Computer mavens, need advice

[awpitt]

Do you mind if I ask what model Dell? I just checked and that is about when I bought my Dell - 2TB drive, 8G - but I can't for the life of me figure out MY model, at least not without pulling it out of its cubby.

Bought it in Nov 2012, back when all that sounded impressive. Now it runs like a slug, and I use it mostly for bills and email.
I am not sure if it is worth upgrading or giving to the kids.

My Dell laptop is a Inspiron 17R SE 7720. I bought it in July 2012.

Has a i7-3610QM CPU. Nvidia GeForce GT 650M GPU. 8Gb RAM.

Original HDD was a 1Tb with a 32Gb SSD cache. Now the 1TB HDD is my secondary storage with the new 500Gb SATA SSD being for the OS and applications.


This laptop was running real slow. I mean for boot up, I'd turn it on and then would just leave it alone for about 6-10 minutes so it could "get ready". With this new SSD, I tun it on and it's ready to go in about 30 seconds.

 

[awpitt]

dell.com/support

Install the Support Assistant ... this will pull the model

Yea, what GURPS said or if you have the Service Tag number, just go to Dell support and enter it in and it will give you the history of your laptop. But if you can install the Support Assistant, it well detect everything automatically and even scan for outdated drivers, etc.

 

[Yooper]

Original HDD was a 1Tb with a 32Gb SSD cache.

When these first came out/down to a reasonable price I bought a number of these to upgrade my various computers from the old-school straight HDs or HDs with 8GB (or less) cache. The computers were really, really slow; not 6-10 minutes slow, but certainly in the 4-6 minute range. Was really disappointed as the SSD & other magic it was supposed to do didn't help anything. Roughly the same boot-up speeds, no noticeable difference in program access. Other than an increase in drive capacity I found the hybrids to be pretty much dollars down the toilet.

Like you I bought full SSDs for the OS and made the hybrids strictly for data.

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[GURPS]

Was really disappointed as the SSD & other magic it was supposed to do didn't help anything.

Speed really depends on the Bus Speed ......

Serial ATA 150
Serial ATA 300
Serial ATA 600

Even though the SSD is capable of higher throughput if you put if on a slower bus ... well it runs slower

System Architecture really plays a part

 

[Yooper]

Speed really depends on the Bus Speed ......

All mine were ATA300 (or better). So I thought I would see some improvement.

No matter, all is fine now. And it's not like I can get back the hundreds of cumulative hours of waiting on doggone computers to boot. Should've planned better and had a movie or three dozen ready to watch while I waited! Not that I'm bitter or anything....



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