Should I Uprgade a Perfectly-Functioning Ten-Year-Old HPE 410t

[rward39571]

The C Drive in this 10-year-old HPE 410t died a year or so ago and I replaced it with another hard drive, thinking I wouldn't use the computer much longer. Now I am wondering if I should have gone with an SSD to improve speed, if that's even possible, and if I would be happy enough with that to keep going with this computer a few more years.

My questions are: 1) Can I put an SSD in this computer, or are the internal connections set up strictly for HDD?

2) If I can put an SSD in as my C Drive, can I use my current C and D Drives as internal storage? Is there room for an SSD and two HDDs?

3) Should the HPE 410t be upgradable to Windows 11?

4) If all of this is just craziness and I should get a new computer, does anyone have a suggestion for a computer that can run the Avid Media Composer video editor? I know Avid has a list of qualified systems, but it always seems to be a couple of years behind what his currently being sold.

[itsmyname · Accepted solution]

@rward39571 ---

 1) Can I put an SSD in this computer, or are the internal connections set up strictly for HDD?

The power/data connections for an SSD are identical to desktop/notebook disk-drives.

The SSD probably is only 2.5 inches wide, while a desktop disk-drive is 3.5 inches wide.

So, you need a 3.5-inch wide "tray" to hold the SSD. This is a mechnical piece of metal.

2) If I can put an SSD in as my C Drive, can I use my current C and D Drives as internal storage? Is there room for an SSD and two HDDs?

Probably. An SSD is very small, and you can "fit" it almost anywhere. Does your computer's case have an unused drive-bay for a 3.5-inch "floppy" disk-drive?

3) Should the HPE 410t be upgradable to Windows 11?

Very unlikely, unless your computer is less than two years old.

4) If all of this is just craziness and I should get a new computer, does anyone have a suggestion for a computer that can run the Avid Media Composer video editor? I know Avid has a list of qualified systems, but it always seems to be a couple of years behind what his currently being sold.

A new computer will be "beefy" enough to run a "Virtual Machine" application.

Launch the application, create a "guest" VM, and allocate some disk-space, and install your current version of Windows into the VM, and install the video-editor software into Windows inside the VM.

Or, the Windows "Compatibility Wizard" may be able to adapt Windows to run your "older" app.

Or, a Google-search for your software's title shows that either the software has been renamed, or the assets have been sold to another company.

See:  https://www.pinnaclesys.com/en/products/studio/

There are 3 versions of the software, from $60 CDN to $130 CDN. 

All versions require 64-bit Windows 10.