Change HD to SSD

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Fisherman

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I've had an Asus AIO desktop for about a year. Have used it very little, but it has become gradually slower and slower to open. Very little loaded on to it. Have tried everything as suggested on line to improve speed . I'm thinking of having the 1TB HD (Toshiba MQ04ABF100) changed for a SSD . Wondering what the cost might be to do this.
I use a Chromebook for general use.
 
You can get a 1TB SSD for c. €100 these days.
I bought one of these recently as it was a good price for a well reviewed model.
Delivery was a bit slow though.

Crucial MX500 SSD 1TB SSD Blue | Techinn

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What's the rest of the spec of the laptop just out of curiosity? E.g. processor and memory in particular? Or is your particular model listed here?
www.asus.com

All-in-One PCs - All series｜ASUS Ireland

www.asus.com www.asus.com
If the desktop has an NVMe slot then an NVMe SSD would be even faster than a SATA one such as the one above - but may be slightly more expensive.
 
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A couple of comments:

1. If your HDD is already almost full, swapping it for a SSD won't make any difference, but adding an extra HDD or SSD might if you can configure the system to use two drives. Adding a 2 TB HDD or SSD might also help you, but see 3. below

2. If the situation is as per 1. above adding more RAM won't help either even if RAM is upgradeable. I can't tell from the specs I found but the Crucial online configurator can if you install it.

3. I believe your Intel processor may be part of the problem. What are you trying to run on the machine?

Crucial
 
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mathepac said:
A couple of comments:

1. If your HDD is already almost full, swapping it for a SSD won't make any difference, but adding an extra HDD or SSD might if you can configure the system to use two drives. Adding a 2 TB HDD or SSD might also help you, but see 3. below

2. If the situation is as per 1. above adding more RAM won't help either even if RAM is upgradeable. I can't tell from the specs I found but the Crucial online configurator can if you install it.

3. I believe your Intel processor may be part of the problem. What are you trying to run on the machine?

Crucial
Click to expand...
That's my problem,, There's nothing on it except for Win 11. The small amount I had on it has been all removed. There's 900gb spare.
As said, it's only about a year old.
 
As ClubMan suggests, your best option if replacing the HDD is to get a NVMe SSD (if your motherboard has the required slot). In the meantime you can speed it up a bit with the following steps . .
1. Stop and then disable SysMain (Prefetch) and Windows Search (indexing) services. You can run services.msc from a Command Prompt to access these
2. Open the Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Settings . . under Performance tab select 'Adjust for best performance' . . under System Protection tab turn off system protection on the C: drive
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and select Task Manager -> Details (I think it is, maybe it's More or Advanced) -> Startup -> disable all items except sound/audio related entries, then reboot.
 
As mentioned earlier, the Pentium (Gold?) 6405U is most likely the main bottleneck in your system and there's probably not much you can do about that unless it's upgradable and that might not be cost effective. However an SSD and maximum memory should still help. And then there's a whole world of operating system/software tweaking, especially with Windows, that may help further. However if you are buying an SSD, memory and maybe other hardware upgrades then weigh the cost of that against just buying a new better spec system.
 
ClubMan said:
You said desktop but the Pentium 6405U is a laptop CPU.
Are you sure that you have a desktop?

Edit: or is it this model with the Pentium 6405U option?

- Specifications｜All-in-One PCs｜ASUS Ireland

Specifications detailed introduction,
www.asus.com www.asus.com
Seems to have an NVMe slot.
Click to expand...
Yes. I said above it was that one. AIO 22-V222 All-in-One Desktop. C/w wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.

The point is, this unit worked fine with all originally installed components why then has the performance deteriorated with minimal data load applied.
I believe it either a 'duff' HD or a Windows issue.
 
What version of Windows did you start with?
What version do you have now?

It is also possible that you have a lot of bloatware software that has creeped in over the years
 
Fisherman said:
Yes. I said above it was that one. AIO 22-V222 All-in-One Desktop. C/w wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.

The point is, this unit worked fine with all originally installed components why then has the performance deteriorated with minimal data load applied.
I believe it either a 'duff' HD or a Windows issue.
Click to expand...
Very difficult to say at this remove.
If the hardware is not faulty then it could simply be Windows "bloat" that builds up over time due to updates, upgrades (Windows 10 to 11?), Windows enabling lots of services that most users don't need etc.
If possible I'd save any user data and do a clean install even on the existing HDD to see if that freshens/speeds things up.
 
michaelm said:
As Páid suggests, Linux should run noticeably faster than Windows. I use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on old hardware (albeit with a NVMe SSD) and it tips along.
Click to expand...
My favourite for old/under spec'd hardware these days is Zorin OS Lite (16.2 is the latest) which is a derivative of Ubuntu but a lot nicer to use that Ubuntu (and its horrible desktop and invasive advertising) especially for those most comfortable with Windows.
zorin.com

Zorin OS - Make your computer better.

Discover the alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure, and privacy-respecting.
zorin.com zorin.com
 
Take a look at the disk usage stats on the Performance tab of Task Manager. If the numbers are low you're likely to see a much greater performance boost by increasing memory.

When you have nothing running, what are CPU and memory running at?
 
For what it's worth there are many "debloating"/optimising Windows guides, videos, and tools out there for people who want to reduce the unnecessary bloat, services etc. But only use guides/tools from reputable sources and only if you have some idea what you're doing. ;)
And, ideally, start with a fresh/clean install of Windows.
 
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ClubMan said:
My favourite for old/under spec'd hardware these days is Zorin OS Lite (16.2 is the latest) which is a derivative of Ubuntu but a lot nicer to use that Ubuntu (and its horrible desktop and invasive advertising) especially for those most comfortable with Windows.
zorin.com

Zorin OS - Make your computer better.

Discover the alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure, and privacy-respecting.
zorin.com zorin.com
Click to expand...

A here boys!! you're overloading me. I'm only a hairy-assed Elect Engr (rtd). Don't have any IT guys at my disposal any more. :)
However, I'll have a fiddle with some of the above suggestions... making sure I don't make things worse. Thanks for all the comments.
 
Fisherman said:
A here boys!! you're overloading me. I'm only a hairy-assed Elect Engr (rtd). Don't have any IT guys at my disposal any more. :)
However, I'll have a fiddle with some of the above suggestions... making sure I don't make things worse. Thanks for all the comments.
Click to expand...
If you ever decide to ditch Windows then Zorin OS and many other Linux distributions are very easy to install and use these days.
 
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