Installing an SSD in a laptop. Installing an SSD drive in a laptop instead of a hard drive
Every year, users resort to using optical drives less and less. USB drives and cloud storage services, due to their convenience and mobility, have almost completely replaced CD/DVD drives. Many users are unhappy that the disk drive in their laptop takes up space that could be used for something more useful. Fortunately, there is a way to do this. Indeed, instead of an unnecessary disk drive, you can install an additional SSD disk, onto which you can transfer the operating system, and store all your files on a regular HDD. This approach is very practical and convenient. In this article we will take a closer look at how to install it instead of DVD in a laptop. Let's figure it out. Go!
Installing an SSD and HDD on a laptop is not as difficult as it seems
In online stores and regular stores that sell computer components, you can purchase a special Slim DVD adapter, which allows you to install a hard drive instead of an optical drive. It works as follows. The HDD of your computer is inserted into the adapter, then the disk along with the adapter is mounted instead of the drive, and an SSD is installed in the place where the computer’s hard drive was previously installed. Agree, it sounds quite simple. In reality, everything is not so complicated either.
Let's get started. You need to start, of course, by purchasing a Slim DVD adapter. Adapters, like disk drives, come in two types: 12.7 mm and 9.5 mm. Depending on what kind of drive you have, buy the appropriate adapter, otherwise the hard drive simply cannot be placed in place of the optical drive. If you have already purchased it, then you can proceed to installation.
The first step is to remove the necessary components. This is not difficult to do, because you do not have to completely disassemble the laptop, but you will only remove some of its components. It’s worth noting right away that if your computer is under warranty, then such modifications will void the warranty. Despite the fact that this whole procedure is not very complicated, it should be taken with the utmost seriousness and responsibility. Therefore, if you are not confident in your own abilities, it is better to entrust this work to a master.
First, remove the battery, but if your laptop cannot be easily removed, then disconnect it from the motherboard to avoid possible problems and malfunctions. There is no need to remove the entire bottom. It is enough to unscrew a couple of screws to remove the HDD. It's the same story with the optical drive. You can easily find detailed disassembly information for each laptop model on the Internet (since they are all different). See how to remove the floppy drive and hard drive from a specific laptop model. After you have removed the appropriate covers, remove the HDD. To do this, you need to pull the special silicone tab. Since the HDD is mounted on special skids, they must be removed by unscrewing the corresponding screws.
Now you need to install the drive into the adapter. As a rule, everything needed for installation is included inside the box with the adapter, namely: a screwdriver, screws, a plug, a spacer and instructions. Please note that you need to remove the special fasteners located on the sides of the drive and screw them to the adapter. Install the HDD into the adapter and insert it into the SATA connector. Then install the spacer. The HDD itself still needs to be secured with a screw on the other side of the Slim DVD. To do this, you will need a thin screwdriver, which comes with the kit. Then remove the fastener from the other side of the optical drive and attach it to the adapter. Place a plug. All. Now you can insert the drive into the drive location.
(speed of operation, fault tolerance, low energy consumption, etc.)
Our reader Mikhail Ivanovsky noticed that even if the selected laptop model does not have an SSD, you can easily install it yourself. At the request of the editors, Mikhail wrote a simple and understandable guide for installing an SSD for a laptop.
While Windows was loading, you managed to forget why you turned on the laptop in the first place? So it's time to change something. And this “something” is not necessarily the entire laptop.
The reasons for slow loading may vary, but they all affect the speed of the system and installed programs. Only one thing can be said for sure - a system installed on a good old hard drive (HDD) is, in principle, incapable of breaking records. But don’t despair and stock up on glycine!
If previously few could afford a laptop with an SSD drive, today such models are becoming more affordable. Alas, manufacturers are not yet in a hurry to install them on all laptop models, since such an option will still significantly affect the price. Not everyone is ready to overpay for a laptop with an SSD, especially if the purpose of use does not go beyond the usual scope.
Especially for those who want to enjoy all the advantages of a system on a solid-state drive, but do not have the desire or opportunity to purchase a top-end laptop, we have prepared this guide. With its help, you will be convinced that installing an SSD with your own hands is not at all difficult (easier than assembling a chest of drawers from IKEA).
Moreover, the increase in laptop performance and the pleasure from the work done are not comparable with the effort expended.
There may be several installation options. It all depends on your needs, as well as the size and configuration of the laptop. Let's consider the most common case, when an SSD is installed in the standard place of a native hard drive (HDD), and that, in turn, in place of an optical drive. This configuration is recommended, since the interface for connecting an optical drive is not always able to provide the SSD with the required data transfer speed.
Whether we like it or not, CD and DVD drives in laptop computers are becoming an atavism and will probably soon disappear completely (as once happened with floppy disks and dinosaurs). Remember the last time you inserted a disc into your laptop? But the disk drive takes up space, periodically hums, consumes electricity, and even gets hot.
So, here's what we need for the upgrade:
- SSD standard size 2.5"
- Adapter for HDD\SSD 2.5" for laptop drive
- Utility for transferring system and programs from HDD to SSD
Let us only note that it is reasonable to use an SSD first of all to host the operating system and programs on it, and only then to store data. Therefore, it is logical to determine the volume based on the current load of your C drive, and take into account that for effective operation of the SSD you will need about 25% of the free space on the disk, so it’s definitely not worth taking “back to back”. For most users, a capacity of 80 to 120 GB will be sufficient.
Having decided on the volume, budget and based on reviews in online stores, choosing an SSD will not be difficult.
With adapters the situation is even simpler. Their purpose is to ensure comfortable placement of the SSD in place of the optical drive. You can take any adapter that matches the size of our SSD (2.5”) and the thickness of the drive (usually 12.7 mm, but in thin laptops it can be 9.5 mm). From time-tested options, you can choose Espada adapters.
Adapter
The installation process in general looks like this:
- Turn the laptop over and remove the battery
- We find the cover with the disk storage marking, unscrew the screw securing it (it may be hidden by a plug), remove the cover and carefully remove the HDD, having first disconnected the cable with the wiring
- We install our SSD in place of the HDD, insert the cable, return the cover and tighten the screw
- We install the HDD into the adapter and secure it to it with the screws included in the package.
- We find the screw (may be hidden by a plug) with the disk drive marking and unscrew it. In most laptops, this is all that holds the optical drive.
- Open the tray using a needle (the hole next to the button) and, holding the laptop with one hand, carefully remove the optical drive with the other
We take out the drive
- We remove the front panel with the button from the tray and replace it with the adapter so that the surgical intervention does not affect the appearance of the laptop in any way
Adapter with bracket
Everyone is here
- Insert the adapter from the HDD into the drive location and tighten the screw
- Don’t forget about the plugs, if there were any.
- Turn on the laptop
We install, follow its simple instructions and voila! Our SSD is ready to go. It's time to arm yourself with a stopwatch and, with bated breath, time the system boot time. Although the difference “before and after” will be noticeable to the naked eye. The system performance index will increase significantly, if not in the overall score, then in the “Main hard drive” column for sure - from 5.9 (the maximum possible index for an HDD) to 7.9 (the maximum performance index in principle).
In conclusion, it is worth mentioning one more important point. Since the operating principle of an SSD has its own specifics, to extend its service life and greater reliability, it is recommended to perform several optional but useful system settings. Windows 7 will already make friends with an SSD without any problems, but by taking a few minutes to configure it, you are guaranteed to extend its life.
Tips for optimizing the system can be easily found, for example. To begin with, we just wanted to convince you that anyone can install an SSD. We hope we succeeded.
Happy upgrades!
Mikhail Ivanovsky
Do you want to suggest a new topic or publish your text on We Are ESET? Write to us:
Hello! Decide to prepare an article in which you will talk about how to properly install Windows 7 on an SSD drive, and how to configure Windows 7 on an SSD drive after installation so that it works for a long time and without problems. I recently bought a laptop, took an Asus K56CM and immediately bought an OCZ Vertex 4 128 GB SSD drive for it, I really wanted to experience all the speed that an SSD gives.
In our case, the model of laptop/computer and SSD drive does not matter; my instructions can be said to be universal. I will write what needs to be done immediately after installing an SSD drive into a computer and how to configure the operating system after installation on the SSD.
If this is your first time encountering an SSD, then you are probably wondering why there is such attention to setting up the operating system for these drives compared to conventional hard drives. I will now explain everything in simple words.SSD drives have a limited failure time compared to hard drives. Simply put, they have a certain number of rewrites. Now I won’t say what this number is, it varies and what is true and what is not is difficult to understand. For example, for my OCZ Vertex 4 in the characteristics it was written that the operating time between failures is 2 million hours. And the operating system writes a lot during operation, deletes and writes again various temporary files, etc. Services such as defragmentation, indexing, etc. serve to speed up the system on regular hard drives. And they only harm SSD drives and reduce their service life.
In fact, installing Windows 7 on SSD almost no different from installing on a hard drive. But after installation, you will need to make some adjustments to the operation of Windows 7, but there is nothing complicated there, we will do everything using the utility SSD Mini Tweaker 2.1.
What should you do before installing Windows 7 on an SSD drive?
Well, first you need to install an SSD drive in a laptop or computer, it doesn’t matter. I will not describe this process. There is nothing complicated about this, and this is a topic for another article. Let's say that you have already installed the SSD, or it has already been installed.
If you will use a regular hard drive in your computer next to the SSD drive, then I advise you to disable it while installing Windows 7, this is so that you do not get confused when choosing a partition to install the OS, but this is not necessary.
All you need to do before installation is to check whether our solid state drive is working in AHCI. To do this, go to the BIOS; if you don’t know how, read the article. Next, go to the tab "Advanced" and select the item “SATA Configuration”.
Select the item, a window will open in which we select AHCI(if you had another mode enabled). Click F10 to save settings.
Now you can begin installing Windows 7. The installation process on a solid-state drive is no different from installing on a hard drive. I just want to give you one piece of advice:
Try to install the original image of the operating system Windows 7 or Windows 8. I recommend installing only one of these operating systems, because only seven and eight can work with SSD drives. Do not use different assemblies, and if you install an assembly of Windows 7 or Windows 8 downloaded from the Internet, then try to choose an image close to the original one.
We install the operating system. You may find the following articles useful:
Once the operating system is installed, you can proceed to setting up Windows for SSD.
Setting up Windows 7 to work with an SSD drive
More precisely, Windows 7 will work anyway, our task is to make sure that our solid-state drive lasts as long as possible and without various errors.
As I already wrote at the beginning of the article, to optimize Windows for a solid-state drive, we will use the SSD Mini Tweaker utility. You can disable all unnecessary options manually, but in the SSD Mini Tweaker program this can all be done in a few clicks. You will only need to manually disable indexing of files on local drives.
First we need to download SSD Mini Tweaker. Download version 2.1 from the link below:
There is no need to install the program, just extract it from the archive and run it.
Launch the SSD Mini Tweaker utility.
You can tick all the boxes, or rather, it’s not possible, but it’s necessary. I have checked all the boxes, except that you can leave only SuperFetch; disabling this service may increase the startup time of programs. Check the boxes for the required services and press the button “Apply changes”. Almost everything, in the same utility there is a “Manual” item, this means that you need to manually disable services. There are two of them, disk defragmentation on a schedule and indexing the contents of files on the disk.
If scheduled defragmentation is disabled automatically after the changes we have made, then indexing of files on the disk must be disabled manually on each local partition.
Let's go to "My computer", and right-click on one of the local drives. Select “Properties”.
A window will open in which you need to uncheck the item “Allow the contents of files on this drive to be indexed in addition to file properties”. Click “Apply”.
Another window will appear, click “Ok”.
We are waiting for the process to complete.
When you do this procedure on drive C, you will most likely receive a message stating that you do not have rights to change system files. I just clicked “Skip all”, I think that if you skip a few files, nothing bad will happen.
That's all, setting up Windows for a solid-state drive is complete. You know, many people say that these are different myths, that nothing needs to be turned off, etc. Maybe so, but if they came up with it, then it means it’s necessary and I think that in any case it won’t hurt.
It seems that I wrote everything I wanted, if you have additions, comments, or something is not clear, then write in the comments, we’ll figure it out. Good luck!
Also on the site:
Updated: February 7, 2018 by: admin
Solid-state drives are becoming more affordable and reliable; there are already a decent number of manufacturers, which gives rise to healthy competition. SK Hynix SSD drives will appear on the Ukrainian market in August. The company is well known to many PC users and has a fairly long history: it was founded in 1983 as a division of Hyundai Corporation for the production of semiconductor products. Later it was separated into a separate company, and recently Hynix merged with the SK Group holding. The company is known for its RAM and has already dabbled in the SSD space. For those who have not heard of the SK Hynix company, there is a short video with the main achievements of the company over its history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTjq9_zMB4Y. And for those who have difficulties with the English language, we will give a few basic ones:
- Korea's first 16 KB SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) chip - 1984
- world's first 256 MB SRAM chip - 1995
- world's fastest mobile chip 512 MB DRAM - 2006
- world's fastest mobile LPDDR2 memory - 2008
One of the common scenarios for using SSDs is to “upgrade” laptops, mainly old ones that were equipped with an HDD. Buying a new laptop is quite an expensive proposition now, and the option to slightly revive an old laptop using an SSD looks very tempting. This is what we will do with the old HP ProBook 5310m from 2009 using the SK Hynix Canvas SL308 250 GB SSD.
Why is SSD interesting?
The company has its own production facilities and makes all components for SSDs independently and provides a three-year warranty on drives. TLC memory chips are used, which are manufactured using a 16 nm process technology, an SK Hynix SH87820BB controller and a 256 MB LPDDR2 cache memory. The stated maximum sequential read speed is 560 MB/s, and the linear write speed is up to 490 MB/s. IOPS values when working with random data are 100,000 and 85,000, respectively. Of course, these are figures under ideal conditions; in our case, the laptop is equipped with a SATAII interface, which is limited to a speed of 300 MB/s, so you shouldn’t expect high operating speeds, but it will be clearly higher than that of a HDD.
SK Hynix Canvas SL308 is packaged in a gray cardboard box, which contains nothing except the drive itself:
The drive is made of brushed aluminum, there is a company logo on the case, and the corners of the SSD are made of red plastic:
There are no screws or additional adapters included in the kit, this is worth taking into account. On the other hand, the drive will receive a quite humane price tag of $70, which is lower than most SSDs of this class from more “promoted” manufacturers.
What we have?
The laptop has a 13.3-inch 1366x768 screen, a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo P9300 processor at 2.26 GHz, 1 GB of DDR3 RAM, integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics, a 250 GB Fujitsu hard drive with a spindle speed of 5400 RPM and Windows 7 32 bit:
The system turns frankly sluggishly, the brakes begin almost immediately after loading. All you need to do is launch a browser and a couple of other applications. The browser "crashes" when there are already a small number of tabs. Built-in storage speed:
The HDD speed is low and unstable, and the CPU is loaded to half:
And a video with loading an almost “clean” OS. It takes about 40 seconds to load (with autorun of a couple of standard programs):
Of course, with such characteristics, replacing the HDD with an SSD is not a panacea for all ills, but it can improve the situation somewhat, especially since there is only 1 GB of RAM and the speed/stability of the system is highly dependent on the paging file. I suspect that in the comments there will be thoughts about faster SSD wear due to the swap file. It seems to me that such a laptop will be retired much earlier than the solid-state drive gets any closer to its “death”.
How did the “move” to SSD happen?
There are a lot of methods and programs for easily and quickly moving from a hard drive to a solid state drive. In our case, we will make a copy of the OS. This laptop does not have an optical drive, so installing a second drive instead of it will not work. Accordingly, there are several options. Insert both drives into another computer and transfer the OS, do this by creating a special bootable flash drive or as I did: use a USB pocket.
There is also enough software for transferring the OS; I used the most easy-to-use Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 4.0. The software detects the connected drives and OS and prompts you to select a source:
And the drive to which the OS will be transferred. The whole process takes no more than half an hour (via USB 2.0). It will be faster on more modern computers and laptops.
Then remove the old hard drive and install a new SSD. The software used allows you to make a complete copy with all data and programs inclusive, or choose what to copy and what not manually.
What are the results?
The system began to boot faster. It takes about 25 seconds to fully load, which is clearly better than 40 seconds on the HDD:
Speed indicators in benchmarks have expectedly increased significantly, the maximum read speed reaches 280 MB/s, write speed - just under 260 MB/s:
The Windows 7 performance rating still remains 3.4 as determined by the minimum value, but the "Disk communication speed" item is now 7.8 (out of a maximum of 7.9):
In general, the laptop began to work really faster and now copes with several programs and a browser without problems, so it can already be used as a working typewriter. Although for complete happiness it would be worth adding more RAM.
When using the SK Hynix Canvas SL308 with modern systems, you can obtain significantly higher operating speeds:
As we remember, the SSD is equipped with a controller developed by SK Hynix SH87820BB. TRIM, S.M.A.R.T., NCQ and so on are supported:
The manufacturer's website has several proprietary useful programs. SK Hynix Drive Manager Easy Kit allows you to view all the main characteristics of the drive and carry out basic settings. SK Hynix SSD System Migration Utility is designed to transfer the OS to an SSD, and SK Hynix Firmware Updater is designed to update the firmware. All programs work only with SK hynix drives:
Bottom line
There are no miracles, and replacing a hard drive with an SSD in the case of a really old laptop is only a partial, temporary solution to the problem and you won’t be able to get a modern, fast device this way. A laptop can actually be brought into a condition acceptable for work, made faster and more efficient in most basic tasks, and used for some time as a mobile typewriter for minimal money. For $70 (that’s what the SSD discussed above will cost), you can’t even buy a used laptop with comparable characteristics now. Usually, more modest devices with an HDD or no drive at all (judging by the advertisements) are offered for this amount.
The editors would like to thank SK Hynix for kindly providing the SSD\
Sandbox
Server God September 12, 2012 at 03:09 pmReplacing a DVD drive with an SSD on a Lenovo B560 laptop
Not long ago I wandered onto some site where the advantages of SSDs were described: high read/write speeds, low heat dissipation, low weight - in general, if not for the price, HDDs would have already sunk into oblivion. Having caught fire with the idea, I definitely wanted to try to install it in the laptop - besides, as I saw during disassembly, it just had one compartment the size of an SSD, but, as it turned out, only mini PCI-E was installed there, and SSDs were more expensive for him and did not boast high speed, so I decided to insert an SSD instead of a DVD drive, which I have not used for a long time.
Luckily, the local DNS had this useful little thing lying around in stock, designed to simplify the task for people like me: Adapter for connecting a 2.5" HDD to a laptop drive bay, SATA for 1,150 rubles.
The kit included a plug stylized to resemble the end of a DVD drive (light bulb, button).
Looking ahead, it didn't fit perfectly.
But the choice of SSD was wide, and after much thought and surfing the forums I settled on Crucial M4, for 3650 rubles (by the way, now, after 2 months it costs 2890 - which, however, is normal for DNS - they like to constantly change prices). I was advised to take an SSD on a Marvel controller - they are, they say, more reliable and do not cause “screens of death”, can work for a long time, and are even good for health.
There were no slides or bolts in the design.
The choice is made - it's time to go to the store. Even when purchasing, I was surprised by the light weight of the box - I even thought that they forgot to put the disc itself. He opened it, took out the papers - and was almost convinced that it was empty inside, but to clear his conscience, he decided to turn the case over - and found a disk. Damn, it’s incredibly light, 50 grams!
Arriving home, the first thing I did was unscrew all the screws on the back cover of the laptop, and then, out of interest, I unscrewed the drive mount (1 screw) and tried to push it out with a screwdriver. To my surprise, it came out almost immediately, so I was in vain intending to disassemble the laptop.
Having inserted the SSD into the box (by the way, if you put it completely down, the connector will not fit into the connector - the disk must be inserted raised), I carefully placed the entire resulting structure into the bowels of the laptop. The box connected very smoothly to the SATA connector, but in the end it went too deep. The plug “bulged” it back a little, but still you can immediately feel the gap to the touch. Visually - everything is fine.
I was much more upset by the fact that this box cannot be secured with a screw on the back cover - I was able to remove the fasteners from the drive, but there were no such holes on the box. Perhaps someday I’ll get around to it and I’ll do something about it. However, it’s unlikely that the box will be able to come out - when I sank it almost completely empty into the case for testing, I had to pull it out with screwdrivers.
results
Now out of 60 GB I have about 55 occupied, 30-35 are occupied by the system and programs, another dozen are occupied by a couple of games, the rest is just rubbish. This despite the fact that I was not particularly worried about its “cleanliness” from the very purchase, which was about 2 months.
I forgot to mention: on my laptop I have a chipset that only supports SATA II, which slightly limits the speed.
Well, at the same time the configuration:
Lenovo B560
Intel Core i3 M370 (2.4 GHz)
Nvidia GeForce 310M
RAM: 3 GB
For some reason, they often write a rating for Windows - I don’t know how correct it is, but just in case I’ll write it: 7.7 out of 7.9 maximum.
Here is a screenshot of Crystal Disk Mark'a for SSD, I will note in advance that I deliberately left the background, with chrome bookmarks at 40:
For comparison, the same test for HDD:
A small glitch:
launching Photoshop CS4 - 4 seconds;
launching World of Tanks (before the login window) - 20 seconds;
launch MO Word 2007 - 1 second.
Installing Windows 7 from a regular flash drive to a clean SSD took about 5 minutes.
As a result, I am generally satisfied with the purchase: working on the laptop has become much more enjoyable, and the speed has increased. And an extra 60 GB wouldn't hurt, would it?
PS: the post was written over the course of 2 months, so it’s a little bit lumpy. If you have any other questions, I will be happy to answer.
Tags: ssd, upgrade, lenovo, b560
