Laptop upgrades... Where to begin?

[escapemcp]

first off RAM - 99% of the time user upgradeable and will usually have the biggest performance:cost ratio

next up is no doubt an SSD to replace your current HDD. This will usually turn an ancient machine right around, but for DJs this is usually quite expensive, you will have to ask yourself how much music do I really want with me all the time. If you can live with under 90GB then this upgrade will cost you a couple hundred (for a 120gb SSD) on the flipside if you need 500GB this upgrade will cost you 800-1000 (ie. go shopping for a new computer.)

Devon

Agreed Dev. One possible option is the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive
[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-ST92505610AS-7200rpm-Internal/dp/B005EEZ0HU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320466585&sr=8-3"]Seagate Momentus 2.5 inch XT ST92505610AS 250GB 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41T-EKgqmjL.@@AMEPARAM@@41T-EKgqmjL[/ame] It is a hybrid drive and costs (according to Amazon above) £76 ($100-ish?) for 250GB. It has a 4GB SSD built-in onto which it intelligently (and transparently) moves your most used files (e.g. the main win/mac os files, traktor & your traktor nml library files), and keeps everything else (your tunes!) on its normal hard drive. They are available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB versions. Looking at the reviews, they are slower than dedicated SSDs, but only by a very small fraction (and far, far quicker than your current drive!). I am getting one of these soon For all Traktor users, they seem like the ideal combo of size+speed.
*I think* that you also don't have the hassle of having to ensure the SSD drive is TRIM'd (optimising the drive because SSD's slow down after being used for a while - something which the specs never reflect and they only quote 'new drive' speeds) - I believe that the hybrid drive automagically takes care of all of this.
NOTE: Make sure you are looking at the Seagate MomentusXT Hybrid, as Seagate also make a MomentusXT drive that is not a hybrid drive... it's an easy mistake to make, and I even posted a link to the non-hybrid drive when writing this reply! Be careful... read the specs and it should mention in the description about the 4GB SSD built in (as it is it's major selling point!).

You can also get SSDs that fit in a CF card slot - something like this - not too sure about the link I have given you (the specs don't seem that great, but you get the idea - come back to us if looking at this option and unsure). This has the advantage of being to keep your old hard drive in your laptop, having full control over what gets put on the SSD and what doesn't AND having a larger size of SSD. For your purposes, you may find that this is a better option (unless your current hard drive is too small, or your laptop does not support booting from CF card (I think it should tho)).

And with RAM at the price that it is, it's definitely worth maxing out your laptop with RAM, as the more RAM you have, the less that your laptop will have to use the 'disk' (although with SSD's, it's all 'RAM' now, albeit slower than system RAM!)

Phew.. Hope this helps. Unsure of anything, just shout!

escapemcp
Intel Core Duo
Echo Layla3G balanced 8in/8out Soundcard (unbelievable sound!)
Citronic MP-X10 Mixer/USB player/MIDI controller (A/B)
Behringer BCD3000 MIDI controller (C/D)
Numark EM-460 4-ch Mixer w/ builtin Kaoss Pad (FX)
Traktor Pro 2
Custom mapping (really?!)
+ 20 years of experience

[Kaek]

What soundcard do you use? Maybe you just need to increase your buffer size.

[Arbite]

Agreed Dev. One possible option is the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive
Seagate Momentus 2.5 inch XT ST92505610AS 250GB 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories It is a hybrid drive and costs (according to Amazon above) £76 ($100-ish?) for 250GB. It has a 4GB SSD built-in onto which it intelligently (and transparently) moves your most used files (e.g. the main win/mac os files, traktor & your traktor nml library files), and keeps everything else (your tunes!) on its normal hard drive. They are available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB versions. Looking at the reviews, they are slower than dedicated SSDs, but only by a very small fraction (and far, far quicker than your current drive!). I am getting one of these soon For all Traktor users, they seem like the ideal combo of size+speed.
*I think* that you also don't have the hassle of having to ensure the SSD drive is TRIM'd (optimising the drive because SSD's slow down after being used for a while - something which the specs never reflect and they only quote 'new drive' speeds) - I believe that the hybrid drive automagically takes care of all of this.
NOTE: Make sure you are looking at the Seagate MomentusXT Hybrid, as Seagate also make a MomentusXT drive that is not a hybrid drive... it's an easy mistake to make, and I even posted a link to the non-hybrid drive when writing this reply! Be careful... read the specs and it should mention in the description about the 4GB SSD built in (as it is it's major selling point!).

I used to own one of these. They're ok. I ended up swapping for a dedicated OS ssd and just standard HDD storage. The issue is that 4gb simply isn't enough, and it tends to split the copy between operating systems, meaning that rather than transferring apps over to flash, it's the operating system itself that gets put there. This means that your applications won't run much faster than normal.
Don't look at it like a hybrid hard drive with SSD. Just look at it as a hard drive with flash storage, making it slightly faster than a regular HDD. Not bad if you want a quick boot though.

[geminimech]

There's really nothing wrong with that computer. Upgrade to 4gb if you must, however, have you optimized the system for use with Traktor? Or perhaps considered a dual boot?

Also, just to comment on the Momentus XT Hybrid, I have one and it really does make a difference over a 5400rpm platter drive. It's only 4gb of flash storage, but how it works is that it caches the programs/files that you use most often to the flash so loading times decrease dramatically. Boot times are also cut down considerably. Pair that with a couple more gigs of RAM, and you have a very good low cost solution and will definitely notice the difference. And don't be afraid to take apart your machine to upgrade, it really isn't too difficult to get done, especially with a lot of the hard drive cloning options out there. Just make sure if you decide to upgrade the drive that you BACK.UP.YOUR.FILES. I find it insane how many people I know that DON'T do this.

[geminimech]

I used to own one of these. They're ok. I ended up swapping for a dedicated OS ssd and just standard HDD storage. The issue is that 4gb simply isn't enough, and it tends to split the copy between operating systems, meaning that rather than transferring apps over to flash, it's the operating system itself that gets put there. This means that your applications won't run much faster than normal.
Don't look at it like a hybrid hard drive with SSD. Just look at it as a hard drive with flash storage, making it slightly faster than a regular HDD. Not bad if you want a quick boot though.

^ I'll agree with this. 4gb is certainly light. Still a pretty good cheap option for a noticeable performance increase, if you aren't a rich man like Arbite