Storage Can an SSD help me?

I need a laptop for a week-long hackathon project at the University of Edinburgh, and then a weekend of Windows 8 and Windows Phone development in London at Microsoft. Since my main rig is a desktop, the only laptop I have kicking about is pretty old and relatively poor spec:

• 1.73GHz single core Celeron
• 2GB of DDR2 RAM (that's it maxed out)
• Some terrible Intel GMA graphics chip

Whilst it runs Windows 8...acceptably, I really need it to be a wee bit faster. Will chucking in a cheap SSD (thinking this one) help me noticeably with load and build times for Visual Studio and other dev environments (mainly NetBeans)?

Usually I'd say it obviously would but with a machine this old I just wanted to check I'd get a wee boost before I drop the cash. Alternatively, if anyone can suggest any other performance boost (budget's about £50, that would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

it will speed things up....SSD is the most noticeable upgrade you can do

make sure that laptop is actually a SATA first tho

 

Thanks, I've bought many SSDs in the past but only for much newer machines so I was just making sure.

It is SATA, I just checked. Thanks!

 

GFs laptop is SATA I and the improvement was huge going to SSD

 

It will help in general responsiveness, but actual building will be entirely done by the CPU, so that bit won't be any faster. However, it is also pretty much the only upgrade possible to do at all, so I'd definitely go for it.

 

Depending on the form factor, you could pick up a dual core laptop CPU for a few quid and upgrade it.

Do some research - not all SATA laptops accept SSDs without a fight, especially if there isn't an AHCI option in the BIOS. My wife's Acer Travelmate will not play ball at all and, having tried three different drives, I've given up. I had the same problem with a friend's Toshiba Equium.

Having said that, I have installed them in several SATA I and SATA II laptops, and the difference is very noticeable. Even SATA I laptops get a new lease of life.

 

And if you need more CPU power you could always do the pin trick I think on that processor

 

SSD speeds up older systems quiet considerably.

Improved performance in web browsing and loading of folders/files Also general improvements to windows from using an SSD, The page file been faster than your memory would be intresting.

What it wont do is help in situations where your cpu is capped at 100%.

 

Sure that SSD will give you improvement. Upgrading the RAM will also make some improvement.

 

If and when you decide to get an SSD, ebuyer.com is selling a 120GB version for less than 52£... Linky here --> http://www.ebuyer.com/288065-sandisk-120gb-ultra-ssd-sdssdh-120g-g25

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