Upgrading your notebook with an SSD

Last episode, we explained some of the

benefits to having a solid state drive

, so now we're going to show you how to upgrade your laptop with an SSD. In most cases, your laptop will have a mechanical drive but you can

upgrade to an SSD drive

.

Before buying an SSD, you'll want to check what interface your notebook uses. Do so by either looking your model up online or by opening it up and checking it within the machine. It will either have a series of pin connectors or an edge connector. The pin connection is an older model, but SSDs are available for both types of connection.

Before actually

switching hard drives

, you'll want to back up your data or copy the information from your old drive to your new one. You can copy to an

external hard drive temporarily

and then copy back over to your new drive, or you can get an external drive reader.

You can also get an upgrade kit that will easily allow you to transfer data from your old hard drive to your new one. As a bonus, you'll also be able to use your old hard drive as an external hard drive. You will, however, need some software to use this method. For the Mac we recommend SuperDuper and for the PC we recommend Acronis True Image. See our series on changing a hard drive for a more detailed look at these steps.

Once you've finished backing up your hard drive, you'll want to power it down and take off the panel under the notebook. Be careful not to lose any screws that you use. Once you've removed your old hard drive, reverse the order of the steps you just took using the SSD drive this time. Once the panel is back on and the screws are in place, you'll be ready to boot up and, if you cloned your data already, the notebook will boot up as it normally would, except now it will be running more quietly, quickly and coolly.