Toshiba Satellite Pro C650 - Upgrade Worthwhile...?

[ameerat42]

... to a 500GB SSD (like size as present HDD)?
That's about the limit, as it's already maxed out at 4 GB RAM.

Guys, here are the specs for this machine (http://www.lapspecs.com/detail/toshiba+satellite+pro+c650).

It's steady, runs Win 10 flawlessly (so far), but it's a bit slow on certain disk operations, like when:
- booting: 1:30 to Desktop 2 min to last startup load (which I've pared down a lot already)
- launching Firefox: mostly 10+ seconds to full open
- " Faststone: " " " with only a few C: drive items to display.
- and "other stuff" too...

Here is the WinPC EI score...
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Note WEI overall is 6.5 on my own laptop, with 8.3 SSD score.

[John King]

Am, changing the HDD to an SSD with decent caching will speed the lappy up quite a lot. Not much you can do about the on board graphics or the slow ram. Has the graphics chip got a GPU?

[ameerat42]

I don't think so for GPU. But ta for that info.

I just found (suddenly I'm swimming in Tosh C650s) a second one has
a Celeron, not Core 2 Duo, only 2GB RAM, and about 300GB HDD. Suddenly,
I don't think that's worth upgrading, esp since it's also Win7.

But a Q on that one: after MS support drop in Jan 2020, would it be worth
using for Internet with the likes of full MWBytes? I'm giving it back and want
to let the owner know.

Ta.

[John King]

All my PC's, with 3 exceptions, run Win7 Pro 64. The exceptions are 2x WinXP Pro 32 (One for compatibility, other is an ancient 2003 IBM laptop) and Windows NT Advanced Server 4.0.

The IBM lappy runs Photoshop CS5 well enough.

None will be migrating to Windows 10 in the foreseeable future ...

[ameerat42]

Well, chewing on the cartridge and started the "upgrade" just moments ago. Bought the
Crucial 480GB SSD yesterday, and today downloaded Partition Wizard (free) and the one
recommended by Crucial - Acronis free download. But the latter is MASSIVE, so I'm using
PW. Now waiting... ... ...:cool:

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Basically following this procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LB9TqfQrsA
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[ameerat42]

Hmm! The exercise was straightforward enough, but performance improvement is confusing.
Win Experience Index reports only the Primary HD transfer rate is up from 5.8 to 7.8.

Of "normal" operations, the I got the following results, tested after a computer start from shut-down.
(Stopwatch used, times +/- "a fraction of a second".)
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[arthurking83]

The upgraded performance/speeds sound about right.

You're not going to see a huge difference by upgrading to a really fast disk(of any type!)
You need to remember the 'weakest link' situation when upgrading computer bits and parts.

As an example: having a 3000MB/s capable disk is a futile attempt at getting faster disk throughput, if the system board is only capable of say 100MB/s(usually less).
Remember it's a laptop, and lower power is usually the design parameters from the engineers(unless it's a super hypo type gaming laptop).

I reckon when you pulled the old HDD out, it'd have been a 5200RPM HDD(most likely a Deathstar .. oops I mean Deskstar ... type from Tosh themselves too.
Again, I say most likely because they'd probably had longer battery life as a primary goal for this laptop genre .. not so much raw power.

Just had a quick check on the system specs for the C650, and it uses the Intel RST storage system .. ie. not some useless VIA or (even worse!!!) JMicron storage controller, that usually work at half the specified transfer rates .. if at all(looking at you JMicron! :action:)

Not sure what driver set you're using for the storage controller(it's an old system now) .. but if you're not using the latest from Intel themselves .. there could be a MB/s or two in trying a later version if it's currently not.

But, while the above info may sound pessimistic, it's not. There are other ways to look at upgrades, and speed isn't the only measure to look at.
SSDs use roughly 1/2 to 1/3rd the power that a HDD generally tend to use.
You may have increased battery life of the lappy with the upgrade to the SSD too.

Also, latency is where the SSD upgrade will have a more beneficial effect, and this is reflected in the Firefox speed difference(in your table).
Almost certainly, I'd say you have half a million addons affixed to FF(eg, EXIF viewer, Adblockers, etc, etc ..) .. I'd say more than you have for Edge.
Those pesky addons are where the latency factor may come into the equation.
All those addons will get loaded separately to the main FF program .. why FF can load so slowly .. probably due to the myriad of Addons.
Disable addons(or start FF in safe mode), I reckon the difference in speed between the HDD version and the SSD install will be smaller.

As John said, the cache will make a bit of difference, but it's the small files that need to be read randomly(ie. disk latency) where an SSD will make more of a difference to speed.

480G Crucial SSD .. I reckon between $75 - 100 .. overall a good upgrade in terms of $s/benefit.

If you can/could .. I'd be curious to know what actual transfer rates the 'system' is capable of in totality.
Do you have a copy of Crystal Diskmark?
If not .. it's free.
Gives you a semi decent idea of maximum throughput of the drive, in terms of random and sequential read writes operations.
I reckon (just a educated wild guess) .. with the Intel RST system and the SSD you now have .. you're probably in the 200MB/s range(+-50MB/s) for sequential speeds.
Random speeds will be much lower .. couldn't hazard a guess as it depends on far too many variables(but 50MB/s is a normal value).

Another way to see the benefits of faster latency speeds is something like (if you use) a CCleaner type program (or any other), to view the carp buildup in the registry.
A slower latency HDD could take 10+ mins for a bloated registry just to list the bloat. An SSD on the same bloated installation would take a fraction of that(say a minute or so).
Problem now tho is that with a new install on the SSD, the registry won't be bloated as it would on an old install .. for that comparison, you'd needed to have flashed the HDD to the SSD.
That is image it and 'install' .. ie flash it the old version of the system onto the SSD.

Did that with my sons old laptop back in the day.
Went from a 7.2K RPM WD black HDD to a cheap SSD, and instead of installing(at first) I just imaged it onto the SSD.
CCleaner took 10mins to read the registry on the HDD, and maybe a minute with the SSD.
He's always installing/uninstalling games and clutter .. mods, tweaks .. I dunno whatever gamers tend to muck about with nowadays.
But his ASUS, was purchased as a gamers speedy machine(within sensible $ limits) .. so was very capable. Could have also got him a faster SSD, but at 2x more $s .. not worth the $s/performance value ratio.

ps. Windows Experience ratings aren't actual measured ratings. They're based on theoretical abilities.
ie. if your computer system had the latest and greatest system hardware(I'm referring to the onboard chips and devices) .. that could max out the peripheral devices ability you'd have seen a better speed increase.
WEI: sees that you HDD is a Crucial SSD of whatever model type, knows that it's theoretical transfer rate is (say) 500MB/s .. and compares it to common hardware available on PC installations.

Had you bought a 2500MB/s Samsung Evo SSD, you'd have seen the same speed upgrades as you already have(remember you're 'weakest link', it's the mainboards ability to actually transfer the data .. Intel RST, CPU transfer rates ... etc)
But! .. WEI could have reported a 10.8 Rating for the SSD now(as opposed to the 7.8 you now see).

And to illustrate how 'meaningless' WEI is,
I just ran it on my PC.
At to be sure, I hit 1800MB/s - 2000MB/s transfer rates on my Samsung M.2(NVMe) SSD .. checked using Crystal DiskMark.
WEI rating for that SSD is 8.9! :confused013

You say your SSD now rates at 7.8 .. which I'm estimating achieves that 200-ish MB/s throughput.

I'd also guess that your old HDD(if it was a 5.2K rpm power saver) .. would have got max maybe 50-80MB/s throughput.

Look at the scaling .. using the high end values. 80MB/s = 5.8(WEI), 300MB/s = 7.8(WEI), yet 1800MB/s(I'm using my low end rating) = 8.9(WEI)

That is, 4x increase from 80->300(ish) achieves a 2 point increase ... yet a 6x increase from 300->1800 MB/s only achieves a 1point increase rating in WEI?
How does that make any sense?

Funny thing is, I don't have anywhere near the latest and greatest video card GTX960 I think .. yet WEI rates it at 9.9! :lol:

[ameerat42]

Ta, AK. A few things for me to check... Doing that Xtal Diskmark next...

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...Gee, it takes a while...:eek:

[ameerat42]

AK, here are the results for both the Toshiba C650 and my own Asus Core I7 with 2 x SSD (C: only tested) using Crystal Diskmark...
(Wish I'd tested it with the old drive installed, but might through just USB connection.)
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[arthurking83]

Note: correction. My SSD(the M.2 Nvme one) tops out at 1600MB/s .. it was my sons new PC that gets 2000+MB/s speeds.


Not sure how Intel RST devices are configured, but most likely I'd say your real transfer rates will be the 200MB/s values.
That'll depend on the types of files being read/written/transferred.**

What's the ASUS? .. Laptop? .. as in another laptop completely with different SSD hardware, or an ASUS laptop with the same(type) Crucial SSD .. or something.

I assume that the Toshiba C650 is the machine and SSD on topic here?

If so, then also .. check your storage controller driver ... you know .. Device manager, you'll see the entry for Intel RST somewhere.
Not too sure for Intel(don't have one myself).
Could be under IDE/ATA or it could be directly in the Storage Controller header.
If you're in the IDE/ATA area, check to see if the SATA controller has AHCI ability(or does it say SATA or IDE only .. ie. not AHCI) ** see below tho.



**Additional info if you're curious:

On Windows it's unlikely that you transfer files 32 at a time(Q=32 is the queue depth).
But I don't know how the Intel RST works to help with that.
I used to use a couple of file transferring programs that used to allow adjusting the QD, and it did speed up file transfers considerably, but using Windows Explorer I'm fairly sure that it's QD =1(ie. all in sequential order).

Easiest to work with was Quick Copy. simple interface, and worked well.
Other program I used to use for years before that was RichCopy(something called HoffmanUtility .. or similar if you're curious enough).
Allowed you to set QD in the program(where Win doesn't that I know of .. or care about)
Back in the day of USB plain and simply slow .. transferring 1Tb of data to external devices was painful, so a better way needed to be found.
Hence the above two programs.
Turned 20-40Mb/s speeds up about 60-80 .. and sometimes more .. depended on the exact hardware.
Bit of fiddling about to find and configure but it worked(I think).
That is, it worked faster, making a 13 hour operation into a usable 6 hour transfer instead.
But the issue could be(here comes the caveat!) .. it could corrupt your data. Why I stopped using it .. and that file transfers now a smaller overall, and faster anyhow due to Gb networking, USB3 devices, etc.
I can easily get a 100Mb/s transfer to my NAS, but now that it's got it's Terabytes of files, the updates are just syncs when I needed them to be.
But some years back, I had a transfer error. Could have been a dual action error .. I know it was an old JMicron controlled storage unit(why I hate and avoid JMicron chipped devices! PLUS it could have been that I was impatient and wanted these faster higher queued transfers. But I got 20+ corrupted images during the transfers. I know it was during those transfers because the last access files dates on the file. I hadn't opened them for a few years prior to the file transferring operation.
Note that this was in the pre AHCI days, and haven't tried it since .. won't muck about due to prior experience either .. not with important data anyhow!

ps. you don't want to be visually checking up on 100K+ raw files just to confirm that they're not corrupted.
Problem was that the files looked fine on first glance, file sizes seemed OK, nothing seemed off. But they're corrupted and no program can view them, or fix them.

Moral of the story .. safety is the priority over speedy.
What I do now is have two backups, I visually check each file(where a program called XnView comes in handy) to confirm that all raw files are fine before I sync those two backups.
SO if you dare, tread carefully with speeding up disk transfers.

What that Q=1, T=1 means in real life for 'ya, is that all those small annoying 2kb files that need to be read/opened/run/ or operated on in some way(the random section of the test) are what hold up processes and programs and operating systems and stuff like that.
The more of those files you can eliminate from the operation you're doing .. the faster that the system works in an overall sense.
Most common formatting of Windows drives is to use the 4Kb block format, so that 2Kb file will use up one storage block. It's 2kb, but actually 4Kb in actual physical space on the drive.
Each block has to be read individually, so more operations when they're are hundred/thousands of them to read .. randomly .. takes time.
One trick(not recommended) is to use smaller blocks, helps with the smaller random file reads a little, as the random reads become more like sequential reads, but you lose big time on normal computing with normal files.
There are many many more blocks to read, so a simple 5Mb jpg read can become slower .. and transferring many of them glacially slower .. ie. not recommended.

In addition to this tho the lappy may or may not have AHCI, and if it did, it may not be enabled by the manufacturer.
In the BIOS, there may be a setting on the IDE controller for IDE or AHCI, AHCI is faster .. allows those deeper QD numbers.
Going by the default tests you showed in CDM, I'd say it's enabled .. unlikely for it to default to a Q=32 value for a test, without the Native Command Queuing of AHCI mode.


So as an example Windows.
You will have a set amount of devices.
Those devices need drivers.
Drivers are small 1-2kb(on the whole) files that need to be randomly opened for the system to work.
Same with FF .. if you have Addons. more addons, more random drive requests. This is where forcing a larger queue depth setting can help, but could be prone to read errors and bugs in actually running .. etc.

But if you transfer a 1Gb video from a fast 200Mb/s drive to the SSD, you will get a sustained 200MB/s transfer .. ie. sequential.

Easier to understand eg. of how it works(and sort of why).
Windows, usually a 5GB(give or take) install, takes 40sec to load up. And you're not using all those 5 GBs either!
So read speed, in laymans terms is something like 125MB/s read speed for starting Windows. ~ between the 144 and 86MB/s read speeds you got in CDM.
OTOH, if you had a way to transfer from a very fast storage space to the SSD, on the C650. a large 1GB file(say video) .. I bet you'll see it done in about 5sec(max).
That's where the sequential 280MB/s speed will be noticed .. 280MB/s x 5 = ~ 1 GB of data .. ie. that video file.

So the timed tests you did .. seem to be about right.

[ameerat42]

Ta. - A long read, and then a few re-reads of points.

Will reply more cogently later...:cool:

[arthurking83]

Sorry about the long read .. well.. you know me! :p

But here's a bit of a drooling session for your eyes:

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Son's PC.
He doesn't need as much storage space as I do(yet), so we concentrated on the fastest SSD for the price(to maintain budget)
He's into animation-y stuff .. you know .. the animation dooda that they do in movies and games and whatnot he's studying the games side of it.
Needs some heavy duty hardware .... but not stratospheric priced! .. dad's not a money tree!
But, no point in having fast CPU and GPU and whatever other tuff, if the HDD can't get the data out fast enough.

He uses a program called Maya.
On my PC its kind'a slow rendering a test render(a specific download used for speed analysis).
My PC took 19mins to complete the test.
His took 10 mins(maybe a touch less).
The quickest PC on their database (Ryzen 7 2990X based) took 19sec!

Gives you an idea of what a fast PC is. 16 cores and 32 threads tho .. 10K plus hardware!

Anyhow .. His PC boots up in about 15sec, mine in about 30, but mine now has a ton of bloat .. needs a good format/reinstall.

His M.2 SSD lowly cheap-@$$ Adata is rated at (I think) 2300MB/s read and 2000 write .. so fairly happy with the result shown.
If I get a chance too, I'll try to get a WEI score off it too.

[ameerat42]

:eek: That's about thrice my machine, and n, where n is large, the C650 - double-:eek:

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I did a "battery test" on the C650 today. - Simple stuff: switch on and do nothing,
checking every now and then or 10 mins, whichever happens along.

It started at 97% and said it's go for 39 mins.

Well, it went for 1hr 40 mins before it finally went to sleep at 6% power. Hmm!
It could have been worse. Takes about 1/2 hour to fully charge.

- - - Updated - - -

One of the slowest - as I found out - machines is my [little old] EEE-PC.
It sported a cut-down Win7, running on an Atom 1.6GHz, with then 1 GB
RAM, which I later maxxed out to --- 2 GB! to run Win 10.

It still has its orig 160 GB HDD, divided in two, with now Win 10 on 80 GB of it.

This C650 exercise made me wonder if it could be enhanced. I now have the
larger HDD spare... :umm: (Not all that serious.)

[arthurking83]

The specs on the EEE device are roughly similar to my old tablet(Gigabyte S1080).
Nice little machine which was handy for travelling for backups and a bit of PC-ing if time allowed.
I installed Nikon's ViewNX2 on it for that.
Would ideally like another little device like that.
Was cheap at the time($600) .. more usable than Androids of the same era.
But battery life was woeful, and finding a half decent 12v adapter was hard. Didn't want an inverter due to inefficiency.

I reckon I couldn't get even an hour of usage with it's power saving 5200RPM HDD.
swapped to a SSD(cheapest I could locate) and more than doubled it's battery life.
Haven't used it in years(still have it) as the battery has finally completely lost any ability to hold energy .. and too hard/expensive to find a replacement.
Nice little tablet(10") very usable(but slow). Very handy to tune an old car I had. Win7 on a touchscreen was hopeless .. my first device updated to Win10 ... and THEN it made sense.
Win10 on a touch device works :th3:

[ameerat42]

Well, for $79...:confused013

Now completed for Asus EEE-PC... (A challenge to pull apart this time:eek:)
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(Haven't finished comparing performance, but there is a noticeable haste over the old config:cool:)