My laptop

[hardtofindinthefuture]

I have a laptop and its shit

 

I dont want to spend too much to upgrade it

 

Now, here are the specs:

AMD a6-6310 APU
4GB DDR3

1tb 5400Rpm hdd

 

Now that 5400rpm HDD sucks

 

So can i replace it with like a USB flash drive? and use the HDD for like other stuff

 

or is the whole thing so bad that upgrading wouldn't be worth it

[kelvinhall05]

No. Buy an SSD.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Yeah you can't save that. Just use it till you have $750 saved up and then build youse a desktop.

[Tsuki]

a flash drive is gonna be slower than your HDD.

the only viable upgrade for that is going to be getting an SSD, and maybe the ram if its not soldered. but thats only going to go so far.

it might be time to consider getting a new laptop

[Imglidinhere]

5 hours ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

Yeah you can't save that. Just use it till you have $750 saved up and then build youse a desktop.

Right and with what specs? $750 will buy you a 1050-based desktop nowadays, if you're willing to sacrifice core/thread count these days. Laptops with similar specs are always better options in my opinion. You have less upgradablility, but you have faaar greater control over the outcome. DDR4 memory is out of control at the moment. The prices of RAM and GPUs are laughably too-high right now and it's going to get worse as time goes on. People building new PCs, in my hometown here, are looking as far back as Kepler in order to acquire fair performance for the dollar; Entirely new components with an older, 2-3 generation old GPU for half the price as some of the entry-level cards today, even if performance is only the same, you're still saving money.

 

With a laptop you can happily acquire a powerful machine and ensure it stays powerful and keeps its value as time goes on. If you want a 1060-based machine, or heck an RX 470 machine, then you're going to pay double the price of what the traditional cost is of the GPU alone at the moment. It's going to massively lose value within a startlingly short period of time too, so you'll have overspent for hardware that you'll never be able to sell for profit until it's so far used and outdated that the profit is meaningless. Besides, if you look at his signature, he already has a desktop PC, so your argument is moot anyway.

 

5 hours ago, v0nn_toaster said:

I have a laptop and its shit

 

I dont want to spend too much to upgrade it

 

Now, here are the specs:

AMD a6-6310 APU
4GB DDR3

1tb 5400Rpm hdd

 

Now that 5400rpm HDD sucks

 

So can i replace it with like a USB flash drive? and use the HDD for like other stuff

 

or is the whole thing so bad that upgrading wouldn't be worth it

A solid state is probably your best bet. Upgrading to something like... maybe 8GB of RAM just to ensure that system memory isn't the bottleneck isn't a bad plan either.  Remember, storage is transferable. You can always say "screw this thing!" and transfer your new SSD to a new machine, laptop or otherwise. If I had to pick, the SSD matters more and will make an obvious difference. The RAM will help cement what you get from the SSD... and DDR3 is still pretty cheap too, by comparison to DDR4.

 

If you go for the SSD, you can get a 500GB option from Mushkin or Crucial for around $120-$140 without ANY problems. SSDs are VERY reasonably priced nowadays. I've upgraded old Pentium 4 laptops with lower capacity SSDs, like 64GB models running XP, and they're so much more responsive after that point that most users only notice the slowness if they've used a newer CPU.

[Sfekke]

If you have some spare parts you could see if one of your relatives old laptops has a 7200RPM HDD.

Replacing it with that would be a great option (Makes it quicker, even more then you'd expect)

Other then that you can pick up a cheap 7200RPM HDD from eBay or local store. Should extend the lifespan of your laptop a little bit.

15 hours ago, v0nn_toaster said:

So can i replace it with like a USB flash drive? and use the HDD for like other stuff

 

No.
USB Flash memory is slower & will wear down due & break really quickly to the way an OS (Windows/Linux) works.

You could as the others have said buy an SSD to upgrade, considering your laptop is pretty meh overall I'd advice against that!

[Imglidinhere]

12 hours ago, Sfekke said:

If you have some spare parts you could see if one of your relatives old laptops has a 7200RPM HDD.

Replacing it with that would be a great option (Makes it quicker, even more then you'd expect)

Other then that you can pick up a cheap 7200RPM HDD from eBay or local store. Should extend the lifespan of your laptop a little bit.

No.
USB Flash memory is slower & will wear down due & break really quickly to the way an OS (Windows/Linux) works.

You could as the others have said buy an SSD to upgrade, considering your laptop is pretty meh overall I'd advice against that!

Yeah, I could imagine grabbing a smaller like... 128GB SSD for storage, since those are around the $45 mark anyway and just grabbing an external enclosure for the current HDD. Be the easiest way to get the most out of the machine for responsiveness. But I highly recommend updating the storage. It's easily the one thing that makes the biggest difference.