(3) Close down the laptop, and remove the battery. (2) “Clone” the current HD to the SSD, then unplug it from the laptop. (1) Connect the SSD to your laptop via an eSATA or USB cable or an external caddy. In principle, SSDs are easy to install, as follows. SSDs are also prone to fail, though I believe that, today, they are less likely to fail than HDs.

However, SSDs are still much more expensive than HDs for the same amount of storage. They also consume less power, which prolongs battery life. SSDs have no moving parts, so they are impervious to the shocks that can damage hard drives when laptops are bumped around or even dropped. Programs can load data straight from an SSD without having to wait for a hard drive to spin up to speed, or for the read/write head to find the right sector on the platter. SSDs make your PC start up faster, and programs feel much more responsive. It’s often worth replacing a spinning-platter HD (hard drive) with a chip-based SSD (solid-state drive). For example, hinges break, especially if you lift a laptop by its screen, and power cables fray. Otherwise, many common problems are mechanical ones. Motherboard batteries also tend to fail after five years. Of course, hard drives do become increasingly likely to fail after five to 10 years, but many fail within three years and no doubt some last more than a decade: there’s no easy way to tell. It’s already running Microsoft Windows 10 with 8GB of memory, so there’s no urgent need to upgrade or replace it. The Dell Studio 17 was a solid desktop replacement laptop with plenty of power but not much portability. Just in case this makes it into your column, can I state for the record I have no interest in Macs or Linux. Rebuilding these links would be very time consuming.

This is especially important in ArcMap, where a map file may contain dozens of links to data spread over many different folders.

I do have back-ups: I am more concerned with ease of transfer so that programs retain their settings and paths to data if possible. Should I be thinking of replacing the hard drive now? If so, would it be better to pay extra to go down the SSD route? However, if other components are likely to fail, would I be better off replacing the whole thing now?Įither route will obviously entail transferring a large amount of data crucial to my teaching and research. I have no problems with anything, but I am concerned about longevity and component failure. In my home office, I hook it up to a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor.Īs a part-time university lecturer, I run the usual software – Microsoft Office, Adobe Illustrator etc – plus some specialist software such as ArcMap, part of the ArcGIS suite. My main computer is a Dell Studio 17 laptop from 2010 (specification attached).

Replace hard drive dell laptop