I have a few older laptops - Dell and HP and Toshiba and Lenovo. They range from 2006 up to 2010. All have smaller HDD's that are all pretty beat/dead/small. I've tried a few cheap-ish Patriot 128 & 256GB SSD's but they seem to have firmware or compatibility issues. (BSOD during post or boot or even randomly during operation) I'm looking for a cheap-o 128-256 GB SSD that seems to have good luck with this vintage laptop so that I can speed them up. I've already spent the cash to max out the memory in these things... I think if they have SSD they will feel much faster than they were with an older 5400rpm HDD. I'll donate these things to a charter school so they don't need to be crazy fast however I'd like them to be nice. Not sure if anyone here has an older laptop that they've upgraded to a SSD and have had good luck with it. If so I'd appreciate sharing the brand. Thx!!
I don't think using SSD would improve your old laptops' performance all that much. Not sure how "old". If the processor is slow, replacing the HDD with SSD would hardly boost the overall performance. The data may always be ready, but the CPU is not processing them fast enough.
A 7200 rpm HD with a generous onboard cache will be an improvement without the compatibility issue. The performance improvement with an SSD is most apparent during bootup. But once you're up and running, not much difference as most files stay resident in memory after the initial access. Hat's off to you for donating the equipment!
Samsung 840 Pro 128gb SSD - Newegg [24 hr sale] Very nice SSD http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemai...E0A-_-EditorsElite&et_cid=6071&et_rid=8018174
Laptops are so cheap now you may better better off just buying a new one. I had a 2012 Dell laptop as a backup but even after tweaking it a thousand times I finally caved and bought a Lenovo that works well with at least three instances running on it. The processor and as much memory possible is what really counts if you're running a multitude of bloated programs (TWS, TOS, Excel & a data feed).
I often find that a slightly older laptop or netbook with upgraded memory and a SSD (coming from minimum RAM and a 5400rpm HDD) makes a night and day difference. Completely different machines. A fresh OS install with the upgraded RAM and SSD make it a much faster feeling machine. I understand that the CPU speeds do not change as well as RAM and FSB speeds, etc. so it doesn't make anything really "faster" - other than eliminate bottlenecks. I've found a Samsung SSD - the 840 EVO 250gb drive that seems to have not crashed a single older laptop. I found a bulk buy/lot of them 48 SSD's at about $50 each (used/refurb) so the price was right. Again, to those commenting about "cheaper to buy new" these will be donated to a local charter school and given to kids. I have about 12 laptops that I'll be donating so nothing major but it'll be a help. Pointless to throw them all away.
I am going for example to change my 5400 RPM 1TB HDD for some like 128GB SSD which can be like $20 now anyway. I do not need that much space cause not doing anything worsy on laptop today, but plan to sell older thing for much better cash.