Extra RAM

facade

No need to panic, it is only 6% used, so compared to mine 94% health.

I swapped mine out at 65% and relegated it to backup storage, the second got swapped at 78% because I was re-installing windows anyway, so I went for a new drive and kept the old one as a backup, otherwise I'd have taken it down to 60% ish.

Maybe Crucial have fixed the problem and not said anything, there isn't a firmware update for mine though so it must be a different controller or something.

I only buy Samsung now for a drive that is getting some use, I did buy a 2TB Integral V series the other day for my mini pc to quieten it down, but it is only media storage, the working drive is Samsung.

Ozzig

facade said:

No need to panic, it is only 6% used, so compared to mine 94% health.

I swapped mine out at 65% and relegated it to backup storage, the second got swapped at 78% because I was re-installing windows anyway, so I went for a new drive and kept the old one as a backup, otherwise I'd have taken it down to 60% ish.

Maybe Crucial have fixed the problem and not said anything, there isn't a firmware update for mine though so it must be a different controller or something.

I only buy Samsung now for a drive that is getting some use, I did buy a 2TB Integral V series the other day for my mini pc to quieten it down, but it is only media storage, the working drive is Samsung.

How old are yours? I bought mine in Feb 2016.

Until today it was running firmware ver MU02, as I'm too lazy to update firmware regularly, and checking the health reminded me I should see how out of date it was. Turns out it was very out of date as MU02 was Feb 2018!

SurferDan

Before spending on extra RAM and/or a SSD I would suggest giving your laptop a good clear out ie
Remove all unnecessary software
Remove junk files / temp files / old windows installation files / thumbnail cache etc
Stop unnecessary start up items
Stop programs running in the background that aren't being used.
Turn off unnecessary windows services
If you don't play games turn off game mode
Make sure you're running the latest versions of the software you are using
Run a virus / malware checker to see if an infection is slowing down your laptop
Defrag the HDD 
Clean the fan intake and outlet 
A programme such as Glary Utilities (free for home use) will do most of the above automatically for you. Plus there are lots of tutorials on the internet to show you how to do the above.
Certainly worth a try before spending any money plus if you clone your existing HDD to a new SSD you're just transferring the problems to the SSD.

You will be surprised what a good spring clean can do. 

Newcad

facade said:

No need to panic, it is only 6% used, so compared to mine 94% health.

Interesting, because I downloaded and ran the Crucial Storage Executive yesterday and my 2 year old, used 8+ hours daily in a laptop, CT500MX500SSD1 also shows 94% Lifetime Remaining.

Is that simply a coincidence or are Cruicial just showing a 'holding' figure of 94%?

I did update the SSD's firmware yesterday from MU05 to M3CR046, easilly done in the CSE app, and the app notified an update available for itself as I opened it just now even though I had only installed it yesterday.

(I did notice that it's showing a "Ultra-DMA CRC Error Count" of 595, not a great worry and probably just a compatibility issue between the drive and the SATA controller, but time to investigate what is causing that).

Heedtheadvice

I was going to post very similar to Surferdan but would add doing  a drive check too as well as ensuring your data is backed up  beforehand.

Jumblebumble

facade said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't very clear.

I suggest spending £7 on another 4GB of RAM now certainly, it will have an effect on speed and how well windows runs.

Then I'd look at replacing the HDD with an SSD, the Vostro probably came with a 1TB HDD, a 1TB Samsung SSD is about £70 and comes with a download of software to clone your existing drive.

(Don't buy crucial MX SSDs)

I really dont know what to make of these tests and don't have too much confidence they are providing useful information on life
Crucials own diagnostic program applied to my MX SSD that is 3.5 years old indicates gibberish by claiming it has 222% life remaining what ever that means.

facade

I wonder if my problem is I'm using a Z97 chipset, which pre-dates SSDs by many years...

I have got all the optional Intel chipset drivers installed.

I don't know what chipset anyone else used who had the problem though.

Well, whatever the problem is, Samsung aren't affected and I won't buy any more Crucial.