In need of advice on an internal HDD upgrade compatibility ..

karthik316_1999 said:

Hi All,

I had successfully upgraded the SATA HDD on my Inspiron laptop to a WD Blue SATA SSD (based on opinions from the digit forum ) few months back & things are good.
Now, we are experiencing the same (slowness + 100% disk usage) on our Sony Vaio SVF1521ASNB which incidentally shares the same CPU as the Dell.. (Core i3 3217U)

Just wanted to get a confirmation from the digit forum if its okay to go ahead with the same SATA SSD upgrade (& use the old internal 500 GB SATA as an external drive)

Also, I see that the prices of the SATA SSD's have changed significantly since the last purchase.. So, need to ponder on the brand.. Basically considering the same WD Blue & a Samsung with 5 year warranty..

Thanks as always!

Click to expand...

All SATA SSDs are more or less same in terms of performance.

• You can simply get the same WD Blue SSD as replacement for the hard disk. I have good experience with WD.
• Check if you have any spare slots to fit M2 drives (There was one in my laptop) as I am unable to find any onboard slot in a teardown video of your mentioned model. If it has, you can keep using the HDD along with M2 Drive.
• You can ditch the DVD writer and use the space to accommodate SSD as primary OS drive along with HDD to retain content and space. Search for "Drive Caddy" on internet.

That would be great too, since I see that price difference between sata & M2 are not that wide..

Unfortunately, the laptop is not near me so unable to post pics of the motherboard..
Though I doubt if an M2 slot would be present in a lap with the i3 3217u CPU released in the year 2012- 2013

Will check though..

Prices I can find for a 256gb drive online:

Samsung 860 evo - 4.6k
970 evo plus - 4.9k
980 - 3.8k

Wd blue M2 - 3.5k

Samsung sata 870 evo - 3.8k

Wd blue sata - 4.5k

karthik316_1999 said:

That would be great too, since I see that price difference between sata & M2 are not that wide..

Unfortunately, the laptop is not near me so unable to post pics of the motherboard..
Though I doubt if an M2 slot would be present in a lap with the i3 3217u CPU released in the year 2012- 2013

Will check though..

Prices I can find for a 256gb drive online:

Samsung 860 evo - 4.6k
970 evo plus - 4.9k
980 - 3.8k

Wd blue M2 - 3.5k

Samsung sata 870 evo - 3.8k

Wd blue sata - 4.5k

Click to expand...

Yeah. I also think the motherboard doesn't come with spare slots.

• All mentioned SSDs are good and should provide the required boost or they will outperform whatever load you will throw. Its how much you are willing to pay for a product.
• Since you are looking for performance increase, it is recommended to install a fresh clean copy of windows on SSD and keep it free from bloatware as much as possible. That way you will be sure that none of the extra baground running software eating up drive output eventually fulfilling your requirements.
• You didn't specified the amount of RAM and with only SSD don't expect THAT performance spike. The model you mentioned says it came with 2 gigs of ram.

I have extremely bad experience with 4GB DDR4 with windows 10 Pro (Fresh) as it keeps on eating 3.7ish GBs on idle. If you can (you must), upgrade the RAM too to 8 gigs as its standard nowdays.
- Takeaway - Get the heatsink and fan cleaned with compressed air. If you are more of a DIYish guy, get the whole chassis cleaned and apply new thermal paste. That way you will be 101% sure as you are providing best care and parts to the machine, now this is the time for them to perform best in return.

Thanks for those pointers..

I had upgraded the RAM earlier to a total of 4GB.. and u haven't maxed the RAM until now anytime .. + my Dell performed to expectations with only a SSD upgrade.. so I'm not considering another RAM upgrade (as of now)..

I shall do some search on the compressed air option & get back..
Thanks again

If opting for the 860 evo, I see that my current HDD contents (OS, apps, settings, etc) can be cloned/migrated using a Samsung proprietary software.

My current OS on the HDD is a Windows 8.1 & I would like to upgrade to windows 10 on the new SSD.

1. Clone the Windows 8.1 & then upgrade to Win 10
2. Install a fresh copy of Win 10 on the new SSD & then transfer the files needed separately from the HDD

Which one of these is preferred / easier / makes sense ?

For Win10, prefer 8GB RAM + SSD. Microsoft should keep it as the recommended requirement for Win10/11 IMO. Win10's 2015 version was much lighter than Win10 21H2, hence 8GB RAM is needed.

You can clone Win8.1 first, then run Win10 upgrade assistant to upgrade to Win10.

Buy Crucial MX500 500GB for 4.2k, very similar performance to 860 evo & WD blue.

How do I see if I'm running the 2015 or 21H2 version of Win10 ?

Thank you for that 500 GB suggestion.. Looks like I get double the storage for just a little more..

karthik316_1999 said:

How do I see if I'm running the 2015 or 21H2 version of Win10 ?

Thank you for that 500 GB suggestion.. Looks like I get double the storage for just a little more..

Click to expand...

press Windows Key + R
type winver
press enter
check the open about window

Cool !

Looks like I'm running the latest version only on my Dell.. & performance is 'satisfactory' with a 4GB ram

Hopefully, the Sony Vaio will also perform the same way without a RAM upgrade..

karthik316_1999 said:

How do I see if I'm running the 2015 or 21H2 version of Win10 ?

Thank you for that 500 GB suggestion.. Looks like I get double the storage for just a little more..

Click to expand...

You can't forcefully stay in an older version for long, MS will force an update.

Thank you all !

Purchased & successfully installed a crucial 500gb & experiencing good difference with the performance.

Cheers

omega44-xt said:

You can't forcefully stay in an older version for long, MS will force an update.

Click to expand...

Actually you can disable both the update & the update services themselves, either through Group Policy Editor (If it's present on your version of Windows), or through other programs. Google for "Windows Update Blocker" / "WPD App".

PS before the microsoft defenders come out in force, the programs are legit and perfectly safe to use.

maheshn said:

Actually you can disable both the update & the update services themselves, either through Group Policy Editor (If it's present on your version of Windows), or through other programs. Google for "Windows Update Blocker" / "WPD App".

PS before the microsoft defenders come out in force, the programs are legit and perfectly safe to use.

Click to expand...

Not defending MS, just the opposite. Shitty move by MS. Another reason why I stick to Win10 as these stuff are getting worse with Win11. You have to jump through a lot of hoops & games on the Xbox app don't run on very old Win10 versions. Like FH5 has 1909 as requirement.

Hi All,

So.. after upgrading the HDD to a SATA SSD, windows 10 was installed on the system.
I couldn't find any official drivers for Windows 10 on the manufacturer's website link :

Hence, I had installed all the drivers from the below link:

All was fine until I started noticing this issue:
- The list of wi-fi networks that get populated within a window upon clicking the wi-fi icon no longer happens..
(The issue is NOT with my 'wifi network' not getting listed in the available network list BUT the window itself opens up as if it were about to open & closes out by itself)
- The windows symbol at the bottom left does not bring up the menu/app drawer... (same symptom as though it were trying to pop out but gets closed pre-maturely..)

Any help would be really useful..

karthik316_1999 said:

Hi All,

So.. after upgrading the HDD to a SATA SSD, windows 10 was installed on the system.
I couldn't find any official drivers for Windows 10 on the manufacturer's website link :

*www.sony.co.in/electronics/support/laptop-pc-svf-series/svf1521asn/downloads

Hence, I had installed all the drivers from the below link:

*www.driverscape.com/manufacturers/sony/laptops-desktops/svf1521asnb/122288

All was fine until I started noticing this issue:
- The list of wi-fi networks that get populated within a window upon clicking the wi-fi icon no longer happens..
(The issue is NOT with my 'wifi network' not getting listed in the available network list BUT the window itself opens up as if it were about to open & closes out by itself)
- The windows symbol at the bottom left does not bring up the menu/app drawer... (same symptom as though it were trying to pop out but gets closed pre-maturely..)

Any help would be really useful..

Click to expand...

Try reinstalling OS if you can or just system restore to older point. I hope you did a clean install of Win10 when you switched from HDD to SSD, if not, do that.

Yes it was a clean install..
Can this be related to a display/other driver issue?

karthik316_1999 said:

Yes it was a clean install..
Can this be related to a display/other driver issue?

Click to expand...

Not sure. Windows has random bugs at times. Maybe touchpad driver is not working well.

How to enable a Precision Touchpad for more gestures on your laptop

Is the touch pad related to this issue? Actually, the right click on my touch pad does not work. Didn't mind it too since I use a wired mouse

karthik316_1999 said:

Is the touch pad related to this issue? Actually, the right click on my touch pad does not work. Didn't mind it too since I use a wired mouse

Click to expand...

Maybe it is malfunctioning. Troubleshooting involves a lot of trial & errors. So I'm just guessing.

Okay... So I guess there are no other options than OS reinstall.

In this case, I guess I'm better off installing win 8.1 itself. .