Is your old laptop worth an SSD upgrade?
The most common laptop we see in London, Ontario homes is between five and eight years old, takes four minutes to start, and freezes when the grandchildren's photos open. Nine times out of ten it is not a dying computer. It is a mechanical hard drive that was slow when it was new and has been filling up ever since. Replacing it with a solid-state drive (SSD) is the single biggest speed upgrade a computer can get, and it costs far less than a new laptop.
Worth upgrading if
- It still turns on and the screen, keyboard and hinges are fine.
- Startup takes minutes and the little drive light flickers constantly.
- It has a traditional hard drive (HDD). On Windows, open Task Manager, click Performance, and look at Disk 0: it will say HDD or SSD.
- It can run Windows 11. Windows 10 stopped getting security updates in October 2025, so a laptop that cannot move to Windows 11 (roughly, anything before 2018 without a TPM 2.0 chip) is on borrowed time no matter how fast its drive is.
Not worth it if
- The storage is soldered to the board, which is true of most MacBooks since 2016 and many very thin Windows laptops. We check the model before quoting; if it can't be done, we say so on the phone.
- The screen is cracked, the battery is swollen, or the hinge is broken. Those are repair-shop jobs, and we will point you to a good one in London.
- It cannot run Windows 11 and you use it for banking. A new basic laptop is $500 to $700 and comes with five or more years of updates.
What the upgrade involves
- We back up everything first, every time.
- Swap the old drive for a 500 GB or 1 TB SSD. The part is $60 to $110 at London stores; we buy it at cost and hand you the receipt, or you buy it and we install it.
- Copy your Windows, programs and files onto the new drive, or install Windows fresh if the old one was a mess, then put your files back.
- While the case is open: a memory upgrade ($49 labour plus the part) if the machine has 4 GB or less, and a new battery ($69 labour plus the part) if it dies within an hour.
- Boot it up in front of you. The usual result is a 20-second start instead of a four-minute one.
How we help
The SSD upgrade with everything moved over is $99 labour (opening price until December 31, 2026, plus HST), done at your table so your computer never leaves the house. If we open it and find it can't be upgraded, you pay nothing, and you get a written note on what to buy instead.
Want a hand with this? We come to your home anywhere in London, or fix it remotely while you watch. Fixed prices you approve first, and if we can't fix it, you don't pay.