Upgrading A T430 Lenovo Thinkpad

Hello everyone.

So I have a 6 year old T430 Lenovo Thinkpad and still works great, but I want to keep using it for another 5 years so I think some simple upgrades are in order. I've been investigating about the easy parts which is the RAM and Hardrive, I've been a somewhat outdated on the technological terms and details so I would like some recomendations from you guys. This is the information I've found and would like to know what would be the best options, what to look out for and any other recomendation.

What I'm planning on doing is going from 4Gb of RAM to 16Gb and change from a HDD to SSD. I also need some help on how to clone my disk and see if there are any details about UI licences, registriy, motherboard security, etc.

My specs are:
Windows 7 Professional - Service Pack 1
Intel Core i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz
4.00GB (3.70GB usable) RAM
64bit Operating System

I found some information on some sites, what do you guys think?

crucial.com:
Crucial 8GB DDR3L-1600 SODIMM - CT102464BF16B
DDR3 PC3-12800. CL=11. Unbuffered. Non-ECC. DDR3-1600. 1.35V. 1024MEG X. - $52.99

Crucial 8Gb DDR3L-1866 SODIMM - CT102464BF186D
DDR3 PC3-14900. CL=13. Unbuffered. Non-ECC. DDR3-1866. 1.35V. 1024Meg X - $57.99

datamemorysystems.com:
8Gb DMS Certified Memory DDR3-1600 1024x64. PC3-12800 CL11 1.5V SODIMM. Non-Ecc. $35.95

8Gb eRAM DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 1024x64. CL11 1.5V SODIMM. Non-ECC. $33.00

For SSD I'm ok with 500Gb, its the same capacity as the one I have.
Found this:
Crucial MX500 500Gb SATA 2.5" 7mm (with 9.5mm adapter) Internal SSD
SATA 6.0 GB/s, 560 MB/s Read, 510 MB/s Write - $69.99

Thank you in advance and have a nice day!

 

A very quick search reveals that the T430 can handle 16GB of ram but I would double check that.

In your shoes what I would do is firstly to purchase the SSD drive and see how your laptop behaves and whether you are happy with the new found speed. I do not know what flavour of SATA your T430 has ie probably SATA2 but it will be a huge improvement over your current set up which I suspect has a 5,400rpm HDD.

The sequential read / write speeds, if your laptop is SATA2, will be nearer 270MB/s rather than 550Mb/s.

When I put an SSD into my old Dell D630 (SATA 2) boot times improved dramatically from 1m 25s to 40s and progs opened very quickly.

More ram, or 16GB, may not be necessary unless you use RAM intensive applications.

As regards SSDs, I generally go with Samsung but the Crucial MX500 series is apparently just as good, so they say.

As regards whole disk migration software, I use Clonezilla personally. However, from reading comments, it appears that Samsung comes with Acronis which makes migration a breeze. I have never used Acronis so cannot comment. The migration process should be quick and reasonably stress free.

As regards other issues that you raised, there will be none. The bios will detect the new SSD and when you boot into windows, it will say detected new hardware and offer a reboot.

Before doing any disk migration make sure that you backup all your data and image your boot partition to an external drive or other just in case the proverbial hits the fan.

Good Luck