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I use my laptop primarily for cruising around the internet, documents and photos. I'm not into gaming, but my beloved 8 year old Samsung R530 is frustratingly slow at almost every task. Pulling up documents, getting on the internet, booting up, uploading a photo to yahoo groups was downright impossible. Firefox locks at least several times a week.
One of the things I don't understand is that it only has a 256GB hard drive - which sounds VERY small. BUT it's a "flash memory solid state" drive I don't know what that means. I do store a lot of photos and documents, and I'd rather not mess with a separate hard drive (but I could).
Solid state drives are expensive for higher capacity. 256 GB is pretty standard even on far pricier laptops than that is. 1 TB drives aren't terrible economically nowadays but they're still expensive, figure $250-300. Easiest way to tell if 256 GB is too small is look at the drive on your eight-year-old laptop and how much space you're using. If you haven't filled up 256 GB on it in eight years, 256 GB is more than enough. I have a 128 GB SSD on my laptop. Spending the extra $200 (my laptop is not upgradable as that one is) wouldn't have been an huge issue but it's $200 for something I won't use so why spend the money. I mean, if it's eight years old you've probably got at most 500 GB, no?
Looks like there's a slot to add a second hard drive, so you could just pick up a 500 GB or 1 TB conventional drive for extra storage. They're about a third of the price of an SSD so not too expensive. $50 for a 500, maybe $90 for a 1 TB drive.
Cheaper option may just be to stick some more RAM in what you've got, although as old as it is you might just want to upgrade. Probably what's happening is you're running out of RAM and then it writes to the page file on the hard drive which is slow.
One of the things I don't understand is that it only has a 256GB hard drive - which sounds VERY small. BUT it's a "flash memory solid state" drive I don't know what that means. I do store a lot of photos and documents, and I'd rather not mess with a separate hard drive (but I could).
Help?
Standard hard drives are mechanical, they have what is called a platter that spins and read write head to read or write information from the platter. That is the whirring and clicking you hear, it's very similar to a record player.
A SSD has no mechanics in it, it's all electronic. Generally speaking they are much faster, where you will see the big difference is boot times and when you start a program. For general use you will not have much if any benefit over regular hard drive.
As malloric suggested sticking some RAM in it may help, fresh install of the OS should also help. The only problem there is it's so old you are likely to have other issues with it making the investment a gamble.
I replaced my laptop's HDD with a SSD, then took out my DVD drive and use my HDD there as my storage drive. Got a cable to connect my DVD drive externally for the rare times when I need to use it. You might want to repurpose your current laptop's HDD in that manner once you get this new laptop.
I use my laptop primarily for cruising around the internet, documents and photos. I'm not into gaming, but my beloved 8 year old Samsung R530 is frustratingly slow at almost every task. Pulling up documents, getting on the internet, booting up, uploading a photo to yahoo groups was downright impossible. Firefox locks at least several times a week.
One of the things I don't understand is that it only has a 256GB hard drive - which sounds VERY small. BUT it's a "flash memory solid state" drive I don't know what that means. I do store a lot of photos and documents, and I'd rather not mess with a separate hard drive (but I could).
Help?
The SD card in the front will be sufficient to supplement your storage needs. I use the old platter type hard drives just as backup devices and offline storage.
No, do not get this one. #Fail Dave.
The one he posted has an SSD AND a Nvidia 940MXAND a backlit keyboard!?!?
Clearly the better machine. Get the one you posted, OP.
#Fail Dave
I use my laptop primarily for cruising around the internet, documents and photos. I'm not into gaming, but my beloved 8 year old Samsung R530 is frustratingly slow at almost every task. Pulling up documents, getting on the internet, booting up, uploading a photo to yahoo groups was downright impossible. Firefox locks at least several times a week.
One of the things I don't understand is that it only has a 256GB hard drive - which sounds VERY small. BUT it's a "flash memory solid state" drive I don't know what that means. I do store a lot of photos and documents, and I'd rather not mess with a separate hard drive (but I could).
Help?
My new one has two drive bays. It came with a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HDD that I use for everything except programs. 128GB is plenty for the OS. Perfect way to set up a laptop.
I should add I would go with the 256SSD and add an external hard drive.
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