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    Acer Travelmate 5720G - can it take 3GB/s SATA replacement drive?

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by ericpode, Aug 9, 2010.

  1. ericpode

    ericpode Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have a Travelmate 5720G laptop which was supplied with a WDC WD1600BEVS hard drive (160GB SATA 1.5GB/s). I'd like to replace it with something like WDC WD5000BUDT (500GB SATA 3GB/s), but it is a 3GB/s SATA compared to the existing 1.5GB/s SATA drive.

    Are there any compatability problems with swapping-in a 3GB/s hard drive with this laptop?

    If its is OK, will the laptop be able to run faster with the faster drive or will it still run in 1.5GB/s mode?

    And one final question - is there a free utility which would allow me to transfer the OEM Vista partition across to my new drive (probably temporarily plugged into the USB port) so that the new drive will boot straight into Vista when I plug it into the internal drive connector?
     
    ericpode, Aug 9, 2010
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  2. TehSuigi

    TehSuigi Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hmmm...why are you going for the WD5000BUDT? Those are designed for DVRs and digital surveillance systems, not notebooks! What you'd want would be something with a BEVT or BPVT last-four-letters for a 5400rpm drive, or a BEKT for a 7200rpm drive.
    Or a Seagate or a Hitachi or et cetera.

    3GB/s SATA is definitely compatible with 1.5GB/s SATA - the two use the same connector and everything. The 3GB/s device will just be limited to 1.5GB/s, similar to how DDR2-800 modules will work at DDR2-667 in a chipset that only supports DDR2-667.

    And since most modern hard drive can't saturate the 1.5GB/s SATA in the first place, you shouldn't see any real performance limitations from that.

    As for your final question, it sounds like you want a disk imaging software. There are tons online, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
     
    TehSuigi, Aug 9, 2010
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  3. ericpode

    ericpode Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks. I ended up with the WD5000BEVT (as suggested) and was able to copy the OEM windows across to the new drive with the help of the free Paragon Backup and Restore. It all went very smoothly.

    I did consider the 6400 version of the hard drive which is 640GB in size but there were a few comments about it being significantly slower, so I opted for the 5000 version instead.
     
    ericpode, Aug 17, 2010
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  4. TehSuigi

    TehSuigi Notebook Virtuoso

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    Oh sure, rub my poor choice of hard drive in my face. ;)
    Glad to hear you got everything working again.
     
    TehSuigi, Aug 17, 2010
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