A very quick way to significantly boost performance on that old laptop

Have an old laptop? Before you throw it away, consider upgrading the hard drive to breathe some new life into that aging machine!

Here's a very quick way to significantly boost performance on your old laptop: upgrade to an SSD (solid state drive). Chances are, your laptop has a traditional spinning hard drive. Maybe you can even hear it when it's "thinking." Upgrading to an SSD can result in a significant performance boost, especially if you get an SSD made by a reputable company. Avoid getting an SSD on eBay from a no-name company.

If your laptop is really old, then you're probably going to need a 2.5" hard drive with an IDE or PATA connector. If you purchased your laptop within the last 3-4 years or so, then it probably uses a SATA connector.

I recently upgraded a few different laptop hard drives to an SSD and found amazing performance improvements ranging from quick start-up boot times and very efficient multi-tasking. You can now get decent SSDs for laptops for less than $150. You can get away with a 128 GB drive if you're running Windows XP, Vista, or 7.

Blazing performance after upgrading to an SSD

The other day, I took a relatively old laptop and upgraded the hard drive (HD) to a solid state drive (SSD). After loading Windows 7, I saw a tremendous improvement in computer performance. It's amazing how SSDs can improve performance on an older device. The most notable improvements in performance include:

• Windows Startup Performance
• File Copy Performance
• Opening Applications
• Multitasking Performance

I also saw a moderate improvement in battery life, but this wasn't nearly as significant as the other performance improvements. 

If you're looking for ways to improve your laptop's performance, consider switching to an SSD before you upgrade your RAM. You'll notice a difference, especially if you're running Windows 7.  If you're going to purchase an SSD, make sure to get one made by a reputable manufacturer like Intel, Samsung, Kingston, Crucial, Transcend, etc.

Replacing my laptop hard drive with an SSD

It's amazing how the prices on solid-state hard drives (SSD) have dropped. I remember when it used to cost a fortune to get a 64 GB SSD. Now, you can get one for $125.

After experiencing SSD performance on a number of mobile computers including the HP Slate 500, I've decided to switch one of my laptop hard drives with an SSD. I don't need much storage space, so 64 GB is plenty. Plus, I have an SD slot and plenty of USB ports to expand storage if needed. I'm eager to see how this laptop will perform after I upgrade the drive to an SSD.

Media slate (e.g., Apple iPad) vs. slate PC (e.g., HP Slate 500)

What's the difference between a media slate vs. a slate PC? A media slate (like an Apple iPad) is built to be a consumer device, not a professional device. However, some people may argue that you can run enterprise-level applications by running a virtual machine on a device like an iPad.

In many ways, the HP Slate 500 looks like a larger version of some of the earlier ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) units. That "origami" UMPC phenomenon that never took off. I admit that I was an early adopter of the UMPC and I purchased a Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC. I still have that 7" touch-screen tablet and I use it for a variety of things. The 7" screen was a bit too small and the lack of an active digitizer made the Q1 Ultra difficult to use for pen-based computing. However, it was nice and small (but it could have been thinner). I wonder what would happen if Microsoft tried to revive the UMPC now that Apple has plowed the road for people to adopt slate tablets. Would a Samsung UMPC sell like hotcakes if it was priced around $500 or 600?

The HP Slate 500 is a very thin device that only weighs 1.5 pounds. It has an 8.9" screen, a 1.86GHz Atom Z560 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 64 GB SSD, so it should run Windows 7 adequately. Compared to my Samsung Q1 Ultra, the HP Slate 500 will be much faster. I'm eager to give it a test drive.

Here is link to a video (on SlashGear) featuring Carol Hess-Nickels from HP talking about the differences between a media slate vs. a slate PC and showing you the key features of the HP Slate 500.

Working on the train today

I'm traveling for work today, so I'm working on a train. That's mobile computing, isn't it? Some trains have really nice tables and plenty of power outlets.  I remember when airplanes used to have working power outlets on the seats. Now, those green lights are never on.

So,  have you ever computed on a train? It can be a bit bumpy at times, so I often wonder what my laptop hard drive is going through. If you do a lot of computing on the train, you should probably get an SSD (solid state disk) in your mobile computer. SSDs are dropping in price (they're still expensive), but it's a worthwhile investment if you're constantly working on trains.

Cooling your warm laptop

Some people call them notebooks. Others call them laptops. If you use your computer on your lap, then you're probably going to call it a laptop. My colleagues often complain that their laptop computers feel like they are burning their legs.

Older laptops that had Intel Pentium (P4) processors used to get really hot! Thanks to low-voltage (such as the Intel Centrino) and even ultra-low voltage processors, we're seeing laptops staying cooler. Additionally, the use of solid state drives (SSDs) have further reduced computing temperatures. Heat is the ultimate enemy to computer components. I've seen many hard drives fail due to heat damage. I've also seen motherboards get damaged due to excessive heat.

If you use a laptop on your lap, make sure you're using an active cooling pad that has a built-in fan. These comes in all types of sizes and styles. Some cooling pads are meant to be used only on a desk. Others are designed to work on a desk or a person's lap. You may spend anywhere from $15 up to over $50, but it's well worth the investment if you don't want to lose your data.

How cool is your mobile computer?

By cool, I mean temperature? If you're using a cooling fan, then I bet your hard drive temperature isn't going above 95-98 degrees (Fahrenheit). Without an external cooling pad, you may see this temperature exceed 150 degrees and your hard drive may start having problems over time. Some laptops spontaneously shut down if things start to overheat.

The old Pentium 4 processors found in older laptops were known to cause a significant amount of heat. As a result, notebooks that used this processor had really loud fans that were spinning all the time. Newer laptops use cooler processors, so not a large source of heat becomes the hard drive. As prices on SSDs continue to fall, this will probably replace spinning hard drives on mobile computers.

To monitor the temperatures on your mobile computer, I use SpeedFan. This is a free utility and there are many others out there that are free. HD Tune is another one.

Keeping my laptop cool

I'm using the phrase laptop rather loosely here. I use a convertible tablet on my lap, so I'll refer to it as a laptop. I currently use a Vantec LapCool 2 but I've tried other laptop coolers as well. Some blow air up while others blow air down. Some are designed to be used on a desk while others are meant to be used on your lap.

Over the years, I've found that many people don't use a laptop cooler. They don't realize how high temperatures can impact the lifespan of computers. Hard drives have spinning parts that will degrade over time when exposed to high heats. Other components are also susceptible to failure when they overheat. There was a time when I didn't use a laptop cooler regularly. Now, I do everything I can to keep the temperatures as low as possible.

As more mobile computers use solid state hard drives or SSDs, we will see some reductions in heat because we won't have spinning parts anymore. Plus, low-voltage processors are keeping things a bit cooler as well.

What's the best feature of Windows 7?

To me, the best feature of Windows 7 is the rapid boot time. On my Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet PC (which originally came with Windows Vista), I get to the log-in screen in 50 seconds from a cold boot! Then it only takes another 10 seconds for the desktop to appear. These are amazing boot-up times! Win7 has many other nice features, but I think this is an amazing improvement. Like Vista, the resuming from sleep is instantaneous. Resuming from hibernate takes only 25 seconds!

Here are the specs on my Thinkpad X200 Tablet PC:

• Intel Core 2 Duo CPU L9400 running @1.86GHz
• Processor score of 5.2 on the Windows Experience Index
  
• 4 GB of RAM
• 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate
• Hard drive spinning at 5400 RPM (imagine what would happen if you had an SSD!)
  

So, I repeated this experiment on an older machine. I took an HP dv1550 laptop that is a few years old. This machine originally came with Windows XP. Here are the specs:

• Intel Pentium M processor running @1.60GHz
• Processor score of 3.0 on the Windows Experience Index
  
• 2 GB of RAM
• 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate
• Hard drive spinning at 4200 RPM
  

The cold boot time was 1 min 10 sec (before I saw the desktop). I am very impressed at how well Win7 runs on older machines.

I finally ran this experiment on my Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC (ultra-mobile PC). This guy has a really slow processor (800 MHz). Here are the specs:

• Intel processor running @800MHz (roughly 1/2 the speed of the old HP above)
  
• Processor score of 1.5 on the Windows Experience Index
  
• 2 GB of RAM (yes, I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB)
  
• 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate
• Hard drive spinning at 4200 RPM

Cold boot to desktop was 55 seconds! I've also installed it on a few older desktops and the cold startup times all seem to be very similar - roughly around 60 seconds. Way to go Microsoft!

Tiny SSDs for netbooks

Netbooks are tiny. You won't find a 2.5" hard drive (which is the standard size for regular laptops) in netbooks. You'll either find a 1.8" hard drive or some type of SSD (solid state disk). Flash memory technology has made it possible to cram gigabytes of memory on tiny, flat flash memory cards. Samsung has introduced mini-card SSDs that are even smaller than your typical SSD. According to PC World, "Samsung's mini-card SSDs are up to 80 percent smaller than SSDs found in most laptops today, the company said. The small drives weigh between 7.5 grams (0.17 pounds) and 8.5 grams, lower than the 75 grams to 85 grams that 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch SSDs weigh."

FYI, the 1.8" hard drives (spinning HD, not SSD) can also be found in older iPods (video iPod, photo iPod, etc.) and the new iPod classic. The old iPod mini had a 1" hard drive, also known as microdrives. Those 1" hard drives were the size of a compact flash (CF) card.