Is it worth upgrading my Acer Aspire One?

[Matthew_T]

I have an Acer Aspire One 533, and I am really at the limit of my memory (I literally have 20Gb free).

I have been looking at getting an internal hard drive and an external hard driver case and then using that for the majority of my files. However, I have found out that you can upgrade the RAM from 1Gb to 2Gb to make the netbook work faster.

Can anyone give advice on what I should do? I am going to be using my netbook a lot more next year (starting degree) so I need the best performance possible without having to fork out a fortune.

 

[2PedalsTez]

My initial suggestion would be to fit another 1GB of ram and make use of an external hardrive.

However, depending on what you plan to use your machine for through your degree (assuming you'll be using Office at the least), I'd maybe consider a laptop (bit then money becomes the issue)

 

[rusky]

There are 2 issues here.

1) Delete some of the porn

Seriously, what is installed on it? Can you not uninstall porgrams you no longer need/use?

2) Get 2GB of ram, it will speed it up but don't expect miracles.

 

[Matthew_T]

I have been meaning to give it a good clean but I doubt that it would change much. I have a lot of family hased pictures on here which seems to be taking up a lot of room. I only have a 4Gb USB which I am struggling to get my current college work on.

 

[rusky]

In that case, get a USB HDD & transfer the pics to that or some kind of cloud storage like SkyDrive.

 

[Berties]

if you use a external hard drive that will help with the storage but ram is what effects the way the machine deals with multiple tasks and by throwing more ram at it will help,but depends on the processor how good it is ,i use a 2.3 intel core i5,with 4 gb ram on a mac and it will do every thing i need it to do if i wanted to run windows as well,at the same time i would double the ram ,and good processor makes limited ram seem faster,
if it was me first I would clear off any programmes you are not using,that always helps,it speed up

 

[defy-one]

I would ....

Buy a usb external drive
Copy all your data,music and pics to it (keep as backup)
Install 2 or 4gb of memory
Format and reinstall windows (if you have the original disc/partition etc)
Put your programs back on
Put your data back

This will give you a clean system with a defraged disk and more memory

Sent from my GT-I9100

 

[Matthew_T]

Okay, if I am changing my RAM from 1GB, then should I go for 2GB or 4GB?

Also, I have a 250GB HDD storage capacity so should I get an external hard driver of the same size or smaller?

 

[stumpy66]

Need to check the motherboard spec to see how much ram it can take? Get as big a ext hd as u can afford, it wont be long filling up and can be used when u buy a new pc. 530km post is the way to go

 

[rusky]

Go to http://www.crucial.com/uk/ & use the app to scan the netbook. It will tell you what you can fit.

 

[gaz]

Your laptop can only take 2gb of ram max and it only has one slot.
You need to buy this to upgrade your ram

I would recommend buying an external hard drive that is at least twice the size of your laptop hard drive.
If you have a 250GB hard drive and only 20GB left, then you need to look at what you keep on your computer, a lot of that data can be moved or even deleted.

 

[Matthew_T]

Right, I have bought the 2GB RAM from Crucial.com and now I dont know whether or not to get an external hard drive or an internal hard drive and an enclosure box for it. Apparently and internal hard drive is less expensive (can find them for about £20 and the case is £10)(externals are about £40).
Obviously the external would be easier to use as you dont have to buy two things which match but I can get more memory with an internal than an external at the same price.

 

[gaz]

Look at getting a hard drive dock.. less taking apart if you wish to buy more hard drives in the future.
http://www.ebuyer.com/219615-freecom-hard-drive-dock-pro-33708

 

[Red Light]

Get yourself an internal 2.5 inch drive of 500Gb or more size and a drive caddy. Plug it in to your laptop via the USB port. Download Acronis True Image - you get a month's trial for free - and use it to clone the internal disc to the external disc. Open up your laptop, remove the existing hard drive, replace it with the hard drive out of the caddy, close it all up and switch it on. Voila, you now how 250+Gb free on your laptop. Just make sure when you buy it that the hard drive connector of the new disc is the same as the internal drive.

 

[Alun]

I would get an external drive rather than a bare drive and an enclosure. I have a bare drive in an enclosure and it rattles (not a good thing)
RAM is memory, HDD is storage, don't confuse the two.
Firstly, decide what spec of machine you need for your course, and look to get that rather than spend money on something which might need replacement soon.