Octopus Overlords

I suspect I know what this crowd will say, but I'll put it out there anyway.

My laptop (Alienware M15, few years old) got thirsty last week and wanted to try my beer. The good news is that just about everything was working fine. The bad thing is that the keyboard was totally gunked up. After doing some preliminary investigation into cleaning things myself (I opened it up and everything), I decided I was in over my head. I called a local guy with good reviews and he quoted me a reasonable cost for a new keyboard with installation. He now says it's ready to go, but he's telling me he could swap out my old school hard drive for a 500 GB SSD for $175 to make things "blazing fast".

Keeping in mind that I have zero desire to take on a project like this myself, I have two questions. First, will going to SSD really make a big difference. The laptop does take forever to boot up, but I figure that's mostly a result of age and clutter. Second, if it will make a big difference, is $175 a reasonable price? Obviously the drive itself is much lower than that, so I'm really thinking about the value add of adding and configuring the drive.

Thanks!

I say this honestly - I can't think of something I've done to both a laptop and my desktop PC in the last 10 years that was more transformative than installing a SSD to boot from.

It was like when I used TiVo for the first time - it changed everything.

I would certainly agree with Smoove that upgrading from a spinner hard drive to an SSD is absolutely worthwhile. Doing so will make a HUGE difference to your overall experience, e.g. improved boot time, start time, restart time, application loading time, and file access time etc.

However, the price you were quoted does seem excessive (all the moreso if additional costs for labour get tacked on to the final bill). According to HomeGuide.com's How much does computer repair services cost? write-up, it ought to cost about $30 for the addition of a laptop hard drive/SSD. Looking on PCPartPicker.com, a decent-quality 500GB SSD like the Western Digital Blue 3D NAND 500GB is available from NewEgg for $59.99. So a pricetag of $175 seems rather unreasonable, given that he'd likely not be paying full retail for the SSD itself.

Keep in mind, it's surprisingly easy to fully clone Windows and data from one drive to another, as shown here:

Do yourself a favor: search for your laptop model and 'install SSD' and at least watch one how-to.

I recently installed an SSD in an Alienware laptop. It was the first time I've ever tinkered with a laptop. The how-to video was three minutes, and the process was about as complicated as putting a stick of RAM in a desktop.

laptop HDD/SSD installation (and usually RAM) is usually pretty easy. newer slim/thin laptops make the process much more difficult (especially in the case of Apple products and Apple-wannabe designs)

I'll go the other way. If $175 is the out the door price and you don't have to lift a screwdriver or fool with configurations or copying your data?
Heck yeah. Do it.

I'm a build your own kind of guy, but I have no problem paying other people for expertise.

Thanks for the thoughts. I confirmed with the guy that this was more than just sticking the new SSD in the machine leaving the rest of the work to me. It's basically turnkey for me. I told him to do it (knowing I probably could have handled it myself, but I'm willing to pay to have the expert do it).

First, will going to SSD really make a big difference.

More than any other feature in Windows 10 unless you running 8 gigs of RAM or less.

Just make sure you back up data regularly. Recovering data from a FUBAR SSD is... um difficult. I am also to by forensics specialists (whom were hoping to make a lot of money) that recovering an encrypted SSD (be that due to negligence or malfeasance) is impossible for most circumstances.

There are different grades of SSD (M.2, SATA, etc...) and the value of a $175 unit is outside of my expertise.

For a bigtime lawyer like yourself, I'd think $175 would be a small price to pay for the productivity you'll get back.

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:57 am Thanks for the thoughts. I confirmed with the guy that this was more than just sticking the new SSD in the machine leaving the rest of the work to me. It's basically turnkey for me. I told him to do it (knowing I probably could have handled it myself, but I'm willing to pay to have the expert do it).

Sometimes it's worth paying to not have to hassle with things yourself. Sure, I could change the oil in my car but it's worth paying the inflated prices at Oil Can Henry's or wherever just so I don't have to mess with it.

I think you'll be surprised at the difference after going to the SSD. It will be worth every penny.

Exodor wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:48 pm

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:57 am Thanks for the thoughts. I confirmed with the guy that this was more than just sticking the new SSD in the machine leaving the rest of the work to me. It's basically turnkey for me. I told him to do it (knowing I probably could have handled it myself, but I'm willing to pay to have the expert do it).

Sometimes it's worth paying to not have to hassle with things yourself. Sure, I could change the oil in my car but it's worth paying the inflated prices at Oil Can Henry's or wherever just so I don't have to mess with it.

I think you'll be surprised at the difference after going to the SSD. It will be worth every penny.

Even better, buy a car that doesn't have oil!

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:57 am Thanks for the thoughts. I confirmed with the guy that this was more than just sticking the new SSD in the machine leaving the rest of the work to me. It's basically turnkey for me. I told him to do it (knowing I probably could have handled it myself, but I'm willing to pay to have the expert do it).

Then it's definitely worth it. I did get some 1TB SSD's for about $90/ea earlier this year, but cloning, etc. is a bitch, and if you strip one of the screws, blech.

In addition to all the speed gains listed above, you also get better battery life (not spinning disks saves a fair amount of battery).

SSD upgrade for laptop - no brainer. Spending the extra $ to have someone do it, depends on your situation and time and experience (and whether you'd rather just drink beers while it's happening and not worry about your laptop wanting another round!).

Exodor wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:48 pm I think you'll be surprised at the difference after going to the SSD. It will be worth every penny.

THIS, yes! My new gaming laptop has a 1TB SSD, and my old laptop had a 512GB regular hard drive, and its literally night and day. Windows boots up cold in like 20 seconds, apps that used to take 30-40 seconds to load now take like 5-10 seconds. I could never, ever go back to a spinning drive again.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:11 pm cloning,

Also requires purchase or acquisition of software and no fear that your OEM Windows license won't bork.

Given that you can get 1TB SSDs now for less than $100 (there's one now on Newegg for $82), and even a Sandisk one is like $99, probably not worth it.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 6:20 pm Given that you can get 1TB SSDs now for less than $100 (there's one now on Newegg for $82), and even a Sandisk one is like $99, probably not worth it.

Well, I'll just jump in my time machine to three weeks ago and consider again whether I want to go through with it.

If you would follow up with impressions, these things might happen less frequently.

I did follow up and say that I told the guy to do it.

But did he do it?

I'm not on trial here!

Oh, sorry, I was talking to Kasey. This thread has moved on.