Hi,

Im an IT student and some people at college told me that its possible to upgrade a laptop to a SSD.

Im using a Lenovo Y50-70 for my study which came with a build in SSHD.

The only thing i know about this hard drive is that it has the ''speed'' of a SSD and storage of a HDD.

I know a bit better, it uses 1TB on actual storage and the SSD part comes from a 8GB cache part of the drive.

Im considering to upgrade but still wonder about some things;

1. Would it make a huge difference between a SSD and an SSHD or is the SSHD in the middle between an SSD an HDD?

2. How would i need to upgrade, Can i do it myself or do i have to take it back to the store?

The salesman at the store told me it was possible to upgrade later but im afraid that the warranty will expire when i do it myself (also when i send it back to the store) because my laptop is only one year old.

3. Are all brands of SSD compatible with the Lenovo Y50-70? because i would want to buy a 1TB so i won't downgrade my storage to upgrade my laptop speed.

4. Which part of the speed will be upgraded? Only the local saved files and booting or also surfing the web? 

I understand that it would allow me to run more tabs of chrome on the background, but im also able to do that now so i don't really understand what would be faster about a SSD which a SSHD doesn't have.

I'de love to hear some replies about my questions.

Cheers :)

Hi Diablo108  , 

Welcome to the Community Forums. 

SSHD is on the middle in terms of performance. 

To show more visually click on this video . Key criterias that you may like to review here.

You may upgrade your device as this would not void the warranty as long as no damage incur during the process similar to this discussion. You can call in tech support to inform for documentation and checking your warranty coverage and type. You can use the manual and this video and service training guide.

Fru list on the hardware manual (item 13, page 91) do not show marketed SSD although some machine models shipped with 512 TB SSD .  Some discussions successful with SSD upgrade here and here . 

Aside from the criterias and purpose of usage , pricing is one of the logical concern . This would not be as much as RAM upgrade to allow you more browsing tab and virtual memory as it would increase pulling up previous visited site since it have already storaged cache data and would allow faster pull up of websites . 

Take time to consider if you really need it right now for your school works , mmorpg gamers would like it. 

Personally if you already have and able to efficiently use your laptop to its main purpose , external SSD and other add ons peripherals is a modifiable investment even using a different machine. 

Take time to review your options .

I hope this helped answer your query.

Regards 

I've done the upgrade in the last two weeks and I'll say that it made a HUGE difference to my laptop in general.  A few examples of things I tracked prior and post upgrade:

Boot from powered off to login screen.

HDD: 1:23-3:35 minutes.

SSD: < 23 seconds

Login (from enter to all apps loaded):

HDD: 2:13

SSD: 1:03

Loading Chrome (w/add-ons)

HDD: ~30 seconds
SSD: <10 seconds

Chrome will not open more tabs, but switching between tabs is improved in my experience (when caching comes into play).

All SSDs will work with the laptop as they are all using the same SATA specification.  I went with a Samsung in thei case but I've used OCZ and SANDisk in the past and never had an issue.

Hi Diablo108 , 

Greetings.

In addition aside from the big difference you see on using SSD on booting , it would be the same on opening frequently visited browsers too . 

Herewith are discussions among folks that went into upgrade that you can review here and here as to choice of ssd brands and its efficiency.

Do take your time to review as nowadays SSD pricing are not as high as before but sure thing is the advantage it does.

Regards 

Hi guys,

Thanks for your reactions already.  Its a big help with my decision.

I'm also looking to upgrade my 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM.

I had a question about that too.

I have looked into the manual of my y50-70 under the part Hardware Maintenance at page 90 where the RAM module types are listed. 

I found out that my laptop needs a 8gb PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3L 204 pin module.

Also did i looked inside the laptop to see what module is in it at the moment. (because a fellow student adviced me to buy the same module as its using now) but due to my surprise, i found a Samsung module in it. (see the attachment photo)

When i searched for locations to buy this module, i found out that its pretty expensive in comparison with other DD3L modules.

My question now is:

Does it mather/ could i have any issues, if i'de buy an other module (from a different brand/ manufacturer) and use that beside the Samsung module which is inside it now?

Or does the laptop need the same manufacturer modules to operate well?

What i'm thinking is, that it wouldn't mather if there are two different brands inside it. As long as the type's and specifications of the modules are the same. So both need to be DDR3L, 1.35 volt, 1600 MHz, 204 pin.

I'de love to hear some replies about my question.

Cheers :)

Hi Diablo108 , 

Greetings.

Regards to the RAM upgrade :

DDR3L-1,600 MHz SODIMM × 2 (max 16 GB) 

As a rule : as long as you have same specification , brands should not be a factor but there are incident that it also happen. So in any plans of purchase , just assure that you have a return option offered . You can also borrow a sample 8GB maybe from a friend to try it too (manual would have FRU listing of tested RAMs).

Hope this help answer your query.

Regards

Hi Guys,

Finally had my last exam today so won't need my laptop until after the summer for college.

Time to upgrade some stuff.

I've order a Crucial - DDR3L 1600Mhz CL11 SO-DIMM Module - 8GB  and that will arive tomorrow. I'll post how that will turn out :) 

Also did i compair some available SSD's and i think i'll buy the Sandisk X400 2,5" 1TB. 

I don't really know much about migrating from a (SS)HD to a SSD. So i have a few questions about it.

I've been looking around and i've seen a few video's and forums about cloning. 

Now i know that the Lenovo Y50-70 comes with split drives. When i go to the 'my pc' tab, i see two stations. One C drive which is named Windows8_OS. (would be nice to rename that because i've upgraded to Windows 10, but thats a minor thing ;) )

And One D drive named LENOVO.

How would this go when i would try to clone my harddrive because it has two stations?

Does the cloning software (i guess that depends on which software i use) just see it as 1 drive and when it clones it, there will be again two partitions on the new disk.

OR do i have to select both of them separately.

I'de love to hear some thoughts about that, or maybe a link to some other post which contains the same situation.

Cheers :)

Hi Diablo108 , 

Greetings. 

Windows C:/ (containing system files) and Lenovo D:/ (Lenovo apps and drivers) may not only be the ones users have intention of cloning as it includes hidden partition (usual for OEM systems) containing the One Key Recovery factory restore that can be corrupted in changing / resize the other partition . 

Renaming the drive works well using a a local account instead a microsoft tied user account .

Disk management would be able to show such partitions. Cloning the harddrive would be duplicating all of them keeping the factory reset feature viable.

Similar discussions here and here. 

Best to back up your files and create a recovery media first just in case before any chnages are to be made. 

Thanks for the follow up on the upgrade, appreciate having us updated .

Regards

Status update!! :)

I just finished my SSD and RAM upgrade.

It went well, had some issues initialising and formating my new SSD but finally found out how to do it under the Windows tab partitions on hard disk creating and formating (sorry if this isn't a logical sentence, my language settings are dutch so this was my translation of that name)

After cloning my SSHD to the SSD, i've screwed my laptop open and placed the extra 8 GB in the second slot.

Unscrewed the SSHD, and connected the SSD.

After that closed it up again.

When i tried to boot up the latop, i got a blue screen with the message: ''EFI network 0 for IPv6 boot failed''

I searched it and found the answer under this post. I just needed to do a power drain.

This helped and my laptop booted normally after that.

i've been checking if everything came over well in my clone and i've noticed in the ''this pc'' tab that i have a 3th partition as storage disk.

These folders are new for me and i don't know what to do about them.

Can someone tell me what these do and if i need them?

Also is it posible to rename or combine partitions, so instead of 2 (or 3 if i need that E: station) i'll only have 1 station with all the folders.

I'de like to rename my Windows8_OS station to Windows10_OS because my laptop isn't running Win8 any more.

I'de love to hear some information about partions and that 3th station which is new now.

Cheers :)

PS.

I also see now that there is a 22,36 GB partition on my disk which isn't assigned.

Can someone tell me what this means?

Does this mean that i'm just able to store data on that part but it isn't named as an sperated station. 

Or does this mean that i'm unable to use those 22,36 GB?