When and why to replace an outdated HDD with a new SSD. Installing an SSD is the best way to make your computer feel like new Is it worth replacing your hard drive with an ssd

Why is replacing an old hard drive with a modern SSD (solid state) device a significant upgrade to your computer? It's very simple - increase the amount of RAM, replace the processor or install a new, faster graphics adapter and the overall speed of the system will increase - undoubtedly... however, the difference will not always be noticeable to the naked eye, with the exception of some individual cases, such as games, for example.

But replace the hard drive with an SSD and... oh, miracle! Your slow computer will suddenly become a speed demon. An operating system that previously took a minute to boot (slowly and painfully) now starts up in the blink of an eye. And operations such as copying and moving files take a few seconds, and even the software mastodon Adobe Photoshop literally flies!

The reason, of course, is that SSD technology is significantly more modern than the classic platter-based hard drives, which have been around for more than half a century. This doesn't mean that SSDs don't have their drawbacks; the two most serious of which are the still very high prices per gigabyte of capacity and the (comparatively) limited service life.

What is an SSD?

In practice, it is an array of non-volatile flash memory chips designed so that the operating system identifies it as a storage device (aka a “hard drive”).

Purely technical features of solid-state devices are not so important. What is important is the fact that, due to their special design, they have a number of significant advantages over traditional hard drives (HDD), the most obvious of which is significantly higher operating speed.

SSDs also have no moving parts, making them ideal for use in laptops and other modern mobile devices as they are less vulnerable to damage that can be caused by physical impact.

Moreover, solid-state devices require significantly less energy to operate compared to classic magnetic disks, which again makes them an ideal choice for any laptop.

Against the background of all this, you are probably already wondering why all computer manufacturers have not switched en masse to this class of disks and continue to rely on the good old HDD?

Time for bad news - since SSD devices continue to be a relatively new technology, their cost per unit of volume is still quite high. For example, a model with a capacity of 120 GB costs about 3,000 rubles. For the same price you can buy a hard drive with approximately 7-8 times the capacity.

SSD - usage

It is because of these stated arguments that at present it makes the most sense to bet on a combination of a solid-state device and a classic hard drive, both from a practical and financial point of view.

However, in the case of laptops this is not always possible, although today on the market you can find models that have a special compartment for a second hard drive. But if the laptop has an optical drive, then it can also be replaced with an additional hard drive (or SSD).

If your laptop comes with a classic magnetic disk pre-installed, you can easily replace it with a fast and modern SSD. Note, however, that by doing this you will probably have to sacrifice capacity at the expense of speed, i.e. your laptop will run noticeably faster, but you will have less storage space.

This, of course, is not a big problem and you can always transfer some of the files to an external hard drive so that you can use them only when you need them.

One way or another, you should know that an SSD reveals its potential exactly when the operating system is installed. Its work involves constant access to the disk device (reading and writing), so the higher the disk speed, the faster it will execute the commands given to it.

Choose correctly

Today the SSD market offers a solid variety of models. Of course, not all are created equal - some are faster than others, some are more reliable, and all have different capacities.

The principle that applies here is similar to the main criterion when choosing any type of storage device - you need to divide the cost of the drive by its capacity to get a figure known as "cost per gigabyte". The idea is to find the best value from this point of view, but keep in mind that solid-state devices only look like hard drives, but in reality they use a completely different technology.

In this regard, they have one very specific feature - their speed largely depends on their volume. So a 60 GB drive, for example, is slower than a 128 GB drive, which in turn is slower than a 256 GB model, and so on. However, even the slowest SSD is still many times faster than the fastest HDD, so this shouldn't bother you too much.

Much more important is the so-called solid-state form factor. If you are going to buy an SSD for your laptop, it is very important to know the size of the drive bay your laptop comes with. Most modern laptops use 2.5-inch hard drives, but there are also options with a 1.8-inch drive bay, so it's best to find out before you go shopping.

Preparing for the update

The first thing you need to do is decide what to do with the information that is already stored on your hard drive. The easiest way is to copy it to another medium, for example, to an external hard drive. In addition, you can use one of the cloud services for online storage, but, depending on the amount of data and the speed of the Internet connection, the process of downloading files may take a long time.

Update

Replacing a hard drive is one of the simplest operations you can imagine. The chances of spoiling something are minimal. If you are not confident in your technical knowledge and skills, then it is better to seek professional help.

In laptops, the hard drive is usually located under a cover at the bottom of the device. Detailed information on this issue, which is often accompanied by visual illustrations or even videos, can be found on the laptop manufacturer’s website.

Place the machine with the lid down, remove the battery and unplug the laptop. With the drive cover removed, remove the hard drive and then connect the SSD.

Also keep in mind that you should have an optical disc or other external media with a copy of the operating system on hand. If you are a Microsoft OS user, then use Windows 7, 8.x or 10 as these versions are optimized to work with SSD, but the latter two are much better optimized.

You probably know the installation process - it is no different from installing Windows on a regular hard drive.

By the way, if you have a regular computer or laptop that allows you to connect two disks to it at the same time, that is, you have the ability to connect an SSD without removing the hard drive, then you don’t even have to reinstall the operating system - just transfer it from the HDD directly to SSD, for example, using or, which have a built-in automated migration wizard from HDD to SSD.

Once the SSD is connected and the operating system is installed/transferred to it, you will have a blazingly fast system that you will barely recognize as your computer.

Have a great day!

Hard drive space is not infinite. The development of technology has made it possible to create disks larger than 1 TB, and everyone feels an illusory feeling that space will never run out. However, as disks evolve, so do technologies that take up disk space. For example, HD video eats up gigabytes of space for breakfast.

This was the dark side of the issue. The bright side is that learning how to replace a hard drive is a piece of cake! Therefore, there is no need to worry too much about a hard drive that is almost full. Read on, and all the secrets of this procedure will be revealed to you.

Finding a Good Replacement

Before purchasing a new HDD, you will need to know the connection type of the old one. Today, the most used type of data transfer cable is SATA.

However, computers that are already 5-6 years old may use a connection known as IDE. The difference between them is easy to recognize: an IDE cable really looks like a cable with countless wires, and a SATA connection is a small wire ending in an “L” shaped adapter. In the picture below you can easily see the difference - on the left is a SATA drive, and on the right is an IDE connection. Laptop hard drives are often smaller, but the connections are the same.

By the way, about the sizes. Please consider the physical dimensions of the disk when purchasing. There are currently two popular sizes on the market – 3.5″ and 2.5″. The larger one is for desktop PCs, the smaller one is for small systems and laptops. However, many “heavy” hard drives are 2.5″ in size, regardless of the computer that is equipped with them. There is another exception to the rule: some factory all-in-one computers use the 2.5″ size.

Transferring Information from Old to New

The process of actually replacing a hard drive is one of the simplest, judging by the physical effort required. However, the hard drive is one of the most important components of the system; all your information is stored on it, from the operating system to your mail, movies and favorite songs. Therefore, a simple replacement will deprive you of all this information.

If your computer supports multiple hard drives, then this problem can be easily fixed. You simply connect a second hard drive to the system and clone the old drive to the new one using one of thousands of free utilities. You can then put the old drive away on the shelf or format it to use as a spare (check that the cloning was successful before you do this!).

It's more difficult if your computer only supports one hard drive, so you won't be able to transfer data directly. In this case, copying is only possible using a separately purchased USB-SATA adapter or external HDD. Cloning this way may take longer due to the limitations of the USB connection, but it will eventually be done.

Replacing an Old Hard Drive

Desktop PCs are usually designed so that the hard drive is located in the front middle, between the CD/DVD and the bottom, with diodes and additional connectors. The process is not that complicated and only requires hands, eyes and a screwdriver.

Open both panels of the case. If you have a SATA drive, then unhook the cable and additional power, if any. If IDE, first disconnect the additional power, then the cable. Make a note of where you put them and remove the screws. Try to keep the case level to prevent it from falling and causing damage to the disc and surroundings.

Then, to connect the new hard drive, you can use the same screws - most often the connectors are universal. But if the drive comes with separate screws, use them. After that, connect - to IDE: first the cable, then the power, to SATA: first the power (if connected), then the cable.

With laptops it's a little different. For the most part, the hard drive in them is hidden behind a plastic cover at the bottom of the device, secured with a pair of screws. Having removed it, you will see, in fact, the disk, also secured with several screws. You just need to pull it out and insert a new one. All connections are built directly into the device, so you don't have to worry about cables. Please note that not every laptop can be modified in this way, so read the instructions to avoid difficulties.

Divide And Conquer Download

After the replacement, you will no doubt want to check that everything is working well. If you cloned the disk, then everything should be fine. Cloning programs offer to adjust the sizes of new partitions, trying to match the sizes of old ones as much as possible, and your PC will understand everything on its own. To make sure, go to Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management, here you will see which disks the system recognizes and which partitions are in use. If not all the space is used, you can increase the partition size or create a new one. Please note that some of the disk space will not be displayed, as it is used to store deleted files, information and data assigned by the manufacturer.

If you were unable to copy the old disk, this step is not necessary, since you will have to create and format a new partition during the OS installation process.

Conclusion

I hope this article has provided comprehensive information about installing a new hard drive. May you always have free space!

As you know, even the best and highest quality things sooner or later fail. The computer hard drive is no exception. Also, in addition to problems, the reason for replacing the hard drive may be a lack of memory capacity. Whatever the reason why you want to change your hard drive, you will have to take into account that replacing a hard drive is not quite the same as replacing other components of a personal computer. The hard drive stores the operating system, programs, and many personal user files. And if with personal data the situation is quite simple - just connect a cable and transfer data from one hard drive to another, then with the operating system and programs everything is a little more complicated. They cannot just be taken and copied. But this does not mean that you will have to reinstall the operating system and all programs again. To transfer the system from one hard drive to another, Windows 7 has standard tools with which you can solve this problem.

Open menu Start and go to Control Panel. Then go to the section Archiving and recovery and select Creating a system image.

In the next window, you will need to select which device you want to save the archive to. It is best to save the archive to an external hard drive or to a second internal hard drive.

Next, check the box for your system drive on which the operating system and programs are installed, and in the next window, confirm the start of the operation with the button Archive. On average, the procedure for archiving a system into an image ranges from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the amount of information and the power of your computer.

Now it's time to replace the hard drive. When replacing a hard drive, be sure to turn off the computer and unplug the power cord. After installing the new hard drive, boot from the Windows 7 installation disk. Partition the new disk and format it with the NTFS file system. After this, interrupt the installation process and restart your computer without removing the installation disc. Now in the installation disk menu, instead of installing, select System Restore.

In the next window, select the switch on the item Restoring your computer system using a previously created system image.

In the next window, confirm the system image details and click Further. Then again Further, and in the last window, start recovery with the button Ready. A warning window will appear informing you that all data will be replaced with data from the system image. After you agree to the warning, the process of restoring the operating system from the previously created image will begin, after which the computer will automatically restart. Thus, using only the built-in tools of the Windows OS, you can easily transfer the system to another drive, while maintaining all your programs and personal settings.

Hi all! It's the end of 2018 and there is no better way to speed up your laptop than replacing your old and slow HDD with an SSD (solid state drive). Why else would you need to install an SSD in a laptop? - It’s simple... a laptop is a mobile device, and classic HDDs are mechanical and are terribly afraid of shaking, and I was always surprised by laptop users who dragged their laptops turned on around the office or around the house. An SSD has no moving parts and if you drop the device, you will most likely break the display, break the connector... but the solid state drive will most likely survive, and the HDD, in turn, with a 99% probability (if it was dropped while it was on) will have to be replaced!

Why then aren’t SSDs installed everywhere? — The main problem is the price. Classic hard drives are still the leader due to their relative cheapness, but the available performance is sorely lacking. Storing movies or rarely used data on an SSD is completely irrational. I remember at the very beginning of my acquaintance with computers I allocated space on the drive for the system (Disk C) and for games and other files (Disk D).

Now the situation is repeating itself, only for the system I use a high-speed SSD drive, and for storing large amounts of information, classic mechanical HDD drives. Recently, consumer solid-state drives have become more and more affordable, and a 120 gigabyte disk (in my opinion, optimal for the system) can be purchased for around 2,000 rubles, even taking into account the astronomical dollar exchange rate.

Now it’s worth talking about some nuances. Now I can’t say for sure, but since 2005, almost all laptops have had a SATA interface for connecting a hard drive - the easiest way is to replace them with an SSD (just open and change them). Laptop hard drives (form factor 2.5) had two standard thicknesses (9.5 and 7 mm), so try to choose a 7mm SSD drive (I haven’t met others, but just in case)- after all, 7mm will definitely fit in place of 9mm... but on the contrary, nothing will work!

Currently, the M.2 connector is gaining popularity (including on classic computers) - they can also work using the SATA or NVME protocol. Visually, they may be practically the same - so it’s worth reading the documentation for your laptop to find out what type of SSD it supports (and it happens that you can plug both an NVME and a SATA drive into one connector... of course, not at the same time)

So... let's sum it up! We found out that SSDs come in several form factors:

SATA 2.5 SSD
M.2 SSD (SATA or NVME)

We take the required SSD and get ready to replace it!

Installing an SSD in a laptop instead of an old HDD

What will you need? A bright head, the SSD itself and a screwdriver (usually a small Phillips head)… and it wouldn’t hurt to prepare an external HDD for copying data

Before you start disassembling your laptop, I highly recommend taking a look at Youtube and searching for your laptop model to see how you will have to get to the installed HDD. For some laptops this is easy, but in some models you may have to go through half the device to get to the drive.

We simply replace the HDD with a purchased SSD and can reinstall the system (or transfer the existing one to a new drive... but I recommend doing a clean installation!)

What to do with an old HDD

If you have forgotten when you used a DVD drive, then your best option would be to install the old HDD in the optical drive bay. The cost of this thing (called optibay) is about 200 rubles on Aliexpress (if you don’t know how to order there, read the note about the online store) ... however, there are some nuances here, just like with HDD. Laptops use standard and slim (thin) drives - therefore optibay must be of a certain size... there are 9.5 and 12.7 mm thick - don’t go wrong when buying!

Why HDD in optibay and not SSD?- a logical question! The first thing that comes to mind is performance... the reason why we take an SSD can be offset by the low throughput of the drive in such an adapter. Well, not every laptop can start correctly with an SSD in the DVD bay.

Will this ruin the appearance of the laptop?— this will have absolutely no effect on the appearance of the device! All drives in laptops are standard, so the external socket is removed from the old DVD and transferred to Optibay - you will even have the button to open the drive... but it will no longer be of any use!

And finally, you can make an external hard drive from your old HDD and use it as a huge flash drive. There are still people who need a DVD drive and under no circumstances should they occupy it. This gadget costs about 500 rubles and does not require any special skills - insert it and it works!

As you can see, you can always find somewhere to put an old HDD - there are no problems with that...

What to do with the operating system?

Ideally, of course, reinstalling a clean OS from scratch - fortunately it takes very little time. However, there are utilities for migrating to an SSD without losing data - but this topic is quite extensive and would take up a whole series of notes, so I don’t see the point of discussing it here.

If there's room for M.2

If your laptop is equipped with an m.2 connector, then you are lucky - just buy a drive of the required volume and size (usually 2280 - where the first two digits are the width, and the second two are the length). Well, the subsequent reinstallation of the system or cloning from your old HDD. The undoubted advantage is that the old HDD will remain in the laptop and there is no need to purchase any additional devices (and the DVD drive will not have to be removed from the system).

conclusions

What do we have? — Installing an SSD in a laptop will give the most noticeable performance boost in everyday tasks like surfing the Internet and working with files. It makes no sense to replace the old HDD if you want to increase the gaming performance of your system - an SSD will only help speed up loading, which in general will have a minimal impact on the number of FPS in games...

Replacing a conventional hard drive with an SSD can significantly improve operating comfort and provide reliable data storage. This is why many users try to replace the HDD with a solid-state drive. However, after replacing the drive, you need to somehow transfer your operating system along with installed programs.

On the one hand, you can install everything again and then there will be no problems with moving to a new disk. But what to do if the old one has about a dozen programs, and the OS itself is already configured for comfortable work? It is this question that we will answer in our article.

So, you purchased a brand new SSD and now you need to somehow transfer the OS itself with all the settings and installed programs. Fortunately, we don't have to invent anything. Software developers (as well as the developers of the Windows operating system) have already taken care of everything.

Thus, we have two options: either use a third-party utility or standard Windows tools.

Before moving on to the instructions, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the disk to which you will transfer your operating system must be no smaller than the one on which it is installed.

Method 1: Transfer OS to SSD using AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition

First, let's take a closer look at the method of transferring an operating system using a third-party utility. Currently, there are many different utilities that allow you to easily transfer an OS. For example, we took the AOMEI Partition Assistant application. This tool is free and has a Russian interface.

Among the large number of functions, the application contains a very convenient and simple wizard for transferring the operating system to another disk, which we will use in our example. The wizard we need is located on the left panel in the “ Masters", to call it, click on the command " Transfer OS SSD or HDD».

A window with a small description appeared in front of us, after reading the information, click on the button “ Further" and move on to the next step.

Here the wizard prompts you to select the disk where the OS will be transferred. Please note that the drive must not be partitioned, that is, it must not contain partitions or a file system, otherwise you will get an empty list at this step.
So, once you have selected the target disk, click the “ Further" and move on.

The next step will be marking the drive to which the operating system is transferred. Here you can change the partition size if necessary, but do not forget that the partition must be no smaller than the one on which the OS is installed. Also, if necessary, you can specify a letter for the new partition.
Once all the parameters have been set, proceed to the next step by clicking the " Further».

Here the wizard prompts us to complete the setup of the AOMEI Partition Assistant application to migrate the system to an SSD. But before that, you can read a small warning. It says that after a reboot, in some cases the OS may not boot. And if you encounter a similar problem, then you need to disconnect the old disk or connect a new one in place of the old one, and the old one in place of the new one. To confirm all actions, press the button “ End» and complete the wizard’s work.

Next, in order for the migration process to begin, you must click the “ Apply».

Party Assistant will display a window with a list of pending operations, where we just have to click the “ Go».

This will be followed by another warning, where by clicking on the “ Yes", we confirm all our actions. After this, the computer will restart and the process of transferring the operating system to the solid-state drive will begin. The duration of this process will depend on a number of factors, including the amount of data being transferred, the speed of the HDD and the power of the computer.

After the migration, the computer will reboot again and now all that remains is to format the HDD to remove the OS and the old bootloader.

Method 2: Transfer OS to SSD using standard Windows tools

Another way to migrate to a new disk is to use standard operating system tools. However, you can use it if Windows 7 and higher are installed on your computer. Otherwise, you will have to use third-party utilities.

Let's take a closer look at this method using Windows 7 as an example.

In principle, the process of transferring an OS using standard means is not complicated and takes place in three stages:

creating a system image;
creating a boot drive;
unpacking the image to a new disk.

So let's get started. In order to create an OS image, you need to use the Windows tool " " To do this, go to the menu “ Start" and open the "Control Panel".

Next, you need to click on the link “ Backing up computer data" and you can proceed to creating a Windows backup. In the window " Archiving or restoring files“There are two commands we need, now we will use the creation of a system image, for this we click on the corresponding link.

Here we need to select the drive on which the OS image will be written. This can be either a disk partition or a DVD. However, it is worth remembering that Windows 7, even without installed programs, takes up quite a lot of space. Therefore, if you decide to burn a copy of the system to DVD, you may need more than one disc.

Having selected the location where you want to save the image, click “ Further" and move on to the next step.
Now the wizard prompts us to select the sections that need to be included in the archiving. Since we are only transferring the OS, we don’t need to select anything; the system has already included all the necessary disks for us. Therefore, click " Further" and move on to the final step.

Now you need to confirm the selected archiving options. To do this, click " Archive

After a copy of the OS has been created, Windows will prompt you to create a bootable drive.

You can also create a drive using the command “ Create a system repair disk" in the window " Archive or restore».

At the first step, the bootable disk creation wizard will prompt you to select a drive in which a blank drive should already be installed for recording.

Attention! If your work machine does not have writeable drives, you will not be able to burn the optical recovery drive.

If there is a data disk in the drive, the system will offer to clear it. If you are using DVD-RW for recording, then you can clean it, otherwise you need to insert a clean one.

To do this, go to “ My computer"and right-click on the drive. Now select the item “ Erase this disk».

Now let’s return to creating a recovery drive, select the desired drive, click on the “ Create disk" and wait for the process to complete. Upon completion, we will see a window like this:

this indicates that the disk was successfully created.

So, let's summarize. At this point, we already have an image with the operating system and a bootable recovery drive, which means we can move on to the third and final stage.

Reboot the computer and go to the boot device selection menu.

This can usually be done by pressing the F11 key, but there may be other options. Typically, function keys are listed on the BIOS (or UEFI) start screen, which is displayed when you turn on the computer.

Next, the OS recovery environment will be loaded. At the first stage, for convenience, select the Russian language and press the button “ Next».

After this, a search for installed systems will be performed.

Since we are restoring the OS from a pre-prepared image, we move the switch to the second position and click “ Further».

At this stage, the system itself will offer us a suitable image for recovery, so, without changing anything, click “ Further».

You can now set additional parameters if necessary. To go to the last action, press the button “ Further».

At the last stage, we will be shown brief information about the image. Now you can proceed directly to unpacking to disk, to do this, press the button “ Further" and wait for the process to complete.

At the end of the process, the system will automatically reboot and at this point the process of transferring Windows to the SSD can be considered complete.

Today we looked at two ways to switch from HDD to SSD, each of which is good in its own way. Having familiarized yourself with both, you can now choose the one that is more suitable for you in order to quickly and without losing data transfer the OS to a new disk.