is it worth putting an SSD in a refurbished laptop?

Firstwatch

Hello All,

thinking of buying one of these as a backup laptop:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231708074208?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

And this company also gives you the option to upgrade the 160gb SATA HDD to a 240gb SSD when you buy it for £78.

Is this a good idea? I've heard lots of good things about upgrading to a SSD but does anyone have an opinion on this? From my point of view it's seems like a good deal for £200ish, but then I've never bought a refurbished laptop before.

grumbler

I am no expert, but AFAIK the main advantages of SSD are faster booting, faster starting programs and lower power consumption. If so, I don't see why it can't be beneficial for any laptop, including a refurbished one.

It's a different question whether it's worth spending extra money on a SSD for a backup laptop. If you search HUKD you can see that it's possible to get 240gb SSD for ~£50, but £78 is a reasonable price.

Tropez

Yes, but I wouldn't spend £78 when SSDs can be had for less and they're normally simple to install yourself on most laptops (although you may invalidate a warranty doing so).

I've put SSDs in all my laptops. Even the lowest spec laptop I own now boots to a usable Windows desktop inside 20 seconds and it greatly improves the overall speed of working on the laptop.

I'm going to guess storage space isn't an issue given what you're looking at, but for about the same price you can get an SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) of 1TB. It isn't as fast as an SSD but it also offers a performance increase over a standard mechanical drive during startup and when loading your most commonly used applications.

Firstwatch

Thank you both - the reason I was thinking of paying the £78 was that I think the 1 year warranty is worth having (and I reckon it would be invalidated by doing an upgrade myself) and that, even though I've looked into it, I'm a bit nervous about making any changes myself, even though I'm known as quite a practical person as far as DIY etc.

The SSD that they list as an option is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Upgrade-your-Laptop-to-a-240GB-SSD-Solid-State-Drive-For-Only-77-99/321483528312?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33487%26meid%3D9e4fc129f44e48c49070a603e2f5dec8%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D371350445089

but it's also listed as "used", so I guess I'll think about it some more. Someone also said that SSDs might help preserve the battery life too.

Fightsback

Firstwatch wrote: »

Thank you both - the reason I was thinking of paying the £78 was that I think the 1 year warranty is worth having (and I reckon it would be invalidated by doing an upgrade myself) and that, even though I've looked into it, I'm a bit nervous about making any changes myself, even though I'm known as quite a practical person as far as DIY etc.

The SSD that they list as an option is here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Upgrade-your-Laptop-to-a-240GB-SSD-Solid-State-Drive-For-Only-77-99/321483528312?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33487%26meid%3D9e4fc129f44e48c49070a603e2f5dec8%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D371350445089

but it's also listed as "used", so I guess I'll think about it some more. Someone also said that SSDs might help preserve the battery life too.

Too expensive, buy your own from Amazon and I'd suggest a Samsung Evo 850 250GB for £68 :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B00P736UEU

Buy an enclosure as well and you can remove the HDD that comes with it and use that as a back up drive. It's not too hard to do.

For example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GSWT4HY/ref=twister_B00CQ5UHHI?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

NB Pick an enclosure that supports USB 3.0 as this is faster and more future proof despite the fact the the laptop you show only supports USB 2.0

All my PC's have SSD drives in them, I find HDDs now a frustratingly slow experience.

However if you are going to spend around the £200 on a laptop, it might be worth considering buying a modern i3 laptop for around the £220 mark and then do a SSD upgrade on that laptop as and when funds allow. This will give you a much faster machine with far superior graphics capabilities, better battery life and USB 3.0. That would be my own personal thing to do.

Ben84

I feel the refurbished bit isn't really important to the SSD issue either way. It's much the same as asking about adding one to an older laptop from any source really, be it one you already own, have been given or bought. And I'd say it's worth it for most people, the price difference is much smaller than it has been, and the large loading speed improvements are there whatever age computer you're using. However, this might be an exception. I'm wondering what you mean by backup computer? If you mean it's just going to sit in the box in case you need it, I'd save the £78. A regular HDD is more than adequate if just need to get another computer running fast, and even if you end up using the computer more at some point in the future, you can add one later (probably cheaper and bigger by then too).

spud17

I agree with Ben84, if it's only for emergencies and it arrives with a healthy hard drive, I'd not bother.
Run some tests to check the hard drive's health.
My own case, I was given a 'broken' laptop, nothing wrong that a reinstall wouldn't fix.
The hard drive was showing signs of old age, replaced with 64GB SSD, which was plenty for it's intended use.

Peter999_2

I bought a laptop from these guys a couple of weeks ago. It's an E6420 and is great.

It came with a 160GB hard drive and I've replaced that with a 120GB SSD. It makes a big difference, the laptop is very quick booting up (I've updated it to Windows 10 and it's even faster).

I also have bought a HDD caddy to replace the DVD drive from ebay for £10 (and installed a 1TB hard drive in there for storage). I've also bought a cheap backlit keyboard (ebay £18) and 3g modem card as the antenna is already installed (Ebay £7.50). All in all it's a pretty good laptop.

I don't see how they'd know re warranty if you'd swapped out the hard drive. My laptop originally came with a 320GB drive and they'd replaced it with a 160GB drive (not the best job as they only used 2 instead of 4 screws to hold it in).

If you are happy installing windows etc. then I'd get the laptop with a normal HDD and then buy a SSD and fit it yourself (maybe put the normal HDD in a caddy and us for external storage).

spud17

@Peter999
It's only for a backup, post#1

thinking of buying one of these as a backup laptop:

So, I'd be wary of spending anything on it, it may not be used for months at a time.

Stoke

SSD's are great, but don't forget that they do suffer more 'wear' than mechanical drives.

Still, short term (3-5 years) they're a great buy.

mttylad

Stoke wrote: »

SSD's are great, but don't forget that they do suffer more 'wear' than mechanical drives.

Still, short term (3-5 years) they're a great buy.

You will be old & grey before an SSD wears out and 3-5 years is nowt in SSD life.