Speeding up your computer: SSD vs HDD
You have an older PC and it’s slowing down, it feels like new computer time? don’t part with your ‘hard earned’! We’re going to talk you through speeding up your computer and the difference between SSD’s vs HDD’s.
Step into any of your big name high street tech stores and they’ll happily have you part with a minimum £400 for a new laptop. You might find we can match the speeds of a newer, far more expensive laptop or desktop for a fraction of the price!
Why is my computer running slow?
There can be many contributing factors to a slow running laptop or desktop computer. As we’ve discussed previously, a maintenance schedule can often mitigate your risk of ever having a slow running computer, but in this age of ever evolving technology, one guaranteed improvement is the hard disk.
What is a hard disk?
A hard disk, or “Hard Disk Drive” is the most common method of storing Data since computers became a viable option for the average consumer. HDD’s live inside your computer – including laptops – and they store everything you need. Your operating system is installed on there, all your programmes, pictures, movies, even games.
In practice, they work very much like an old record player. Where the swinging arm has a needle which reads the surface of the vinyl; so to does an HDD have an arm with several heads that perform read and write functions on a spinning platter. The execution is far more sophisticated in an HDD but the principle is the same.
But you moved on from vinyl records some time ago, why hasn’t computer technology? Well it has, but HDD’s are a dependable, and cost efficient technology, and even today, there IS still some use cases for them, but as the Vinyl Record evolved into MP3’s so to has storage technology.
Speeding up your computer: SSD vs HDD
You have an older PC and it’s slowing down, it feels like new computer time? don’t part with your ‘hard earned’! We’re going to talk you through speeding up your computer and the difference between SSD’s vs HDD’s.
Step into any of your big name high street tech stores and they’ll happily have you part with a minimum £400 for a new laptop. You might find we can match the speeds of a newer, far more expensive laptop or desktop for a fraction of the price!
Why is my computer running slow?
There can be many contributing factors to a slow running laptop or desktop computer. As we’ve discussed previously, a maintenance schedule can often mitigate your risk of ever having a slow running computer, but in this age of ever evolving technology, one guaranteed improvement is the hard disk.
What is a hard disk?
A hard disk, or “Hard Disk Drive” is the most common method of storing Data since computers became a viable option for the average consumer. HDD’s live inside your computer – including laptops – and they store everything you need. Your operating system is installed on there, all your programmes, pictures, movies, even games.
In practice, they work very much like an old record player. Where the swinging arm has a needle which reads the surface of the vinyl; so to does an HDD have an arm with several heads that perform read and write functions on a spinning platter. The execution is far more sophisticated in an HDD but the principle is the same.
But you moved on from vinyl records some time ago, why hasn’t computer technology? Well it has, but HDD’s are a dependable, and cost efficient technology, and even today, there IS still some use cases for them, but as the Vinyl Record evolved into MP3’s so to has storage technology.
Meet the MP3.
If HDD’s are the record player, then SSD’s are the MP3, the ipod, your chosen streaming platform!
What is an SSD?
SSD stand for Solid State Drive, it gets that name because there are no moving parts in an SSD. There’s no waiting around for an arm to move across a platter and read the information you need, it is essentially instant. All the data is stored on integrated circuits, microchips if you will. At SmartFix, we stock Kingston, for their blend of affordability, performance and brand dependability. Their testing finds that their SSD performance is a blistering 10 times faster than a 7200RPM HDD, when you factor in that many laptops favoured capacity over performance, it’s not uncommon to see 5400RPM 1TB drives in many laptops.
It’s not difficult then to see how much impact an SSD upgrade can have on an ailing machine and breathe new life into it, prolonging that death knell and reducing E-waste!
Let’s prove it.
We recently upgraded a customer from a 7200RPM HDD to an SSD and decided to record the difference.
Unfortunately, it took so long that we couldn’t upload the video here, so we’ve super-imposed a timer on the footage and sped it up, but if you have time to kill the original video will be at the end.
You can easily boil the kettle in the time it takes Windows to start on an HDD, and this was a customer who services their PC with us regularly, chances are with a lot of programmes installed it can take even longer than 1 Minute and 21 seconds. Depending on the SSD you choose, Windows can boot in under 20 seconds. 26 second in this case is still impressive. What an improvement!
How does this help reduce E-Waste?
PC’s are a fantastic tool to have, and their evolution over the years has been vast, but in most use cases you don’t NEED to have the newest of PC’s. In the last 10 or so years, effective clock speeds (how fast a processor can run) haven’t really changed much, what has is their power efficiency and their ability to multi-task. Neither are particularly noticeable in most use cases. Perhaps if you were a gamer, or heavy workstation user, these advancements are something you would benefit from. If you only use your laptop or desktop for general browsing, shopping or video streaming. Chances are your laptop or PC has more than enough legs for the task, but may benefit from an upgrade such as an SSD at a fraction of the cost of a similarly specced new laptop or desktop.
You don’t need to bin that old device, you dont create waste!
For more information about SSD upgrades, or a quote on speeding up your PC, get in touch! You can reach us on 0131 209 7984, using the contact form on the website, or on the socials.