Budget 0-20k Which SSD for a basic use Laptop?

Ssreek

Ssreek

Adept
We have an old laptop with i3 2nd gen processor with 4gb ram. It's pretty basic. My uncle kept this laptop aside for sometime and now wants to revive it and use it to type his lessons, for which he mostly uses MS word and powerpoint. He doesn't want to buy a new laptop anyway.

So this laptop has a hard disk which is almost dying (health 40%).

I told him the concept of ssd. I initially thought to suggest Samsung ssd but it is costly for his budget/purpose. I want to exclude crucial due to past bad experience.

For his specific use, is WD Green (no DRAM) SSD sufficient? It is cheaper but I don't know whether it would perform good for atleast 2-3 years. If this isn't good, please suggest good alternative.
 
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Ssreek said:
We have an old laptop with i3 2nd gen processor with 4gb ram. It's pretty basic. My uncle kept this laptop aside for sometime and now wants to revive it and use it to type his lessons, for which he mostly uses MS word and powerpoint. He doesn't want to buy a new laptop anyway.

So this laptop has a hard disk which is almost dying (health 40%).

I told him the concept of ssd. I initially thought to suggest Samsung ssd but it is costly for his budget/purpose. I want to exclude crucial due to past bad experience.

For his specific use, is WD Green (no DRAM) SSD sufficient? It is cheaper but I don't know whether it would perform good for atleast 2-3 years. If this isn't good, please suggest good alternative.
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I am using a WD Green on a HP laptop which has aged, OS is installed on the SSD & boots/runs fast.
Not very tech expert but don't find any hiccups while doing tasks, the system is used mainly for browsing & lightweight office work (Excel & Word).
The internal HDD still exists but only to keep extra data, important stuff is kept on SSD only.

From what I understand DRAM will offer you additional Read/Write speed (Atleast that is true for external SSD), same thing applies to internal?
 
montsa007 said:
From what I understand DRAM will offer you additional Read/Write speed (Atleast that is true for external SSD), same thing applies to internal?
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DRAM cache helps when reading/writing data to SSD constantly especially for larger files. Since DRAM is faster than NAND it serves as a high speed cache.
You can observe performance of DRAM-less SSDs slowing down when writing larger files but again even these SSDs are significantly faster than HDDs so it's still a huge performance increase for people still booting from spinning rust.

To OP, I'd avoid WD green just because it's regarded as "Garbage" as per community tier list and instead opt for BX500 which is very good choice for budget users.
 
enthusiast29 said:
DRAM cache helps when reading/writing data to SSD constantly especially for larger files. Since DRAM is faster than NAND it serves as a high speed cache.
You can observe performance of DRAM-less SSDs slowing down when writing larger files but again even these SSDs are significantly faster than HDDs so it's still a huge performance increase for people still booting from spinning rust.

To OP, I'd avoid WD green just because it's regarded as "Garbage" as per community tier list and instead opt for BX500 which is very good choice for budget users.
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Then what about my SSD which WD SN570.
Shall it remain faster or slow over time?
 
enthusiast29 said:
To OP, I'd avoid WD green just because it's regarded as "Garbage" as per community tier list and instead opt for BX500 which is very good choice for budget users.
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Can you comment on crucial warranty support, if you’ve any past experience? I had somewhat bad experience 3 years ago from crucial, that’s why hesitant to buy it again. Otherwise crucial mx500 is at a good price now in amazon.
 
Ssreek said:
Can you comment on crucial warranty support, if you’ve any past experience? I had somewhat bad experience 3 years ago from crucial, that’s why hesitant to buy it again. Otherwise crucial mx500 is at a good price now in amazon.
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BX500 is little slow than MX500 but otherwise it's good if you don't mind the slow speeds.

I purchased MX500 480GB as told by my niece just now. It's working fantastically. Don't worry about RMA and all also. Both the speeds and RMA process is very good.
 
Ssreek said:
Can you comment on crucial warranty support, if you’ve any past experience? I had somewhat bad experience 3 years ago from crucial, that’s why hesitant to buy it again. Otherwise crucial mx500 is at a good price now in amazon.
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Honestly I never had to RMA SSDs ever. Only 1 failure in 10 years of use from an old Intel SSD which was already 8 years old. Generally SSDs don't fail if using normally especially 2.5" SATA drives since they are well protected by their enclosure. Same can't be said about exposed PCIe NVME drives.

MX500 has DRAM cache and is comparable to 860 evo in performance while BX500 is a budget option without DRAM cache. I know a person who was also skeptical to use BX500 (their first ever SSD) but after using for few months ordered another one for a different machine and is quite happy with it.
 
enthusiast29 said:
Honestly I never had to RMA SSDs ever. Only 1 failure in 10 years of use from an old Intel SSD which was already 8 years old. Generally SSDs don't fail if using normally especially 2.5" SATA drives since they are well protected by their enclosure. Same can't be said about exposed PCIe NVME drives.

MX500 has DRAM cache and is comparable to 860 evo in performance while BX500 is a budget option without DRAM cache.
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I bought Samsung 860 EVO 500GB in January , 201l8 for my i5 MSI Gaming Laptop and that too is working superbly until now. No probs what so ever until now.

My kid browses and plays small games in it and it's working fine until now.
 
not to buy expensive SSD for this laptop .this CPU will not even utilize that fully ...the best SSD for this laptop is crucial basic series bx or mx ..they are going cheap too these days ..
 
asimh99 said:
not to buy expensive SSD for this laptop .this CPU will not even utilize that fully ...the best SSD for this laptop is crucial basic series bx or mx ..they are going cheap too these days ..
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I agree and hence why I suggested BX500 since the sata controller on this probably is sata2 only. Can't be sure though but still CPU is a bit of a bottleneck for high speed transfers and since the use is pretty basic just go with cheap DRAM-less drive unless a drive with DRAM cache is very close to the price of the one without DRAM cache.

I'm using DRAM-less drives with multiple old laptops and a desktop without issues till date. Most have the Kingston A400 or UV300.
 
enthusiast29 said:
I agree and hence why I suggested BX500 since the sata controller on this probably is sata2 only. Can't be sure though but still CPU is a bit of a bottleneck for high speed transfers and since the use is pretty basic just go with cheap DRAM-less drive
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Atleast is it worth getting ssd for this laptop? The hdd is at 40% health, I guess it won't survive for long.

enthusiast29 said:
unless a drive with DRAM cache is very close to the price of the one without DRAM cache.

I'm using DRAM-less drives with multiple old laptops and a desktop without issues till date. Most have the Kingston A400 or UV300.
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Difference between bx500 and mx500 is like 600 rupees...so that's okay I guess.
 
Any SSD will give you a solid bump in how fast a PC feels, over running the OS from an HDD (especially an aging HDD). If you intend to continue using the device, an SSD is one of most bang for buck upgrades you can make. Like already mentioned, you probably won't feel any difference in BX or MX series in general use, but if MX is just a bit more might as well go for that.
 
shakesbeer said:
Please first check what type of ssd that laptop supports , maybe you'll need a caddy.
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AC7D1A17-4B5D-413A-88A4-CD7A930E5523.jpeg


It has these metal brackets on hdd, so I’m hoping caddy is not necessary.
 
Update:

cr2.jpg

So I ordered MX500 as some of you have suggested. It is working good without any issues after 2 days of testing...
Initially tried to install Windows 10, but with i3-2nd gen cpu and 4gb ram, the cpu stays 100% utilized for most of the time, so I installed Windows 7 and it runs smoother.
Incase someone wants similar info, W7+SSD is great for old laptops with 4gb or lesser RAM, it almsot feels like rebirth for them.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
 
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