[netbook] Samsung NB30's: upgrade or flog on ?

[PrimaryTech]

Hi All,

 

I have 15 Samsung NB30 Netbooks (Atom 1.66GHz processors, 1GB RAM, 320GB HDD's W7x64) that are around 4-5 years old. They're currently not being used by staff as they are painfully slow. I can only upgrade them to 2GB RAM, I tried a 2GB module in one and it improved the performance to acceptable levels but is it really worth it?

 

I have these possible options:

 

• Upgrade all 15 to 2GB RAM, Around £200
  
• 
  
• Remove W7 and install a lightweight Linux OS, such as UberMix
  
• 
  
• Sell them and put the money towards some other IT
  

 

 

What would you guys do? Are they worth saving?

[bald_pig]

We have a number of NC10's, we have a tweaked version of W7 on them, and they are used as departmental machines for students with hand injuries etc. and as exam machines.

[dhicks]

What would you guys do? Are they worth saving?

 

Try the one with 2GB of RAM with ChromeOS (i.e. CloudReady) and see how usable it is. £200 isn't bad if you wind up with 15 usable machines. CloudReady is free for the stand-alone version, but it'll cost your around £70 per device to license CloudReady and purchase a ChromeOS management license if you want them to be managed devices.

[PotNoodleTech]

Would it be worth fitting small 64/128Gb SSDs in them too? 2GB ram and an SSD should give them a jolly good kick up the performance behind!

[gshaw]

Set up a 2016 RDS server and then get them to run as thin clients?

[3s-gtech]

RAM + smallish SSD and you may be surprised at home usable they become.

[PrimaryTech]

Would it be worth fitting small 64/128Gb SSDs in them too? 2GB ram and an SSD should give them a jolly good kick up the performance behind!

 

I thought maybe even a 30/32GB SSD would work as I'll only be installing W7, Office, Chrome and some small applications. I'm thinking they'll be used mainly for web applications and word processing.

[3s-gtech]

If you go very steady on what you install, keep updates cleaned up, and use delprof or mandatory profiles, 32GB may work. We've managed to keep going with 64GB drives on W7 with some chunky software on them, but it has been very tight (<1GB free) at times.

[PotNoodleTech]

I've got 32GB netbooks and they fill up far too fast. No room for the future. With hindsight, it wasn't worth saving the bit of money. Go 64GB if you can.