Buying RAM and SSD for a laptop

[najaB]

Even worse! Would 640kB actually run anything these days?

Nothing that uses the Windows GUI (graphical user interface), no. I imagine just "Hello, World!" in a dialog box would need a few MB.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Oct 2020 ==

Most now normally make use of virtualisation, which means fewer physical servers but they need to be a lot more powerful.

Getting OT, but other advantages of virtualisation are that you can scale up and down more easily - if you need more resources temporarily you can spin up a VM (virtual machine) in a cloud data center, just pay for the time that you need and delete them when you're done, and also it makes it a lot easier to recover from system crashes/upgrade issues. Take snapshots regularly (copies of the server status) and if something goes wrong, just revert to an earlier snapshot.

 

[JohnMcL7]

They are what every back-end service runs on, both on company networks and the internet. Most now normally make use of virtualisation, which means fewer physical servers but they need to be a lot more powerful.

They don't need to be particularly powerful these days since multicore processors are relatively cheap (unless going into the super high core counts) and with virtualisation you can share the CPUs since many systems will be idling or not using all their CPU resources. You do need a shed load of ram though but that's fairly easy to add, we have way less physical servers these days and they're not as high spec as they used to be since they're just dual 16 core systems. It's just ridiculous how many servers are packed into such a small space with full redundancy, can create a server in seconds etc.

Handy for personal use as well since you can fire up an alternate OS if you want to try something out or similar.

 

[DB]

They don't need to be particularly powerful these days since multicore processors are relatively cheap (unless going into the super high core counts) and with virtualisation you can share the CPUs since many systems will be idling or not using all their CPU resources. You do need a shed load of ram though but that's fairly easy to add, we have way less physical servers these days and they're not as high spec as they used to be since they're just dual 16 core systems. It's just ridiculous how many servers are packed into such a small space with full redundancy, can create a server in seconds etc.

Handy for personal use as well since you can fire up an alternate OS if you want to try something out or similar.

Rather depends on what you are using them for as to how powerful, but I take your point.

 

[JohnMcL7]

Rather depends on what you are using them for as to how powerful, but I take your point.

Because a virtualised system shares resources (you have multiple virtual cpus per physical core) you actually need less powerful hardware to run a virtualised instance compared to a physical one where the hardware is tied to just one resource. Virtualised systems do pack in a lot of hardware but that's just the way servers are now offering lots of cores in much less space, equivalently you can have lower performance hardware to older physical systems. Our old systems used to run on expensive four socket systems and now those same systems have twice the cores they used to and much better redundancy but on cheaper dual socket servers. When we first started virtualising our systems it was hard to get my head around how we could run so much on so little hardware and even now it's still quite amazing how small the the VM clusters are for what they're doing.

Getting a bit OT anyway unless the OP is wanting to run VM's in which case it's definitely a good idea to max out the ram.

 

[Energy]

Good advice on here, one comment is the SSD, get one from a good company such as Kingston or Crucial/Micron, Samsung are great and I see get recommended but rather expensive, although they are more reliable I haven't had my Crucial SSD fail yet and any important data should be backed up anyway. NVME vs SATA is argued a lot but in performance how much NVME affects it varies but in Solidworks its only a couple seconds difference, NVME is about the same price as SATA so if you can, get it but don't be too worried about it.

For RAM, you may need to enable XMP in the BIOS to use the full 2666mhz speed, by default it will probably run only at 2400mhz which isn't a huge difference to be honest so I wouldn't bother going into the BIOS.

 

[GusB]

I'd generally recommend Crucial - they are a subsidiary of Micron, who are one of the largest actual manufacturers of memory chips, and as I recall they guarantee that if you use their checker tool then the components they supply will work with the system specified.

Thanks for this. I've been looking for a way to make my PC a bit faster. It's a Dell Vostro that's almost 8 years old, but it still does what I need it to do and I can't really justify the cost of a new one at the moment.

I downloaded their checker and found out what I needed. The bad news is that it only support a maximum of 8GB, but it's double what I have now so I'm hoping it'll make a bit of difference for not too much cost.

 

[najaB]

Thanks for this. I've been looking for a way to make my PC a bit faster.

If you've not already, replace the hard disk with a SSD. It makes a massive difference in speed, I could never go back to using spinning rust for my boot device.

 

[Crossover]

If you've not already, replace the hard disk with a SSD. It makes a massive difference in speed, I could never go back to using spinning rust for my boot device.

I can only agree with this advice @GusB - an SSD will do more for performance £ for £ than anything else

 

[Energy]

If you've not already, replace the hard disk with a SSD. It makes a massive difference in speed, I could never go back to using spinning rust for my boot device.

Indeed, more RAM does help if it is needed but nothing is better than an SSD compared to waiting a few minutes for the system to boot up.

 

[ABB125]

An update:
My new RAM and SSD arrived today.
The RAM has installed fine, no issues. The SSD, however, won't be detected by the system, even in the disk manager. The internet suggested running the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, which is currently in progress.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks very much.
(The SSD is a 1TB Crucial P2)

 

[DB]

An update:
My new RAM and SSD arrived today.
The RAM has installed fine, no issues. The SSD, however, won't be detected by the system, even in the disk manager. The internet suggested running the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, which is currently in progress.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks very much.
(The SSD is a 1TB Crucial P2)

Go into the BIOS / UEFI setup on boot and see if it's visible there. I'm not familiar with Lenovo setup, but possibly it needs to be enabled in there.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Oct 2020 ==

Indeed, more RAM does help if it is needed but nothing is better than an SSD compared to waiting a few minutes for the system to boot up.

Yes, indeed - replacing a mechanical drive with an SSD makes a much bigger difference than a RAM upgrade, generally.

 

[ABB125]

Go into the BIOS / UEFI setup on boot and see if it's visible there. I'm not familiar with Lenovo setup, but possibly it needs to be enabled in there.

Thanks - I'll have a look once this diagnostic test is finished.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Oct 2020 ==

New update: it turns out that I made a "beginner mistake" (not really surprising given that I'm definitely a beginner at this!). I hadn't quite inserted the SSD fully, so it wasn't being detected. I attached it properly, and it thus popped up in the Disk Manager as expected.

Thanks very much to everyone who gave advice, it's been very helpful.

 

[Energy]

You may need to make a partition in disk manager for the drive.

 

[ABB125]

You may need to make a partition in disk manager for the drive.

I think I've done that. At least, it's working without any issues!

 

[D365]

Indeed, more RAM does help if it is needed but nothing is better than an SSD compared to waiting a few minutes for the system to boot up.

If you’re running at least 8GB, that’ll be plenty enough to see everyday users through the next five years.

 

[3rd rail land]

If you’re running at least 8GB, that’ll be plenty enough to see everyday users through the next five years.

I'm not so sure. I am usually using just shy of 8GB out of the 16 in my work laptop and that is without doing anything resource intensive. Outlook, a few chrome tabs, Skype, maybe a Word document or spreadsheet, that sort of thing.
That said the laptop is not particularly well optimised. Several services start upon login that are not necessary. I can't do anything about it due to lacking admin rights on this device.

 

[johntea]

16gb definetely seems to have become the new 'normal', even our standard PC purchase at work comes with 16gb now! (It is rather amusing how we'll end up having a couple of thousand i3 / 16GB / SSD devices that'll never see much more action than an Internet browser and Microsoft Office!)

For anyone else wanting to upgrade at the moment with it being Amazon Prime day / week / whatever there are several good deals on there for both RAM and storage, you have to have a Prime membership but right on cue they offered me yet another 30 day Prime trial...I've never paid for Prime

 

[D365]

I'm not so sure. I am usually using just shy of 8GB out of the 16 in my work laptop and that is without doing anything resource intensive. Outlook, a few chrome tabs, Skype, maybe a Word document or spreadsheet, that sort of thing.
That said the laptop is not particularly well optimised. Several services start upon login that are not necessary. I can't do anything about it due to lacking admin rights on this device.

That's your problem there. 4GB RAM has only become inadequate in the last two/three years, and that I can't see any huge leaps in software taking place over the next half-decade.

 

[3rd rail land]

That's your problem there. 4GB RAM has only become inadequate in the last two/three years, and that I can't see any huge leaps in software taking place over the next half-decade.

True but your average computer user won't know how to optimise these things. Thereby using more RAM than really necessary like myself. The difference being I know how to deal with it but can't, a typical computer user wouldn't even know where to begin.

 

[D365]

True but your average computer user won't know how to optimise these things. Thereby using more RAM than really necessary like myself. The difference being I know how to deal with it but can't, a typical computer user wouldn't even know where to begin.

Ah right, I read it as though your work had intentionally added several resource-intensive background processes to their machines.

 

[3rd rail land]

Ah right, I read it as though your work had intentionally added several resource-intensive background processes to their machines.

They have. For example on occasion I boot up the machine and find it running a background scan using up the entirety of the CPU. I have wait several minutes for the CPU load to reduce to regular levels before the machine is of much use to me. That said out of the box Windows isn't optimised particularly well either.

 

[DB]

16gb definetely seems to have become the new 'normal', even our standard PC purchase at work comes with 16gb now! (It is rather amusing how we'll end up having a couple of thousand i3 / 16GB / SSD devices that'll never see much more action than an Internet browser and Microsoft Office!)

Most of ours still have 8 (desktops and laptops), and to be honest that's fine for most purposes, i.e. Microsoft Office and web browsing. It's only really if more demanding programs, such as the Adobe suite, are on there that more RAM is needed.

 

[najaB]

16gb definetely seems to have become the new 'normal', even our standard PC purchase at work comes with 16gb now! (It is rather amusing how we'll end up having a couple of thousand i3 / 16GB / SSD devices that'll never see much more action than an Internet browser and Microsoft Office!)

Most of ours still have 8 (desktops and laptops), and to be honest that's fine for most purposes, i.e. Microsoft Office and web browsing. It's only really if more demanding programs, such as the Adobe suite, are on there that more RAM is needed.

Same here. Most of the general office staff (finance, marketing, sales, etc.) have 8GB. Only the development and support guys and gals have 16GB as standard but that's mainly so that they can spin up VMs/docker instances locally to test things quickly.

 

[3rd rail land]

The programme I work on ordered laptops, with more on order, with 8GB RAM. I had a say in what we ordered but got vetoed by my superiors who said 8GB is enough for now. I was pushing for 16GB.
Sn far there haven't been any issues with the amount of RAM apart from one instance where some vulnerability scanning software was installed and it used up all of the RAM and also didn't seem to known how to make use of the 8 cores the CPU had.

In fact back in 2016 I was dealing with some older laptops that had an i3, 2nd gen I believe, with just 2GB of RAM. Trying to run Windows 10 on them was next to impossible as it was so slow that it was essentially unusable. I managed to get these laptops upgraded to 4GB. The drives were mechanical which of course doesn't help.

 

[D365]

4GB RAM (and a 32GB SSD) is the bare minimum for Windows 10.

 

[DB]

4GB RAM (and a 32GB SSD) is the bare minimum for Windows 10.

4GB is fine for W10 if it's not being used for anything demanding (The Office programs will run acceptably with that). Agree that anything less is not going to give acceptable performance.

WIth SSDs, anything less than 128 GB is realistcally best avoided! 256 is generally fine for networked machines which don't have data saved locally.

 

[najaB]

WIth SSDs, anything less than 128 GB is realistcally best avoided! 256 is generally fine for networked machines which don't have data saved locally.

If only because the cost-per-GB is much higher with smaller drives (assuming you can even find anything smaller than 128GB these days).

 

[skyhigh]

If you've not already, replace the hard disk with a SSD. It makes a massive difference in speed, I could never go back to using spinning rust for my boot device.

I upgraded from a HDD to a SSD recently and it made a massive difference - I originally went for a drive that the Crucial tool showed as compatible with my laptop, but when I installed it the system kept hanging every 10-15 mins and could only be fixed with a reboot. I contacted their support who were very helpful, and sent me a replacement thinking that the one I got was faulty. Same result, system kept hanging. The laptop is only a couple of years old, and I used the correct drivers but just couldn't get it to work. It seemed to be some kind of incompatibility hidden away somewhere that I just couldn't get to the bottom of. I got a refund and bought a Samsung SSD instead and it worked perfectly. A shame, as I was impressed with Crucial's support.

While I had the thing open (not that hard, quite tightly fitted together but no glue or anything) I upgraded the RAM too, but the SSD made by far and away the most difference.

Edit - as an aside, I was really surprised how much the cost of SSDs has come down. I could easily get a decent 1TB SSD within my budget which I could never have thought of a few years ago.

 

[D365]

Edit - as an aside, I was really surprised how much the cost of SSDs has come down. I could easily get a decent 1TB SSD within my budget which I could never have thought of a few years ago.

Very much so. 1TB SSDs for under £100 is impressive. Mechanical hard drives are well on their way to being usurped in the consumer market.

 

[najaB]

Mechanical hard drives are well on their way to being usurped in the consumer market.

Not usurped, but moved to the secondary storage role. I'd trust a mechanical hard drive to still be readable after a few years sitting idle, I don't have the same level of confidence about SSDs.