And man, it is like the best $50 I have spent in a LONG time. I've been "gonna do" that for several years, but didn't want to go a week without it while some shop did the work. I've built desktops before, but never got inside a laptop...always thought things would be too crowded and compact.

But this weekend I took a screwdriver and removed the small service hatch on the bottom.....and there was that empty slot just begging to be filled. So I put on my boots with the 2" thick rubber soles, and wired myself to the spigot on the kitchen sink (zap protection) And put er in myself.

And now cannot understand why I didn't do this years ago. I feel good!!

And while I was in there, I noticed there is an open socket for a second hard drive. And am now thinking SSD?

Can I partition an SSD just like I would a conventional hard drive?

And man, it is like the best $50 I have spent in a LONG time. I've been "gonna do" that for several years, but didn't want to go a week without it while some shop did the work. I've built desktops before, but never got inside a laptop...always thought things would be too crowded and compact.

But this weekend I took a screwdriver and removed the small service hatch on the bottom.....and there was that empty slot just begging to be filled. So I put on my boots with the 2" thick rubber soles, and wired myself to the spigot on the kitchen sink (zap protection) And put er in myself.

And now cannot understand why I didn't do this years ago. I feel good!!

And while I was in there, I noticed there is an open socket for a second hard drive. And am now thinking SSD?

Can I partition an SSD just like I would a conventional hard drive?

Congrats on upgrading your laptop! I upgraded mine myself last year when it was clear the RAM was no longer sufficient. Websites load much faster now. Servicing my own laptop makes me feel as accomplished as fixing the battery in my vehicle (I couldn't do any serious engine repair, but I can replace a battery or change the oil).

Yes, you can partition a SSD; here are some recommendations (https://www.elinfor.com/knowledge/do-ssds-with-a-capacity-of-1tb-or-more-need-to-be-partitioned-p-11253).

For some reason I always had this mental image of having to remove the entire shell of the laptop, to gain access to the RAM and HD.

Not so much that I'm not mechanically inclined. Just that there are so many tight clearances, small parts, and the ever present risk of electrostatic damage. So, with no formal training, I was afraid that it might become a pandora's box that I would never get the cover back onto.

But, recently emboldened by a decision to buy a new "wizz-bang" laptop, I suddenly found myself in the position of having little to lose. Afterall, if the worst case scenario occurred, well since I was gonna buy a new lappy, anyway..etc

But as it turns out, I might be able to put off the new laptop for another year or so. I'm invigorated with my newfound powers.

For some reason I always had this mental image of having to remove the entire shell of the laptop, to gain access to the RAM and HD.

Not so much that I'm not mechanically inclined. Just that there are so many tight clearances, small parts, and the ever present risk of electrostatic damage. So, with no formal training, I was afraid that it might become a pandora's box that I would never get the cover back onto.

But, recently emboldened by a decision to buy a new "wizz-bang" laptop, I suddenly found myself in the position of having little to lose. Afterall, if the worst case scenario occurred, well since I was gonna buy a new lappy, anyway..etc

But as it turns out, I might be able to put off the new laptop for another year or so. I'm invigorated with my newfound powers.

Yeah, over the years, I upgraded my desktop many times, but avoided the laptop because of the compactness and how terribly some of those screws are placed: a few screws get screwed into the plastic parts of the motherboard, and a slight misalignment can damage the motherboard. So it's good to be cautious.

I wear a static wrist band. I've only opened the case on my current laptop three times: once to check the RAM card, once to upgrade the RAM, and once to fix a seating issue with the power supply (the power supply wouldn't stay plugged in). On work laptops, I've upgraded RAM, changed out hard drives, replaced CD drives, and replaced defective batteries, but rarely needed to do much hardware work on my own laptop until recently.

I am kinda bemused that the 4GB that came in the laptop originally, finally proved to be inadequate.

I mean 4 gigabytes? That' s HUGE. I remember when 9 GB was considered to be a large hard drive. My first PC had 64 MB of RAM, and everybody teased me that I was paying for overkill.

But, I guess that "bloat" is no longer the concern that it once was (software wise) So I guess there is an "when in Rome" attitude among the software developers?

New Laptops that I've looked at are in the 16-32 GB range, which just seems obscene. But "since it's affordable"...etc.

Last year I upgraded my old mac from 4 gb to 16 gb. It was constantly doing memory swaps and facebook wouldn't work (I no longer go into that). It worked much better for several months, then it started rebooting itself constantly. That was the time to get a new one.

RE: Bloat

I'm really starting to have some misgivings about the whole "64 bit" thing.

I'm an early adopter, so as soon as the AMD64 architecture became a thing, I jumped in with both feet. Thereafter... all the hardware I bought, all the operating systems, software, whatever...HAD to be 64 bit. And I even went on witch hunts to verify that some unscrupulous software vendor wasn't disguising an old 32 bit program as "64 bit" just to ride on the bandwagon.

But, in retrospect, I really can't say where the 64 bit architecture has been that much benefit to me. It's really rare that I ever work with a file larger than 4 GB in size. So any real benefit is subjective. I do think it has been a boon to software developers. I feel that they no longer have to be as "code efficient" as they once were (resulting in the bloat I mentioned earlier)

Lately, I've been using a 64 bit version of Linux that uses all 32 bit programs. It does this because it all fits on a thumb drive, and they try to maintain some degree of code efficiency due to constraints of the older USB architecture. I do it mostly for security. The entire installation is "read only", so I can browse into the deepest, darkest corners of 4chan, and not worry about picking up any noxious critters. A simple re-boot, and I'm back to square one. It's a little tedious because I have to have my entire system set up EXACTLY the way I want it, the day I write it all to the usb stick. From that point on... any changes require a total rewrite. But with that inflexibility come certain benefits. Any cookies or malware are "written" only to a ram disk, that is "lost" everytime I boot...so I sleep very well at night not having to worry about ransomware, etc.

And as a fringe benefit, all those news sites that give you 3 free views before demanding a subscription, Those paywalls are administered by cookies they place on your system. So, everytime I reboot, all those cookies get flushed, and my next visit to the paywall I appear to be a new visitor.

Anyway, my main point is, I don't see any difference in quality between the images I create with 32 bit Gimp on my 64 bit laptop compared to the 64 bit Gimp that I have resident on my 64 bit PC. So other than select occasional uses, "64 bit" seems to largely be a gimmick.

I glad its working good for ya buddy!!