On 2025-03-04, Jan Stary <h...@stare.cz> wrote: > > A 2011 Dell will probably not even have slots for NVME,
I think the slots are miniPCIe rather than M.2. (Some laptops have an M.2 slot typically meant for WWAN but in which you can sometimes use an NVMe SSD, though they are usually quite short, 2230 or 2242 or so, so restricted choice of drives). > but even SATA SSD will be an improvement over > plates of rusty metal rotating at 5600 rpm. There's a pretty good chance that if the 2011 Dell had come with an SSD it would have already failed by now, whereas one of the HDs is still working. SSDs are good against some types of damage, and are often much faster than HDs (although some are very poor for writes), but are no panacea. Having used HDs for ~35 years and SSDs for probably 15 or so (while still using some HDs, and generally buying fairly decent ones), I've had quite a few failed SSDs, only a couple of actually failed HDs, a few more with SMART pre-failure warnings that I've replaced, and a pile of HDs which still work but are too small to be much use. -- Please keep replies on the mailing list.
