INSTALL A HARD DRIVE OR SSD
Why you should upgrade your PC’S hard drive
Your PC’S hard drive is a storage device – it’s where all your files and programs are kept. The most obvious reason to upgrade it is because your current hard drive is bursting at the seams with documents, music, photos, videos and other files. Even if your hard drive’s capacity seemed enormous when you bought your computer, there’s a good chance you’ll need to increase your storage at some point. But upgrading your current drive can also boost the speed of your PC.
Upgrading for storage
To find out how much storage space you have left on your hard drive, click Start, Settings, System, then Storage. Your current drive is listed here, with its total storage capacity shown in gigabytes (GB). Below this, on the left, you’ll see how much space is currently in use and, on the right, the total remaining. There’s also a coloured bar to illustrate how much space you have used.
Windows indicates that you’re running short of space by turning the bar red (as ours is in the screenshot above right). If yours is also red, you could use the tools provided by Windows 10’s April 2018 Update (version 1803) to get rid of unwanted files – click ‘Free up space now’, tick the boxes next to the files you want to clean up, then click ‘Remove files’ (see screenshot right). This should alleviate the problem for a while, but it will be only a matter of time before your drive fills up again.
Ultimately, the amount of storage you need depends on how you use your PC. If you use it only for web browsing, emails and creating documents, 500GB should be plenty. If you’re into digital photography or you keep your music collection on your PC, you’ll need 1TB. And if you edit lots of videos, download movies and TV shows or play video games, consider 2TB or more. Also bear in mind that you’ll need some storage for making backups. This is likely to be on a separate external hard drive, however, which we’ll talk about in a moment.
What do I need to know before upgrading?
Two main types of drive are available – traditional SATA hard disk drives (HDDS) and flash memory- based solid-state drives (SSDS). The main reason people
choose an SSD is that it boosts your PC’S speed (as we’ll touch on later). Basic hard drives are more suitable for anyone whose priority is to maximise the amount of storage space, because they cost much less per gigabyte than SSDS.
Buying a new hard drive
If speed isn’t a concern and you just want more room for your files, then your main buying decision will be between an external USB drive and an internal one. Your choice will be partly governed by the type of computer you have and the amount of effort you’re willing to put into performing the upgrade.
Internal drives used to be much faster than external ones, but thanks to the arrival of USB 3.0 ports, that’s no longer the case. External drives come in portable or desktop-pc sizes, and their prices are similar. Portable drives are usually Usb-powered, while desktop drives require a separate power supply. Expect to pay around £35 for 500GB, £45 for 1TB and £65 for 2TB. Our favourite portable drive is currently the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim, which costs from £54 (1TB) on Amazon ( www.snipca.com/28979).
Other factors to consider when choosing a portable drive include the design – some cases are shockproof or waterproof, for instance, and newer desktop drives often have a built-in USB hub, which is handy if you need to connect other devices. Some come with free online (cloud) storage, too, which can be useful for backing up. The upgrade process couldn’t be simpler: just plug your new drive in, and that’s it!
An internal drive is a neater option because all your storage is contained within the PC itself, but to upgrade you have to open your computer’s case. Most desktop PCS have multiple drive bays inside, so you could install your new drive alongside your old one and benefit from their combined storage capacity. For this, you’ll need to buy a 3.5in internal drive. You’ll find a good one in Seagate’s Barracuda range - 2TB will cost you around £56 ( www.snipca.com/28980).
More expensive drives tend to be faster, with greater spin speeds (7,200rpm instead of 5,400rpm) and more memory (up to 128MB). Be wary of drives that say they’re for NAS devices, such as Western Digital’s WD Red series. These tend to be workhorse drives that are good for streaming lots of data over a network but are less well suited to normal PC use.
You may be able to install an internal drive in your laptop, depending on the model. As with memory (see page 52), check for a compartment that you can open – usually by removing a screw – to access the existing drive, or refer to your manufacturer’s website.
Laptops usually have only one drive bay, so an internal upgrade involves cloning the data from your old drive to the new one, then swapping them (as explained later). Laptops use small 2.5in drives, not 3.5in models, but their prices are roughly in line with those of desktop drives. Currently, it’s rare to find a 2.5in drive with a capacity of more than 2TB.
Upgrading for speed
The single most effective way to boost your PC’S speed is to replace a traditional hard drive with an SSD. Because SSDS use memory chips instead of physical spinning disks, they can read (open) and write (save) data much faster than their mechanical predecessors. This speeds up every aspect of your computer – including Windows start-up, opening files and running programs.
SSDS are proportionally more expensive than HDDS. To give you an idea, a 1TB SSD such as the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB will set you back more than £250. Recently, however, the cost of SSDS has dropped considerably. You can find a 500GB drive for an almost reasonable £100 these days, although our favourite remains the Samsung 960 Pro, which manages to justify its £260 price with blistering speeds (see page 33).
Buying an SSD
To benefit from an SSD’S faster speeds, you need to upgrade your current system drive with the SSD. This means plugging your SSD into your computer using an external cable before you actually install it, then using software to clone the data from your old drive to your new one.
All SSDS are 2.5in, so if you’re upgrading a desktop PC, you may need to use an adapter bracket to fit the drive into a 3.5in bay. Some SSDS come as a kit with all the necessary accessories included in the box. You may be able to save money, however, by buying these bits separately and downloading free software, such as Easeus Todo Backup Free ( www.snipca. com/28958) to perform the cloning process. You can buy 2.5-3.5in adapters for as little as £3 on Amazon ( www. snipca.com/28961), while a SATA-TO-USB cable should cost around £6 ( www. snipca.com/28962).
Avoid newer M.2 drives. These offer incredibly fast speeds because they plug directly into your motherboard’s PCI slot rather than use a SATA cable. However, compatibility problems with older PCS and exorbitant costs (Transcend’s 512GB M2 drive costs £250) mean that, for now at least, M2 drives are only for enthusiasts with high-end PCS.
Install a hard drive into your PC
Whether you choose a hard drive or an SSD, the installation process is roughly the same. If you’re replacing your system drive, start by plugging your new drive into your PC using a SATA-TO-USB cable, then launch your cloning tool. The precise instructions will vary depending on your software, but in Easeus Todo Backup Free, click the Clone icon (two linked squares) in the left-hand pane, tick the box next to your current system drive (Hard disk 0, see screenshot above), then click Next. Select your new drive as the target and follow the remaining steps. When the cloning process is complete, unplug your drive.
Next, open your PC’S case as described earlier and look for the drive bays. These should be easy to spot, because there will already be a hard drive in one of them. If you need to take out the existing drive, carefully remove any screws holding it in place, then slide it out of the bay. You’ll find that it is attached to your computer by two cables: a SATA cable that connects to your motherboard and a power cable that leads from your PC’S power supply. In our picture (right) the SATA cable is yellow and the power cable is black, but yours may be different.
Detach the cables from your old drive, plug them into the corresponding sockets on the new drive, then slide the drive into the newly vacant slot and fasten it in place with the screws you removed. If you’re installing an SSD, you’ll need to mount the drive in the adapter bracket before sliding it into the bay (see picture above right).
If you’re adding a second storage drive to a desktop PC, you can skip the cloning stage and leave your old drive where it is. Install your drive into a free bay using the same method described above. Most desktop PCS provide spare power connections in the case, but you may need to buy a second SATA cable. Plug one end into the drive and connect the other to a free SATA connection on the motherboard. These should be clearly marked, and your current drive will already be plugged into one.
Install a drive in your laptop
Follow the steps above to clone your current system drive to your new one. Then unscrew and remove the cover that conceals your laptop’s hard drive. Remove any screws holding the current drive in place and keep them safe. In most cases you’ll need to tilt the drive up at a slight angle, then pull to remove it from the slot.
Insert your new drive into the bay – again at a slight angle – taking care to line up the SATA and power sockets on the rear of the drive with the connectors inside the laptop’s case. Press it firmly into the slot, then push it down so that it’s flush with the laptop case. Replace any screws you removed, and screw the cover back on to the compartment.