After the outbreak of Covid-19 and with the use of distance learning by most school districts and Catholic schools, I’m sure most parents have had this discussion come up.
Your kid didn’t have their own computer. You still needed your laptop for business use. So to avoid the loss of business productivity you need to go and buy your child a brand new computer, right?
Maybe you have an old computer laying around and you’ve been having them use that. But honestly it is SLOW… and your kids think it was the first laptop ever made. I have good news. If that laptop was manufactured in the last ten years, there is a very good chance that you can make that computer fast enough and good enough for educational use for under $40.
How? You might ask? Meet the beautiful technology of Solid State Drives.
This technology has been readily available since about 2009. However, the early iterations of it were quite expensive. In that last couple years, these drives have gotten to the point that they are very cheap. (You can get a mid-range 120gb for $25)
So what is a solid state drive and how would it make your old clunker of a computer faster. First a caveat, what I am speaking of applies really only if you have an i3 processor or above and the computer should have at least 4gb of RAM. (Which is upgradable as well) By in large, for basic computing the Intel i Series processors have not changed too much. (If there are computer nerds reading this they are about to explode at me… but I said for BASIC computing). The hard drive is what stores your files. The Operating System and all your applications are on this drive. For example, when you open Word, the computer looks for those files on the drive and it is processed by the CPU and sent to the short term memory (RAM).
The traditional hard drive was made of spinning parts. The data was magnetically written to the drive. The disk of the drive would spin (usually around 5000rpm). Basically, it’s like a really powerful cassette tape.
Solid State drives did away with these spinning parts. Thus, when data is accessed it is done electronically rather than electromechanical. This allows data to be read at a near instantaneous rate. Often the bottle neck of your slow computer has nothing to do with the processor, but lies in one of two places. The hard drive or the RAM (Random Access Memory). And more often than not, it’s the hard drive.
So here is the mission and the project for your kid at home during the summer. Replace the drive in a laptop. I believe that when ever the opportunity for education over pure consumerism is possible, we should take that route. I am actually writing the article on a 2009 Intel Core 2 Duo iMac that our school was about ready to throw away. But with the help of a solid state drive and a little more memory, it’s a good computer for me (and I’m somewhat picky) Here is what you’ll need:
- An old Windows based laptop that is i3 generation or above. This PC should also have a minimum of 4gb of RAM to make the upgrade worth it. (if you own a Mac; they are much too difficulty for a beginner upgrade)
- A screw driver set with various bits. (with PC’s they usually only use small Phillips screws, but there might be one “security screw”, if this is the case Amazon can get you the proper tool for under $5)
- A USB flash drive for the Windows Install files from Microsoft’s Website. (Note you might need your product key, usually found on the bottom of the computer)
- An SSD drive. (Minimum 120gb for Windows PCs)
- PNY Drives are my goto low-end (I use these to fix most school computers). $22 at the time of posting for 120gb.
- WD Blue is my goto for higher end. ($47 for 250gb at time of post)
- Unless you are doing heavy data (e.g. videos, gaming or big databases…. which most kids won’t be), the PNY is sufficient.
- The laptop must be SATA drive connector. (Don’t worry the technical jargon, if it was produced in last 10 years it does)
- The Windows product key from your computer. (Often found on the bottom side of the laptop). As we will be installing a brand new hard drive you will also need the reinstall media of Microsoft Office or any other products. (Though in my humble opinion, Google Docs is sufficient for high schoolers)
- A phone to watch How to Youtube videos.
- The acceptance that maybe your kid might mess up an old computer.
Good YouTube Video Guide for Beginners here
It might be worth a try. It is also a good way to encourage development of tech skills so more of our kids can be in technology producing fields!
