances are it will show the different specs, and if it shows just an HDD, then chances are you have an older one. If you look at the slightly better computers, you might notice it will show a smaller sized drive, say a 128GB, 256GB, or 500GB SSD (HDD). Those are what you are wanting if purchasing new, and those will be an upgrade that once you experience it, you’ll never want to go back to the older drives.

Now, this isn’t something you just get in a new computer, you CAN upgrade your current computers hard drive to a Solid State Drive.  This might require you asking your tech friend for help with transferring your data and plugging it in.  You don’t need to go to a big store or anywhere to do so, as it’s not something too drastic of a change.

So what do you need?  Here are some suggestions:

Samsung 860 Evo 250GB
Crucial MX500 250GB
Samsung 860 Pro 256GB

Now you can get them in Larger or even smaller sizes if needed, but prices do start to fluctuate the higher you go, while smaller isn’t enough savings to bother. These drives do not come with cabling, so if your computer doesn’t have the enough connections for power (rare, but does happen with budget computers) then you might need to get a power split cable. Don’t worry though, because if you need one or not, you’ll most likely need a bracket and normal SATA cable and screws.  Why these aren’t included in SSDs is beyond me, but luckily, you can buy a full kit for pretty cheap.

Inateck Internal Hard Disk Drive Mounting Kit Bracket

So with one of the hard drives above, and this kit, you can use the included software (or download from their website) to mirror your current drive to your new SSD. Once you do so, you’ll be amazed at how much faster everything is!

You’ll start booting and using the new drive, and everything will seem so much faster. Sometimes even over 50% faster than before. Keep the old drive as a backup, and enjoy. An older computer is brought back to life anew.

Note: This wont work with every computer, but many that are within the past 10 years will be fine. Also note, many laptops have SSDs or will require a specialized person to install them if you don’t have one installed, if it’s even possible.  Laptops are much harder to upgrade or may be impossible to.