Purchase a New Laptop (~$500) or Replace Potentially Broken Hard Drive?

fossilfuel on 11/04/2018 - 22:14
Last edited 11/04/2018 - 22:15 by 1 other user

The hard drive of my Acer v11 has died. Not sure if I should replace the hard drive or purchase a new laptop with similar specs.

I'd also love recommendations for SSDs as I'm clueless with whats good and what fits into a laptop of that size. I'd prefer to replace the hard drive with an SSD rather than buy a new laptop if possible.

If I were to replace the laptop, it will be used for light applications e.g word processing, emails, listening to music, watching movies etc. Won't be gaming on the laptop.

The specs I'm after are:
* Preferably 11.6" and touchscreen
* Adequate processor (Pentium equivalent)
* At least 500GB Storage
* At least 4GB RAM

Willing to spend up to $500 for the laptop and whatevers good quality and affordable for a 128GB or 248GB SSD.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Computing

Comments

  • OldSchoolHarry on 11/04/2018 - 22:38
    +2

    Buy an SSD and see if it brings your laptop back to life. Otherwise you can use this SSD in a new laptop. Samsung 860 Evo 250GB can be had for less than $130.

  • [Deactivated] on 11/04/2018 - 22:43
    +2

    yeah better buy a new one for $500, while a new SSD costs under $150

  • scrimshaw on 11/04/2018 - 23:06
    +3

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/371704

    34 cents per gigabyte if you buy a MX500 500GB, or 39 cents per gigabyte if you buy a Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB

    Kingston A400 SSD 128GB is 41c per gig and unimpressive speeds. Take note that larger SSD's tend to be faster Linus explains why Another reason not to buy too small of a drive is that as SSD's become full, their performance tends to decrease as well.

    I'd recommend the MX500 as it's a good SSD and it has decent read/ write performance.

    In the future when you upgrade your laptop you can also transfer the drive to a newer system.

  • tomadeira on 12/04/2018 - 08:47
    +1

    for the price of less than $500 - go buy a refurb Lenovo.

    Screen size is the same. Built like a thank - and lastly - can have 2 SSDs with 16GB of RAM on a Intel i5 processor and I'm abale to unlock the bios for you which would then allow you to use whatever wireless cards that are out there including the new 9260 which i know are not in HMW form factor but Ali express actually provides this service.

    Also say good bye to overprice batteries with this mod asyou can now be able to buy any aftermarket battery which costs kess than $35 adn will last you 8 hours.

    Cheers

  • datafellows on 12/04/2018 - 14:52
    +1

    I bought an old i7 CPU laptop with a 500GB HD and 8GB RAM for a few hundred a year ago. After I switched the old HD with an SSD, Windows and Office runs at least twice the speed.

    Check if you can switch the HD to a SSD first.

  • fossilfuel on 12/04/2018 - 19:44

    Thanks for the advice everyone, much appreciated! I might buy an MX500 for now which will (hopefully) bring the laptop back to life. If not, the SSD will go into the desktop and I'll purchase a laptop in a few months time. Thank you again!

  • TimApple on 13/04/2018 - 15:25

    Adequate processor (Pentium equivalent)

    Made me chuckle. Intel has not made a "Pentium" processor for decades.

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