I have a basic hardware question.....

cmmpro1 · 20 Jan 2018

I have a Lenovo Ideapad (100 series) that uses SSD. I want to replace the drive with one that has more storage. Is that possible?

Mellon Head · 20 Jan 2018

Yes. Simply buy a larger SSD drive. Just make sure to observe the thickness of the new drive and make sure that it isn't larger than your existing drive. With SSDs that should not be an issue, however. I believe that they are all the same physical size.

cmmpro1 · 20 Jan 2018

Mellon Head said:

Yes. Simply buy a larger SSD drive. Just make sure to observe the thickness of the new drive and make sure that it isn't larger than your existing drive. With SSDs that should not be an issue, however. I believe that they are all the same physical size.

Awesome!!! Thank you for the info!! Any name brand you recommend?

RoasterMen · 21 Jan 2018

Samsung and Intel are the best choice imo

Megahertz07 · 21 Jan 2018

RoasterMen said:

Samsung and Intel are the best choice imo

Yes, they are good but also the most expensive.

Can you give us the Ideapad model? The one I've seem the specs, uses eMMC. An eMMC drive isn’t a sophisticated internal drive with speeds and features on par with an SSD. Instead, it’s basically an MMC that’s embedded onto a device’s motherboard. Like SD cards, MMC cards and their interfaces are much slower than an SSD. It gives manufacturers a way to provide cheap internal storage. The eMMC device also has a controller that makes the eMMC bootable so it can be used as a system drive inside cheap tablets and laptops.
If your Ideapad model use an eMMC drive it can't be replaced.

For a 2.5"SSD, choose one with reading speeds higher than 500G/s and write higher than 350G/s and IOPS over 70K.
2.5, 120GB - 275GB, 276GB - 550GB, Internal SSDs, SSDs, Components - Newegg.com

I have one of these:
- PNY CS1311 2.5 SSD7CS1311-240-RB - Newegg.com So far so good.
- SAMSUNG 850 PRO 2.5 MZ-7KE256BW - Newegg.com

mrjimphelps · 22 Jan 2018

You need to do a backup of your computer before starting this, so that you can restore the image to your new hard drive.

Many of us use Macrium Reflect Free for backups and restores:
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

You'll need to create a Macrium emergency boot disk first. This disk allows you to boot the computer with a new, blank hard drive in the computer. You can then do the restore to the new hard drive.

You'll also need an external hard drive, so that you can store the backup on it.

Once you are all finished with the restore, and everything is working fine with the new drive, you'll need to enable TRIM on the new drive.

I advise you to do regular backups, so that you can recover in case of hard drive failure. Once a month would probably be sufficient.