Upgrading a Z3831-UR21P - plan for 2015

ZundapMan
ZundapMan Member Posts: 87 Die Hard WiFi Icon

I'm getting tired of the performance of my now 2-3 year old All-in-One but do not want to scrap it yet.  From the obvious to the not so obvious, I see the following investment options:

 

1)  Fill the RAM to its' limit which I'm somewhat vague about.  I have requested but never received good technical specis from ACER on the BIOS limits of this Motherboard.  I'm going initially from 4 GB to 8.

 

2)  Upgrade the operating system from Windows 7 X64 to Windows 8.1 X64 which will max out the graphics built in.

 

3)  Replace the primary HD (this model has a 5200 RPM maximu "green" hard disk which has always been a bottleneck.  I'm hoping to finda a cheap SATA II 500gb SSD unit if the power requirements can be met by the current power supply.

 

4)  Add back the 1TB SATA hard drive as an external drive connected to the eSATA port on the system.

 

I have some unanswered questions before proceeding and have found answers for some.  The first was how to open the case to get at things.  The second, I believe I also have solved, is how do I get the existing data/operating system on the SSD from the built-in drive.  If the Bios will let me boot from the external SATA port, as it should, it should be a piece of cake.  I can simply remove the existing HD and install it in an external SATA enclosure that has its own power supply, turn it on, and tell the BIOS to look to the external drive.  That will let me migrate or upgrade the OS pretty seamlessly from the now external drive to the SSD.  If there are others out there considering doing something like this, please add your comments/questions to this idea/plan.