It's no secret anymore, new desktops and laptops have skyrocketed in price and can be quite hard to find. Global shipping issues have reduced a once abundant PC supply to a trickle and the market has adjusted to match with no end for the foreseeable future.
That brings up a problem: Your PC is already a few years old and isn't getting any younger. Perhaps you were planning on replacing it sometime this year, maybe as a Christmas gift to yourself or an end-of-year write off. But with laptop prices sitting over $1000 for even a decent, basic "every day" system, replacement may just not be in the cards right now.
What if there was a way to possibly coax a few more years out of what you have now? A way to "refresh" your current laptop and make it run almost like new again at a fraction of the cost of new? I'm talking about upgrading your system with a Solid State Drive.
The solid-state drive (SSD) has swiftly become the go-to upgrade to breathe new life into an ageing computer, and for good reason too. An SSD can swiftly bring an old laptop or desktop up to date with more modern machines in just a single step.
Out with The Old
Traditionally, most laptops and desktops have used what is called a Hard Disk Drive or HDD for storage purposes. HDDs are a technology that dates back as far as the 1950s. They became the default solution all PCs would use for decades to come. Many laptop and desktop machines even today still contain this type of storage device.
The HDD is a very mechanical device. Inside a solid outer casing is a series of spinning disks arranged in a delicate stack known as a platter. Each disk could read and save data using a tiny needle moving across the disk's surface. The technology looked and worked much like a miniature record player. Like a record player, widely in use at the time that hard drives were developed, the hard drive had some serious drawbacks in their use.
The series of tiny disks and needles that made up the HDD were incredibly fragile. Vulnerable to dust or movement, computers commonly succumbed to hard drive failures that rendered the machine and its stored data unusable. Occasionally, simply moving a laptop while reading or writing data can damage a hard drive's spinning disk.
The other major drawback to HDDs being mechanical is that they are slow. Spinning platters and moving arms with needles are limited by the laws of physics and, as a result, HDDs are very limited in how much data can be read/written over a period of time.
In with The New
Solid State Drives (SSDs) on the other hand use silicon chips passing electrical signals and have no moving parts. This not only makes them much more durable than HDDs but far faster than an HDD.
An SSD simply makes the process of retrieving and saving data to storage many times faster. Eliminating the mechanical component, removing the need to move a physical disk, and not needing to physically pick up the data means a much faster and smoother operation.
Computer startup, where the operating system loads all its data from storage, can take as little as one-quarter of the time of a comparable HDD. Additionally, loading regular applications and data from an SSD takes a fraction of time of an HDD.
An SSD can completely breathe new life into an old machine. Computers with an SSD replacement for the hard drive feel like using an entirely new machine for a fraction of the cost.
Replacing the main mechanical component additionally eliminates wear and tear working to break down your machine. While an HDD slows over time, degrades, and can eventually suffer mechanical failure; an SSD remains as durable as the day it was purchased.
An Ideal Upgrade
In a laptop setting, the SSD makes complete sense. They require less power than older hard drives, making the most of your battery charge.
In addition, not needing a large disk platter, mechanical parts, or protective outer case means they are about half the weight of a mechanical drive. Making an old machine lightweight brings it another step closer to a modern machine.
They run almost silently too. The familiar click-clack of the hard drive inside a laptop is a thing of the past. Many users comment on the noise their laptop used to make starting up and loading programs. Noisy laptops are a tech throwback we're happy to leave behind.
For many who feel like their old laptop or desktop is showing its age, the prohibitive cost of purchasing a whole new machine keeps them invested in their old one. A simple, fast SSD upgrade can make your old machine like-new again at a much smaller price. If swapping long startups, and slow load times sounds right for you, consider upgrading to an SSD. You won't look back.