Harddrive for Aspire 8920

I have concidered buying a second harddrive for my laptop.

I have seen this drive:
http://www.nextag.co.uk/All--a-Hard+Drive+Capacity-_-Over+500+GB--zz2.5+sata+drivezukzB3z5---html

Is this harddrive compatible vith my 8920? I've seen that the controller in the laptop is SATA-150, and the harddrive is SATA-300? Can that cause any problems?

 

No that SATA HDD is not compatible with your notebook. It will not fit the HDD slot since it has a depth/thickness of 12.5mm, and the HDD slot on the 8920 is designed for 9.5mm HDDs. If you are only going into space, and not much performance, you can look into the Seagate/Hitachi/WD 320GB 5400RPM HDDs. They have a thickness of 9.5mm and will fit and work.

SATA-300 is backward compatible with SATA-150, so the HDD will work just fine.

 

good catch on the ultra-thin HDD requirments of his laptop... glad i didn't get to this question first.... i would have made a fool of myself.

are both drives this new smaller thickness, and is acer making a move to drives of this size, or is this only in TOP-END models?

 

Hey Andy.

Thanks for the blazing fast answer ..didn't know there was different heights on the 2,5" disks.

I will continue my search from what I know now.

Thanks!

 

Actually the Hitachi 5K500 has 3 platters (data disks), so needs a bigger case to accomodate it. The Samsung 500GB is a 2.5" drive, and has 3 platters stuffed into a 9.5mm case, which was a bad idea, since the performance increase wasn't much but the power consumption went sky high.
Its always good to have a look at the datasheet of the HDD ( 5K500), since it gives the full details you would need to know before installing.

The 5K500 is maybe the first and only HDD at this time, with a 12.5mm physical height. Maybe if there are more 3 Platter HDDs in the future, then maybe 12.5mm will be the new standard, but it is 9.5mm for now.

 

check out this drive.... it says 9.5mm or bigger space required..


ok... thanks for clarifying.... right now 95% of notebook HDDs are the 9.5mm variety,,,
i know there is one size that is smaller, but it is kind of rare,, i was under the assumption that he needed that SMALLER version

but it turns out i didn't read again and am now figuring out what i what i missed... these new 3 platter drives didn't remain the same size as the 2 platter models,,, it turns out they grew a little...

good info to know!!!

 

Actually, I was looking for as much storage space as possible. But then again, if a 500Gb disc eat all the batterypower, then I think it is better with less storage space and a more functional system.

I found out that the disc installed in my laptop is a WD 320 SATA-300. Would it be wise to buy a disc similar to this? (I have allready found it in a webshop)

I can't seem to find any super-performing discs. All discs I can find seems to perform pretty much the same..

Is there a physical difference between SATA and SATA II? Are the connections the same, and can I use a SATA II in my laptop?

Thanks for the wise knowledge and frindly help in this forum

 

no differences between SATA and SATA II as far as connectors go....

you can use sata2 drives on sata1 controllers, and sata1 drives work fine on SATA2 controllers....

and there is no benifit to matching your hard drives unless you are planning on using them in a RAID configuration and even then i'm not sure there would much of a benifit then...

just buy what you feel confortable with,, (maybe buy sata2 so you use it in future laptops and get the speed benifits then)

 

I think I have chosen the Hitachi Travelstar 5K320. It seems to be the best choice if you compare power comsomption and performance.

Thanks for your advices

 

I have two Samsung 500gb drives rocking away in my 8920

love them

 

Get two 7K320s and notice the boost in performance

(Use the Samsungs as externals)

 

aleicgrant, what about power consumption?
Does the two drives eat a lot of power? I saw the specs, and the Samsung 500GB seemed to use more power than the 320GB discs.

 

Hi Andy.
Yeah, I guess that's very nice
The downside is the enormous cost. What about heat and power issues? Doesn't these drives get warmer than a regular 5200rpm drive? And doesn't they eat all your battery-power?

 

The 7K320 is available for $149 after MIR at ZipZoomFly. Cheaper than the Samsung, I guess, and in a totally different league when it comes to performance and power consumption.
Heat is not a problem, since drive architecture improves with time. The 7200RPMs boast lower power consumptions in their datasheets as compared to their previous 5400RPM drives.
Personally, if I had a notebook with two HDD slots, I would get 2 WD3200BEKTs.
I have tested both the 7K320 and the WD3200BEKT, the 7K320 is quicker but gets a bit warm as compared to the WD3200BEKT.

 

Thanks for your replies!

After considering all things, and reading this test http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006.html, and I have now ordered two Seagate Momentus 320GB drives Luckily they was the cheapest, so I' very happy! I hope to recieve them in a few days...

 

Are all drive bays on the on the 8920 active? I heard that some models had the second bay disabled?