Why is my computer slow?

This is the most common problem that people come to me with. “Why is my computer slow”. Besides the obvious things like age, or the price of your laptop it usually comes down to one thing. Your storage. The hard drive.

9 times out of 10, after investigation, I usually find the source of the slow experience is the hard drive is unable to keep up with the demands of the operating system and programs that are running. “But it’s a new computer” you say, and I reply, “well, yes, but it’s got an older drive inside it and it isn’t fit for purpose”.

I have my own theories about why manufacturers are still selling mechanical Hard Disc Drives as the primary storage device for the operating system, but I would probably leave myself open to scrutiny. hard drives aren’t going away anytime soon. Is there an alternative?

Yes, there is. The solid state drive. The SSD drive is a faster storage medium that is highly recommended for running your operating system. I would always recommend using HDDs for extra storage (if there is room!).

So, what can I do?

For an IT Support company, it is a relatively straight forward process, we have done literally hundreds of these, it requires removing the hard drive and cloning its contents on to an SSD drive. Which is then installed into the machine. Everything looks the same its just running on faster hardware. Boom! User experience improved.

There are some possible errors that come up during this process, but we are able to solve them easily with our tools and experience. You could do it yourself and I would never discourage someone from trying to do it themselves. However, I would add I take my car to the mechanic because he is an expert, I would not trust myself to fix my car safely, even if Bob on Youtube said it’s easy.

Often, people will lament that they make sure they defrag their computer and that they run all sorts of cleaners and it is still running slowly. Doing a “defrag” (a method of reorganising your hard drive files to make access more efficient) is unnecessary as the operating system (Windows 10) does it for you, the cleaner tools are likely using up other resources on your machine by running in the background and they are prone to leaving errors on your hard drive too. You can also perform the task manually without the need for cleaning tools. Don’t get me started on Anti-Virus programs, though that will probably be another blog.

It’s a bit of a minefield if you don’t know what you are doing, and as the old adage goes, a little knowledge is dangerous.

Why suddenly is a hard drive no good?

Mainly because the people designing the software and operating systems are using faster machines themselves. If you are into conspiracy theories, you may believe that the software manufacturers are in league with the hardware manufacturers to require more resources to run the software which in term leads to slow machines and more sales. Its probably not even a theory. Microsoft aren’t running any computers in their offices on hard drives. Its all SSD.

Either way, it happens and it’s a shame that so many people get caught out by buying a laptop assuming the are getting the latest cutting-edge technology when actually they are getting an antiquated technology that their operating system wasn’t really designed to run on.

If you have concerns about your business laptops or computers whether they are running slow or not, get in touch for a free IT review. Do you know if you need IT support? If the answer is a yes or a no, then you probably do!

You can waffle with me anytime, just email or pick up the phone. You can also book a meeting with me directly using Calendly.