Laptop HDD to SDD worth it?

I've got one of these:
http://www.toshiba.ie/discontinued-products/qosmio-x70-b-10t/?categoryNameProductPage=laptops

It's a few years old but has a i7-4720HQ and 16Gb of RAM. I would expect it to be sprightly, but the hard disk seems to be a big bottleneck. HD Tune Pro shows an average transfer rate of 80Mb/s and no health issues. After boot, the disk monitor shows 100% for ~5 mins, and 50-70% for a few minutes more. At 100% sometimes it's only moving 3-4mb/s according to the task manager, but the system is definitely sluggish while this is happening - keypresses can be buffered for several seconds before registering.

I'm wondering if swapping out the HDD for an SDD along with a clean install of windows would be likely to give a significant boost?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inch-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B00P73B1E4/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1518615824&sr=1-1&keywords=ssd
is on sale for 117 at the moment. I love the machine otherwise - big screen, and am running 3 screens with it (hdmi and vga outs). So question is whether to put the €117 towards a new desktop system with a Ryzen 5 2400G or eke out some more time from what I have with the new SSD, and then put the SSD in a new system later.

I'm doing more video editing these days, and I think the graphics card is a bigger factor in rendering than mass storage throughput?

Any insights welcomed.

ED E

100% upgrade. With modern platforms you're crazy not to.

SVI40

Upgraded my laptop to an SSD about a year ago, best thing ever. I couldn't go back to a non SSD HDD.

TerrorFirmer

Yes, it would give you a massive boost. The machine is decent enough otherwise for most tasks including editing.

As for the upgrade, up to you. If you've the money to spare, sure. But I think to get a significant upgrade in terms of raw power and make it all worthwhile, you'd really ideally be looking at Coffee Lake i5 (six core; high budget option) or Ryzen 1600 (6 core; lower budget option).

Appreciate the advice, all. SSD it is!

jebidiah

Deleted User wrote: »

Appreciate the advice, all. SSD it is!

It will literally change your life. Such a massive upgrade in terms of snappiness and responsiveness. Should you build a pc in the end for your other uses, I guarantee you will want to keep the laptop around for a lot longer than if you kept the HDD.

Serephucus

Yes.

Didn't read the thread. Don't need to. Absolutely yes.

Moon54

Yes, definitely worth it, best bang-for-buck ever.
Also doing a clean install is advisable, as Windows will set itself up with proper TRIM settings for SSD etc.

Another benefit is that you can keep around the old HDD as a backup....
or put it in an HDD enclosure like this one;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tool-free-Inateck-External-Enclosure-FE2004-Black/dp/B00IJNDBM4/