Achingly slow HDD

[herbal_t]

My HP laptop is unusable until the HDD usage drops away from 100%, which can take hours. It has always been thus.

The first thing I did when I got the laptop was double the RAM to 16 GB since the supplied 8 GB was mostly taken up by the Windows operating system. This helped, but it didn't have the dramatic effect I was expecting. The machine was still slow, laggy, unresponsive, until the "background" tasks have completed and the disk drive usage drops away.

HDD Average Response Time tends to be in seconds rather than milliseconds while read and write speeds (during 100% disk usage) are in the low KB/s (should be MB/s, yes?).

Does anyone have any advice that doesn't cover the obvious basics like rebooting, etc, etc. I've already been down this path several times before to no avail so I'm not expecting much. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Since you are familiar with taking the notebook apart, you may want to consider one of these two options:

Replace the 2.5" mechanical hard drive with a 2.5" solid state drive (SSD), such as the Western Digital Blue SA510 models.

Your notebook also has a M.2 slot that supports the much faster M.2 2280 NVMe SSD's.

If you install a M.2 SSD, you could retain the 2.5" drive and use it for storage only.

Chapter 1 of the service manual does indicate dual drive configurations are supported.

Maintenance and Service Guide HP 17 Laptop PC

You would have to remove Windows from the hard drive and use it for storage only.

[herbal_t]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and for the useful information. An SSD was something I'd considered but had hoped that there was something wrong with some system setting - it seems decidedly odd that background tasks that require disk usage should render the computer useless until they are all complete, which can be hours later - while the CPU (and GPU) idle away.

I'm not one for jumping at the latest tech - I like trying to make things work. Also not very flash with the cash, but, wow, I just checked the cost of a 1TB SSD and they haven't half come down in price. But before I grab one, should I consider this M.2 thingy? Would the advantage over a standard SSD be worth the extra cost? 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

Either SSD would provide much better performance over the 2.5" mechanical hard drive.

If you want to explore a free option to see if things work better, back up your files and use the HP cloud recovery tool to make a bootable USB recovery drive to factory reset the notebook.

Bringing the original software configuration back to the way it was when you first purchased the notebook may help but if not, I recommend you go for the NVMe SSD.

Here's a link for how to use the utility.  You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive to create the recovery media with.

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Customer Support

[herbal_t]

Is this my M.2 slot?

 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is the M.2 slot for the wireless card.

According to the manual there should be a second slot for a M.2 SSD.

[herbal_t]

Sorry to be a pain but i can't find another m.2 slot...

[herbal_t]

Never mind - turns out the other M.2 slot, board, bracket and cable all go where the optomechanical ata-interfaced HDD sits. So it seems that even if i went for the M.2 option, this would still necessitate the removal of the original drive, meaning i can't keep it in for storage. Also, from where can i get the relevant board, bracket and cable?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Your notebook's M.2 slot is located to the right of the battery.

It's almost at the edge of the notebook.

It even has the SSD hold down screw already there which is nice.

[herbal_t]

Thanks so much - I would never have found that!

So... is there a handy guide to cloning a drive in-situ? ...and then changing the boot drive? ...etc, etc?