4 year old laptop worth SSD?

[ren5000]

Hello, I have a Samsung RV511-A01 with an Intel Corei3 380M 2.5gHz, windows 7 home pro, 4gb ram. It runs decently still for what I do (email, pay bills, web browse, and iTunes). I don't game on it so that doesn't matter to me. My question is should I lay out about $220 for a 500gb ssd and another 4gb ram? (Unfortunately I can't really afford the $2k for a macbook pro that I'd love to have.) So is the $220 worth it? Will it extend my lifespan or is it a waste of time and $?
Also, if I do upgrade the ram, should I replace the current 4gb with two brand new 4gb cards or can I get by with just adding one new 4gb ram card?
Thanks!

 

[Petrossa]

Howdy.

Swopping the HD out for a SSD will breathe new life in to that system of yours from a performance point of view. Also, your battery life will be extended compared to what you get out of it now. There is no need to purchase 2 new sticks of RAM either, just adding a new stick with the one you got now will also do the trick.

 

[Brunostako]

Adding a SSD to any PC/laptop is a great investment always, even more if you use it for any kind of productivity rather than gaming.

Go and buy that RAM and SSD, you will never regret it.

I did that to my laptop and the results are great.

 

[jaguarskx]

If you are looking to make you laptop feel more responsive (faster load times) then a SSD will be able to do that.

It will not improve the processing performance of your CPU.

 

[snowathlete]

I have almost the same system, a Samsung S3511 with roughly the same equipement. It's been a decent machine, with the processor being pretty strong. I just bought a new 17" lenovo to upgrade, but I will keep the Samsung as it is more a portable unit, and still capable. I am thinking of upgrading both machines with new SSDs (the lenovo comes with a 8GB hybrid SSHD) so would be very interested to hear what difference an SSD makes to your RV511.

Looking at benchmark tests of other machines, it shoud make a surprisingly big difference but in reality?

 

[ren5000]

I have almost the same system, a Samsung S3511 with roughly the same equipement. It's been a decent machine, with the processor being pretty strong. I just bought a new 17" lenovo to upgrade, but I will keep the Samsung as it is more a portable unit, and still capable. I am thinking of upgrading both machines with new SSDs (the lenovo comes with a 8GB hybrid SSHD) so would be very interested to hear what difference an SSD makes to your RV511.

Looking at benchmark tests of other machines, it shoud make a surprisingly big difference but in reality?

In reality just bumping up to 8gb of ram was an amazing performance boost. Everything much snappier. I put in a Samsung 850EVO 500gb ssd which I found for $178. The Samsung data migration software for cloning my drive was simple to use and the Samsung Magician software is a breeze as well letting you optimize your ssd for your choice of speed, reliabity, or lifespan. Overall I am very impressed with the upgrades. Before the ssd my time to a usable desktop from power off was about 5 minutes, now its under 1 minute. From sleep a usable desktop is as near to instant as can be. Also I use iTunes alot and have 100+gb worth of music, before the ssd iTunes took like 2 minutes to load and now about 4 seconds. From what I've read the Samsung 850EVO is a great drive and the software is included.
Bottom line for just over $200 ($180 for the ssd and about $30 for an extra 4gb of ram) my laptop feels brand new. DO IT!

 

[lydneynexus]

Looking at your specs, I think it will be well worth swapping out your HDD for a SSD, SSDs are better as they are faster and more reliable, the only drawback is that they are more expensive, but in the long run, buying a SSD will save you money. An SSD will make your system way faster, boot times, load times in general, will be considerably smoother and faster. You should think about adding another 4GB stick of RAM to your system, which will total your RAM to 8GB, which will be sufficient for everyday tasks, and some heavy tasks, like gaming or photoshop. Hope this helps with your decision!