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For what it's worth: I have an Acer Aspire 6930 laptop, which originally came with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2G of RAM, a 320G hard drive, and Windows Vista Home Premium. I bought it in 2007, ten years ago. I'm typing this post on it as we speak. It's been upgraded to 4G of RAM, from Vista to Win7 to Win10, and to a 1TB SSD. I originally paid around $650 for the machine, and have spent around $400 upgrading it. As far as a timing benchmark goes, it runs Visual Studio 2015 successfully. I've upgraded my daughter's college laptop in a similar fashion.
Max out the RAM and switch to an SSD for less than half the price of a new laptop, and you'll breathe new life into an old one.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Thank you Gary!
Very similar experience... thank you for your comments! 
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Look for boot times on Youtube .. You can even type in the type of Computer you have and actually watch the boot time for yourself and make a better decision .. There are many examples on youtube for SSD start times w/ an i5 i7 that have SSD added ..
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Joan M wrote: and an old one (Intel® Core™2 Duo E6600) that takes ages to start
The first thing I would do is max out the RAM on this PC. Adding RAM is cheaper than moving to an SSD, and it's likely that the OS is swapping (to a slow HDD) due to lack of RAM. If more RAM cannot be added, I recommend upgrading the PC to one that can accept (at least) 8GB of memory.
/ravi
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Thank you Ravi!
It would be a good thing too to add more RAM... let's see if I can find some spare parts...
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Had you said before I went to Barcelona, I could have brought you a 128 Gb SSD that I have in spare
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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El don de la oportunidad... 
Thank you anyway Nelek...
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BTW... If I go again I will contact you anyways (if I don't forget it, again...  ), we can have a coffee
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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One minor technical note: the old system needs a SATA interface. I'm assuming it does, but I see no mention of it.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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It has it!
But thank you very much for the comment Charlie! Those small things can mean throwing money if they are not under control.
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I'll second what everybody else says: Yes, go for for the flash. Actually, an old PC can benefit more from a flash disk than a modern one, percentage-wise.
If the disk is the real bottleneck, the biggest effect will be on how fast programs start up, not how fast they run. But it is very convenient having the program window opened before you have liftet your finger from the key (or mouse button). System startup will also be much faster.
If the HDD is spinning all the time during ordinary operation (not just on restart), you are probably short on RAM. (Take a look in the Task Manager to see the actual RAM usage.) A flash disk will speed up paging operations, but that doesn't really solve the problem, it just makes the emergency solution (i.e. paging) run faster. The Right Solution(tm) is to add more RAM.
The only problem left is that new RAM "standards" come in a steady stream. Every new PC I have bought (for home use) the last 20 years have used a different kind of RAM from the previous one. When hunting for the right type, pick out one of the old chips (RAM boards) from the computer and compare it closely to the new one. Give special attention to the notch(es) at the edge, they must match your old RAM board exactly. ... And, make sure that either, the PC motherboard has got unused RAM slots, or you'll have to buy a so large new RAM board that you can throw away the old one. (In fact, that is rarely a problem: The new RAM is probably four times as big and more than enough by itself.)
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No, No, No (just to add balance to one of the other comments)
I replaced the base drive on an HP proliant ML115 expecting wonderful performance and it still takes 3 mins to boot windows 10
I used a 500Gb samsung 850 evo and fitted it to the HP which has 8Gb ram
I believe the reason for the poor performance is that it has a quad core opteron processor
Curiously restarts are fast it is just the initial start that is still slooooooooow
for more balance I also have A dell that was made with an SSD is wonderfully fast to start but it does have an i7 processor
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That is not right. You most certainly have extra software loading as you boot up.
I have an ancient HP SR1820SX (AMD Athlon 64 3500 2200MHz 1 core, 1 thread) with W7 that loads in 65 seconds with an old SATA 300 drive.
Run something like Advanced System Care Free and use its Startup Manager or what ever your favourite flavour is. You also may have a driver issue. Your system does only have a SATA 1.5Gb/s
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like most developers i have a fair bit loading but....
I feel the key point is that a restart is much faster than a power off boot when they really should be the same
from my investigations it appears the SSD drivers aren't compatible with opteron
it is an oldish PC and 1.5GB/s is slow but the SSD should still be faster to boot than the old hard drive
I have pretty much given up with trying to improve it and only responded to this thread to point out that one size really doesn't fit all
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I would have thought a much newer but used computer would be the answer. In a year or two the Core 2 Duo may be struggling with standard browsers no matter what you help it with. i5 4th gen computers, even laptops, seem to be available for around 150 if you shop carefully. So you get a much newer computer all round. And if parents do not like the new o/s you can just install the old one for them. And the new ssd can be applied in a year or two - when the prices have come down a lot. And at that point if a lot of disk space is required the hdd can be installed in a usb3 caddy, also very cheap by then. But then I am addicted to the value of second hand.
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Certainly. Max out memory like everyone else suggested as well.
I breathed life into a hold Laptop with the upgrade, and Windows XP.
My daughter used it for a desktop, and we only replaced it because it was HEAVY.
(I use a bag on wheels, so I never noticed, LOL).
Her boyfriend was a gamer, and scoffed at her old laptop... But he
had no SSDs, so he was blown away (especially with bootup time).
You lose a lot when you give up a computer... For many years, I would upgrade windows on my old laptop to match my new laptop. Then copy over the drivers from the new computer, build a recovery disk...
Then put the HD in the new computer, and spend a half a day recovering and getting the drivers to all load... And avoid installing all of my old software! Windows 7 was the first time I installed a fresh OS in years. LOL.
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+1 on the SSD and using Aomei for the transfer. Done this to two older laptops and the difference is amazing. The swap was simple using Aomei. Definitely try this before getting a new computer.
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Absolutely. (As long as "old" doesn't mean pre-SATA with the hard drive controller). I have taken a number of older machines (laptops, mostly, but a few desktops too) and upgraded their hard drives to SSDs. The devices really give new life to hardware that might otherwise be retired. Rather than spend $600+ on a new machine a $100 SSD turns an older machine into a "screamer".
My primary development machine is a six-year-old Dell XPS 8300 with an i7-2600 in it. I replaced the hard drive with a 1TB SSD and beefed up the system RAM to 16GB and the performance is just excellent. I see no reason, even now, to consider upgrading the machine. All of my machines have been similarly upgraded, no more rotating storage at all (except a couple of backup drives).
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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No doubt whatsoever. Sure, like the others say, make sure you have plenty of RAM but changing to an SSD made a HUGE difference!
It's the only reason that I have delayed getting a new computer. Currently using a (purchased in 2008!) Dell Precision T5500 with Dual Xeon W5580 @ 3.2 GHz (8M L2, 6.4 GT/s), 16GB RAM DDR3, ICH10 chipset and originally equipped with a PERC6 RAID and 3GB/s SAS hard drives; dumped that in favor of a Samsung EVO 850, installed the management software and still boots crazy fast. I back up every day with Veeam Desktop (fantastic freeware!) and I don't worry at all about running without RAID.
Come to dark side, Luke! LOL
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YMMV but YES!
It brought new life back to every 2007 or newer PC desktop, laptop, iMac, and MacBook I've put one in.
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If you don't want to spend a full 100€ on a large SSD, you use a small SSD (60-120GB) for the operating system only. If you have at least 50% free on the existing HD, you could do this as follows:-
1) Shrink the existing partition (C to the smallest feasible size.
2) Create a new partition in the free space (D
3) Move the user folders to the D: drive. There are instructions on the internet for moving "My DOcuments", "Desktop" etc to a new location.
4) Clone C: (and small boot partition if any) onto the new SSD. Make sure the SSD partition is marked as active.
5) Boot via the SSD and remove the old C: form the HD.
6) Expand the D: partition to the full size of the HD.
This should give you decent boot times while storing documents on the slower, cheaper HD. I have a Windows 10 PC configured this way on a (now aging) 60Gb SSD. I previously used the same SSD in a Pentium 4 based Dell running Windows XP.
One consideration is that larger SSDs are typically faster.
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I've been a member here for who knows how long, but, I am about to take the plunge, and publish my first article ever. Please be kind. It was a lot of fun putting it together. 
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Member since Mon 23 Jan 2012
(5 years, 7 months)
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Well done! It's always good to get new authors in moderation.
If you are using the online editor, you may find this useful: Using the Article Editor (without losing your hair in handfuls)[^]
Please do remember that all articles need to go to moderation, and that can be a little slow at the weekend because the number of moderators around is lower; and that moderation is there to help you, as well as protect the site. To be a moderator you have to write articles, so we all know the pain of writing it, and the worse pain of some idiot misreading it and downvoting it straight away... 
So we try to help you produce an article that will not attract the morons! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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We are curiously awaiting your article, as already mentioned by Griff, don't be disappointed if some 'drive by downvoters' downvote your article, that happens sometimes.
Good luck 
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