What size SSD will I need for my laptop?

systema on 03/07/2016 - 20:20

Hi all,

I have an old Aldi laptop floating around at home, it's my second machine (I have a desktop for home as well) and is currently used for photo editing when I am on trips. I have a ThinkPad issued from work (so don't really need the Aldi laptop for work).

Specs of the laptop are as followed:
Core i5-3317U with HD 4000
16GB DDR3-1600
500GB Harddisk
8GB mSATA SSD (running as cache)
Optical drive / Secondary battery

I am currently thinking of upgrading the Aldi laptop to make it a bit more responsive and am considering putting in some solid state storage on it. Currently, these are some of the upgrades that I can do with the parts that I already have (bought the 850Evo, Kingston and the OCZ during EOFY from eBay, the Toshiba is a second hand item I salvaged from a work device.):

  1. 256GB Toshiba mSATA + 480GB Kingston UV400 SATA
  2. 500GB 850 Evo mSATA + 480GB Kingston UV400 SATA
  3. 1TB Trion 100 SATA
  4. 256GB Toshiba mSATA + 480GB Kingston UV400 SATA
  5. 256GB Toshiba mSATA + 1TB Trion 100 SATA
  6. 500GB 850Evo mSATA + 1TB Trion 100 SATA

Mind you, I will also be building a NUC next week which is mSATA only. The NUC will be accessing data mostly from my NAS so storage capacity of it isn't going to be a big concern. The mSATA drive left will then be used for the NUC.

At the moment, I am leaning towards options 4 and 5 but I am not sure if a 256GB system drive would be sufficient to run LightRoom and Photoshop (my libraries can get quite big depending on the length of the trip).

What would you guys do if you are in my shoes?

Computing

Comments

  • Diji1 on 03/07/2016 - 21:32

    Well it sounds like 256GB might not be enough so the fastest 500GB option I guess? Or the 1TB Trion unless it's stupidly slow.

    EVO.

    That's actually a pretty decent spec laptop, it's just a spinning disk means everything is sitting there doing nothing a lot of the time :D

  • derek324 on 04/07/2016 - 00:35

    Difficult to say what size, as it depends on what size are your photo files, and how many you want to store. Another option: why not have a small, external USB 3.0 drive to store photos you finished, or you want to work with later? Really large capacity external drives are small, do not need extra power brick, and are cheap (and of course relatively slow, but it is OK for archiving). One thing you may or may not be aware: to optimise speed and life of any SSD it should ideally be half empty. One of the best sites to check: http://www.thessdreview.com (in my personal experience EVO 850 is excellent). And, to state the obvious: make sure a drive you want to buy is compatible with the laptop.

  • Sage on 04/07/2016 - 02:43
    -1

    get whatever there's a bargain for.

    • derek324 on 04/07/2016 - 14:25

      The OP asks: "What size SSD". You have not contributed anything.

  • Avacardooo Rayy Mee on 06/07/2016 - 13:20

    480GB Kingston UV400 SATA

  • systema on 06/07/2016 - 19:04

    Sounds like 850 EVO + UV400 then. Thank you all. :)

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