Background
Escola Municipal de São Paulo (EMS), a public primary school in São Paulo, Brazil, faced a critical infrastructure issue in 2023: its 500 classroom PCs (purchased in 2018) were running on slow HDDs, leading to long boot times (10-15 minutes) and frequent crashes during lessons. This disrupted student learning—teachers reported losing 20% of class time waiting for PCs to load—and made it impossible to run modern educational software (e.g., interactive math tools, video editing programs for student projects).
With a limited annual IT budget of $50,000, EMS needed an affordable, high-quality storage upgrade that could be deployed quickly across all PCs.
Challenge
EMS’s main obstacles were cost, scalability, and compatibility:
- Budget Constraints: Premium brand SSDs (e.g., Samsung, Western Digital) cost $60-$80 per 512GB unit—too expensive for a 500-unit upgrade (estimated cost: $30,000-$40,000, leaving little for installation).
- Compatibility Risks: The school’s PCs used older motherboards (with SATA III ports only), so NVMe SSDs were not an option. EMS needed SATA SSDs that would work seamlessly with its existing hardware.
- Deployment Speed: The school could only take PCs offline during school holidays (a 2-week window in July), so the upgrade needed to be fast and easy to install.
Solution: Partnership with LASTINGIN for Cost-Effective SATA SSDs
EMS’s IT team, led by Carlos Mendes, searched for affordable SATA SSDs on Alibaba and connected with Shenzhen Ayogoo Technology in Q2 2023. The partnership focused on three key solutions:- Budget-Friendly Pricing: LASTINGIN offered its 512GB 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs at $35 per unit—40% lower than premium brands. For 500 units, the total hardware cost was $17,500, well within EMS’s budget.
- Guaranteed Compatibility: Ayogoo Technology provided 10 sample SSDs for testing, which were verified to work with EMS’s older motherboards. The SATA III interface (6Gb/s) ensured plug-and-play functionality, with no need for firmware updates.
- Fast Deployment Support: LASTINGIN included free cloning software (pre-installed on a USB drive) with each SSD, allowing EMS’s IT team to copy data from old HDDs to new SSDs in 30 minutes per PC. The manufacturer also provided a 24/7 technical support hotline for installation questions during the holiday window.
To meet educational standards, the SSDs were RoHS-certified (free of hazardous substances) and came with a 3-year warranty—critical for a public institution needing long-term reliability.
Results
The upgrade, completed in July 2023, delivered transformative results for EMS:- Performance Improvement: PC boot times dropped from 10-15 minutes to 2-3 minutes, and software load times were reduced by 70%. Teachers reported no more crashes during lessons, and students could now run modern educational tools without lag.
- Budget Efficiency: The total cost (hardware + installation) was $22,000—leaving $28,000 in the IT budget for other upgrades (e.g., new monitors, antivirus software).
- Long-Term Reliability: As of March 2024, only 3 of the 500 SSDs had required warranty replacements (a 0.6% failure rate), far below the 5% failure rate of the old HDDs.
“LASTINGIN gave us a solution that fit our budget and solved our biggest problem,” said Carlos Mendes. “Our students and teachers no longer waste time waiting for PCs to load—they can focus on learning. And the warranty gives us confidence that this upgrade will last for years.”