User:Barbs/SSD Maintenance & Dual Booting

Welcome to my liveblog on taking care of my 5,5 year old laptop!!

I own a Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 which I bought in 2020 and somehow still runs really well. For the past few months I've been thinking about running some maintenance on her to make her last even longer. Things I want to do:

• Install a new 1 TB SSD. My current one is 500GB, which is too little space for me.
• Dual boot Linux next to Windows. Sadly I can't let go of Windows completely as I need it for drawing software, but I would really love to switch to Linux for all other work I do!
• Fix overheating problems. Sometimes when I game my graphics card overheats I think ? and everything starts lagging. So I want to see if I can clean her insides and check if the cooling paste needs replacing.

Upgrading the SSD

Cloning the original SSD to a larger new one

The cloning finished in 00:31:41!

To do this I'm using:

• My laptop with the old SSD still inside
• The new SSD
• An M.2 SSD enclosure so I can connect the new SSD externally using USB-C
• The trial version of Macrium Reflext X Home

First I installed the new SSD inside of the external enclosure. It took me a while to figure out how to do it as I had never handled an SSD before, but watching a video helped me realize I had to press the SSD into the socket from an angle ??? which felt so wrong and scary who thought this was a good idea. I then connected the enclosure to my laptop through a USB-C cable and launched Macrium.

From here on out I'm following this tutorial specifically.

Before starting the cloning process in Macrium (following the tutorial's instructions), one of the comments suggested changing the advanced settings from making an "intelligent copy" to a "forensic copy", which makes sure it will clone every single thing stored on the source SSD instead of picking and choosing things. I think. It sounds better anyways.

Opening up my laptop for the first time!

Shoutout to this iFixIt article which details exactly what I need to do for my specific laptop model! I recommend searching for the maintenance manual of your laptop as well.