I have a Dell Latitude E6400 that is in good working order, however I'm curious as to how changing to a 120GB SSD will improve it and conserve power as it is always running, also seeing that my laptop is registered activated Windows 7 with Microsoft is there a program where I can just copy/mirror my present HD to the newer one without any hassle, technical or legal
change over to SSD
- Thread starter jimtr6
- Start date
ssal
Active Member
Don't know what stage of the game you're in. If you had not purchased the SSD yet, you may want to hold it off. Your Dell was made in 2008 so it is pretty much aged. Even if it will run for another couple of years, it is quite slow. I had a Vostro 1500 of the same era. It was getting to be intolerably slow and I got rid of it.
In any case, if you're going to get a new SSD, you may want to cough up a little more to get at lease a 256Gb, if not 500 Gb. They had come down quite a bit on price and a 256Gb can be had for less than $100.
I upgraded my relatively new Toshiba i7 laptop with a 256Gb SSD about year or year and half ago. I absolutely love it. My laptop has no moving part and it is quiet and fast. The fan never came on. Boot time is under 30 seconds, but I don't shut it down too often. Huge programs like Photoshop and Visual Studio was loaded almost instantaneously. I only wish I had put in a 500+ Gb, but then $$ was a lot more 15 months ago.
The easier way to switch over is to image the drive. You can do that as long as your old drive contains less "used" space than the SSD. Most of the SSD supplies you with the software to do that. I use Macrium (the freebie version) and I would highly recommend it because it is not brand-specific. It would be a bit confusing to learn how to use it. But it is very good after you master it. In there, you can allocate and resize the SSD partition to make it possible to change over from a larger HD to a smaller SSD. I did mine a a couple more for my friends so I am extremely comfortable with the process.
For me, this is almost the best upgrade I had had since PC came along.
Good luck. If you have any more questions about porting your drive, feel free to email me or ask it here. I'll be glad to help.
In any case, if you're going to get a new SSD, you may want to cough up a little more to get at lease a 256Gb, if not 500 Gb. They had come down quite a bit on price and a 256Gb can be had for less than $100.
I upgraded my relatively new Toshiba i7 laptop with a 256Gb SSD about year or year and half ago. I absolutely love it. My laptop has no moving part and it is quiet and fast. The fan never came on. Boot time is under 30 seconds, but I don't shut it down too often. Huge programs like Photoshop and Visual Studio was loaded almost instantaneously. I only wish I had put in a 500+ Gb, but then $$ was a lot more 15 months ago.
The easier way to switch over is to image the drive. You can do that as long as your old drive contains less "used" space than the SSD. Most of the SSD supplies you with the software to do that. I use Macrium (the freebie version) and I would highly recommend it because it is not brand-specific. It would be a bit confusing to learn how to use it. But it is very good after you master it. In there, you can allocate and resize the SSD partition to make it possible to change over from a larger HD to a smaller SSD. I did mine a a couple more for my friends so I am extremely comfortable with the process.
For me, this is almost the best upgrade I had had since PC came along.
Good luck. If you have any more questions about porting your drive, feel free to email me or ask it here. I'll be glad to help.
Imma stop you right there. The E6400 was produced for several years, so it's not necessarily that old. I had an E6500 I purchased in July of 2009 and after sticking an SSD in it I saw a massive improvement in performance over a mechanical drive.
ssal
Active Member
There is no doubt that a SSD would improve on speed. Instead of reading a physical HDD, it is all virtual. My 2008 Vostro 1500 was from the same era. Intel Pentium Core 2 Dual, 160 Gb HDD. Mine had 3 Gb of DRAM. It was a work horse of its day. But 2008 or 2009 is still at least 6 years since. There is no comparison to a machine of today, or even 2012's. The SSD would not refresh a webpage any faster. I am surprised that you have Windows 7 on a 2008 machine. Windows 7 was released in 2009.
With no disrespect, I guess it comes down to your tolerance.
Agent Smith
Well-Known Member
AN SSD is the single most best upgrade you can make. As far as power consumtion you're looking at only a few minutes saved on the battery. I have cloned my HDD to SSD with no issues. I have used AOMEI Backuper to achieve this task. It will align the partition as well. If you currently don't have AHCI enabled now you can do so following this guide then clone. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976
http://www.aomeitech.com/
Use AS SSD to verify the SSD partition is aligned. AOMEI Backuper will align for you when you clone. http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6014-as-ssd-benchmark.html
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