SSD Upgrade Ottawa

Quick check: do you have a hard drive or an SSD?

In Windows, open Task Manager, go to the Performance tab and click your disk. It will say "HDD" or "SSD". If it says HDD, or you hear clicking or whirring from the computer when it's busy, an SSD upgrade is likely to make a big difference. If it already says SSD and the computer is still slow, the cause is elsewhere, and a system optimization is the better place to start.

Signs your hard drive is failing

• Clicking, grinding or repeated whirring sounds
• Startup that gets slower every week
• Programs and files that freeze or take ages to open
• Odd behaviour, error messages or files that won't open

Any of these means the drive should be dealt with as soon as possible, before the damage spreads and data is lost. Replacing a failing drive with an SSD solves both problems at once.

What the upgrade involves

1. We check what your computer takes, since drive types and sizes differ between laptops, desktops and iMacs, and recommend a capacity that fits what you store.
2. We check the old drive's health. If it's failing, your files are the priority, and we move them before anything else.
3. The SSD goes in, and your data is transferred from the old drive to the new one. If the Windows installation itself is the problem, a clean Windows install on the new SSD is often the better route.
4. We test startup, programs and your files before you pick it up.

What we look at on the rest of the computer

An SSD fixes storage speed, not everything. While the computer is open we check memory, since too little RAM also causes slowdowns, and we look at dust in the fans and heatsinks, which causes heat and throttling. If a RAM upgrade or a cleaning would help, we tell you before doing anything. On desktops and gaming PCs, upgrades and custom builds are covered under desktop PC repair.

It's also a good moment to set up a proper data backup, so a future drive failure costs you nothing but the drive.