Upgrade two Toshiba laptops

J_B

well three really, but ....

S has 2 lads T & F aged about 13 & 15
T has a Toshiba Satellite L500 19x - very slow, probably needs scrapping?
F has a Toshiba Satellite L50D-B-147
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinued-products/satellite-l50d-b-147/


S's partner has a Toshiba Satellite C-50A-1CK
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinued-products/satellite-c50-a-1ck/
which he doesn't use as he has a work one


If we ditch the ancient L500 then can we upgrade the other two.
Put SSD's in both and add some more RAM to the C-50


Does that sound like a plan?
Where to shop and what to buy???

EveryWhere

J_B wrote: »

well three really, but ....

S has 2 lads T & F aged about 13 & 15
T has a Toshiba Satellite L500 19x - very slow, probably needs scrapping?
F has a Toshiba Satellite L50D-B-147
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinued-products/satellite-l50d-b-147/


S's partner has a Toshiba Satellite C-50A-1CK
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinued-products/satellite-c50-a-1ck/
which he doesn't use as he has a work one


If we ditch the ancient L500 then can we upgrade the other two.
Put SSD's in both and add some more RAM to the C-50


Does that sound like a plan?
Where to shop and what to buy???

1st; https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+T4300+%40+2.10GHz&id=1400 Perfectly fine. Just needs an SSD and a clean install.

In fact all need SSD, but 1st and 3rd the most.

All should have easy swap hatches and will be a lot faster without the Toshiba bloatware and the SSD.

Frozen_up_north

I've just swapped my OHs Acer HDD to an SSD, I didn't go the clean install route. Just cloned the disk. It's around x10 faster at booting and the disk light is only on for a few seconds, as opposed to being on "for ages" with the HDD. Boot up to being usable from entering the password on Win 10 takes perhaps 20~30 seconds from "cold", ie not just from hibernating.

If you aren't sure about the process, check out the Crucial web site, they have step by step instructions and a check scan of your computer to guarantee what they supply will work in your hardware.

I see overly large hard disks shown as being fitted, check what size you really need based on how much data is on your existing disks and add a little more. 1TB is daft, and expensive. 250GB is more than enough for most and many could manage on 128GB. You don't need to match the size of the existing HDD with a replacement SSD, even when cloning. The Acer I upgraded went from a 320GB to a 250GB, there was about 75GB used.

Crucial supply (via a free download of about 450MB) a copy of Acronis cloning software specific to Crucial. You also need a cable to connect the SSD to a USB port if you are cloning the existing disk. Obviously not needed if installing from scratch.

Crucial have their Storage Executive program that includes "Momentum Cache", the latter uses RAM to speed up by a factor of up to 10 times, the already fast read/write to the SSD.

As to increasing RAM, the minimum recommended amount for Win 10 is 4GB with most decent PCs now being fitted with 8GB or more. Replacing 4GB with 8GB will cost around £50. Check how much your system is really using, indeed you can compare the laptops as one appears to already have 8GB fitted.

There are other suppliers with similar features, but I'm quite happy with Crucial. The web site is https://uk.crucial.com/

EveryWhere

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

I've just swapped my OHs Acer HDD to an SSD, I didn't go the clean install route. Just cloned the disk. It's around x10 faster at booting and the disk light is only on for a few seconds, as opposed to being on "for ages" with the HDD. Boot up to being usable from entering the password on Win 10 takes perhaps 20~30 seconds from "cold", ie not just from hibernating.

If you aren't sure about the process, check out the Crucial web site, they have step by step instructions and a check scan of your computer to guarantee what they supply will work in your hardware.

I see overly large hard disks shown as being fitted, check what size you really need based on how much data is on your existing disks and add a little more. 1TB is daft, and expensive. 250GB is more than enough for most and many could manage on 128GB. You don't need to match the size of the existing HDD with a replacement SSD, even when cloning. The Acer I upgraded went from a 320GB to a 250GB, there was about 75GB used.

Crucial supply (via a free download of about 450MB) a copy of Acronis cloning software specific to Crucial. You also need a cable to connect the SSD to a USB port if you are cloning the existing disk. Obviously not needed if installing from scratch.

Crucial have their Storage Executive program that includes "Momentum Cache", the latter uses RAM to speed up by a factor of up to 10 times, the already fast read/write to the SSD.

As to increasing RAM, the minimum recommended amount for Win 10 is 4GB with most decent PCs now being fitted with 8GB or more. Replacing 4GB with 8GB will cost around £50. Check how much your system is really using, indeed you can compare the laptops as one appears to already have 8GB fitted.

There are other suppliers with similar features, but I'm quite happy with Crucial. The web site is https://uk.crucial.com/

Your prices are a bit out of whack. You can pick up a DDR3 4GB module for between £8 & £15.
8GB of RAM isn't necessary unless you are gaming or using the kinds of applications that need a huge amount of RAM.

Of course they cannot compare using current devices, as the CPU are all so varied.. So SSD first and RAM only if necessary.

Problem with cloning is that it clones all of the old crap too.

DoaM

FWIW ... when my laptop was running Win 7 (64 bit) and had a HDD, I found upgrading from 4GB RAM (single stick) to 8GB RAM (matched 4GB sticks) made a noticeable difference to performance. (Core i7 2670QM CPU).

The biggest performance improvement though has been the SSD. Agree about a fresh install rather than a clone.

J_B

EveryWhere wrote: »

1st; https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+T4300+%40+2.10GHz&id=1400 Perfectly fine. Just needs an SSD and a clean install.

In fact all need SSD, but 1st and 3rd the most.

All should have easy swap hatches and will be a lot faster without the Toshiba bloatware and the SSD.

Thanks, but if they only really need two PC's which would be the best ones to upgrade?
Any with what from where?

EveryWhere wrote: »

Your prices are a bit out of whack. You can pick up a DDR3 4GB module for between £8 & £15.
8GB of RAM isn't necessary unless you are gaming or using the kinds of applications that need a huge amount of RAM.

Of course they cannot compare using current devices, as the CPU are all so varied.. So SSD first and RAM only if necessary.

Problem with cloning is that it clones all of the old crap too.

So, just SSD and clean install then, but with the back off and another 4GB RAM for £15, we may as well do that too ... should we??


I don't think funds are that tight .. they were originally going to buy a new laptop for around 3/400 ...

Frozen_up_north

EveryWhere wrote: »

Your prices are a bit out of whack. You can pick up a DDR3 4GB module for between £8 & £15.
8GB of RAM isn't necessary unless you are gaming or using the kinds of applications that need a huge amount of RAM.

You can’t always add to the existing RAM, some laptops only have one slot. Regarding prices, you pay your money and take your chances, personally I am quite happy to buy RAM from a reputable supplier with a guarantee, rather than unbranded RAM at half the price.

Cisco001

J_B wrote: »

Thanks, but if they only really need two PC's which would be the best ones to upgrade?
Any with what from where?

Ditch L500.
Or install some lightweight linux and keep it as spare.


For C50, I think it has 2 RAM slot. Get another 4GB RAM. It is £8 from CEX
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=smem412800204&categoryName=memory-laptop-ddr3&superCatName=computing&title=4-gb-pc12800-ddr3-1600mhz-204-pin-memory

J_B

Cisco001 wrote: »

For C50, I think it has 2 RAM slot. Get another 4GB RAM. It is £8 from CEX
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=smem412800204&categoryName=memory-laptop-ddr3&superCatName=computing&title=4-gb-pc12800-ddr3-1600mhz-204-pin-memory

Thanks, but CEX shops are about 15/20 miles away - on line would be better.

Neil_Jones

In fairness memory prices rise and fall depending on what else is going on, simple supply & demand.

Usually when memory prices shoot through the roof it means some big company is manufacturing something that requires a lot of the stuff so the price goes up to dampen down demand. Likewise when there is no demand but a high amount of supply (such as when the big company has finished its initial manufacturing and didn't need as much as they ordered), the price goes down to shift it. In every relationship like this there comes a trade off between sufficient supply to make the demand. Once the overflow has been sold, the price comes back up again to that fine balance point.

EveryWhere

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

You can’t always add to the existing RAM, some laptops only have one slot. Regarding prices, you pay your money and take your chances, personally I am quite happy to buy RAM from a reputable supplier with a guarantee, rather than unbranded RAM at half the price.

I checked beforehand and RAM isn't an issue anyway. SSD in the first instance and RAM if there is any indication that more RAM is necessary.

Ridiculous to suggest spending £50 on RAM when it will likely be of less benefit than fitting an SSD.
One already has 8GB of RAM and they want to upgrade anyway. The reason likely being the relative lack of response using HDD.
RAM was always the answer before the advent of SSD, but now the difference between 4 GB & 8 GB whilst using SSD is negligible, unless one is actually utilising applications that need that much RAM.


So my recommendations;

Toshiba Satellite L500 19x 120 GB SSD and a clean install will transform the performance. Won't be slow any longer. Better than scrapping it for the sake of £20 or so. Take the BX300 ; https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B073W3Q96S/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all for £21.71

Toshiba Satellite L50D-B-147 Crucial MX500 SSD capacity of their choice. https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ssd/series/MX500

Toshiba Satellite C-50A-1CK Crucial MX500 SSD capacity of their choice. More RAM not really needed for a device of that spec. But 4GB available from CEX if necessary. They charge £1.50 for delivery if not one nearby. You order online.

Now I'm off to the beach.