From Bruce Horwits, TechRoadmap Inc.
Got to semi-disagree with your SSD comments. Certainly on a day-to-day working basis your dollar is probably better spent on RAM, up to a point – I have 8G and only am using about half at any one time – I assume it would tick up doing a context aware fill in Photoshop but for running word, typical excel files, etc. in parallel – no problem. Remember, just having multiple windows open (or multiple tabs in a browser) doesn’t put much load on your computer since they are just “in idle” while you are working in some other window. So, if you are running simulations etc. in background while you are working on a Word document, sure, then you need to watch your memory, but otherwise, no big deal.
With 250 Gig SSD’s going for ~$90 (120 Gig for ~$70), the reduced frustration of having all your programs and OS on an SSD is well worth it… particularly if you’ve previously set up an OS/program only partition on the hard drive that came with your PC. Cloning that partition to the SSD is relatively simple (using, for example, your backup software…which we have to assume everybody has or else added the SSD is likely to be the least of their immediate needs). See http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/windows-10-partition-manager/transfer-windows10-to-ssd.htm or, if you are a little more geeky, http://partedmagic.com/
You should tell your readers to check their computer’s specs before doing either upgrade – I had to add a SATA board to add ports before I could add the additional drive.
Bruce
Bruce Horwitz
TechRoadmap Inc.
617-243-0007