7200rpm, non-SATA drive for Asus W3V?

It's been 3 years since my dad bought an Asus W3V (1.86GHz Pentium M CPU). It's been a great computer, but it's always seemed kind of slow on startup (the desktop alone takes over a minute to load). A few days ago, I upgraded the RAM from 512MB to the 2GB maximum, and while it's yielded some improvements, it hasn't quite delivered the big performance boost I was hoping for.

Currently, the W3V is using the 60GB 5400rpm (ATA?) drive that came with it. I'd like to replace it with a 7200rpm drive, at least 60GB, ideally more. A few other posters on this forum mentioned the Hitachi Travelstar 7k100, but I haven't been able to find any 7200rpm ATA versions; I've had similarly bad luck looking for the Seagate Momentous ATA drives. There's a 100GB version, but the only place I found online which carries it is asking the ridiculous price of $445. What's the deal? Why are 7200rpm ATA notebook HD's so difficult to find? Where can I get one? And how much is it going to cost?

 

This is my take only and I can be wrong.

Your Oldie Pentium M is not up to the task to handle OS. It was good for w98 only. May be it fill be fine to run LINUX based OS. It is insufficient to run W2K, XP or Vista, New software like Adobe photoshop is not for old CPU too
Iwould not invest in new HD.

 

No, I'm certain the OS is not the problem; XP came out long before the W3V. Besides, if the W3V weren't powerful enough to run XP, then why would Asus include a copy of XP Pro SP2 with the computer?

Can someone answer my original questions:

1. Where can I get a 60+ GB 7200rpm ATA notebook drive?
2. How much will it cost?
3. Why are 7200rpm ATA notebook drives so difficult to find?

 

No, I run XP on a 2GHz Pentium M fine. CPU currently at <20% with 12 Firefox tabs open and a smattering of background tasks. Before this, I ran it on a 1.2GHz Pentium III which also ran it fairly well.

To be honest, I can't really answer most of those questions. I would guess that ATA is not as commonly used so vendors selling drives are not widespread.

 

Here we go

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380+1035907889&name=ATA-6

 

ATA interface is parallel = PATA
SATA is newer serial interface.

Both have about the same performance, ATA can't handle more than 2 drives and use large belt like cable

 

Argh...

Thanks Oldman, I guess I should've been more specific. I'm in Canada, and Newegg doesn't ship internationally for some reason. It's too bad, their prices and selection are awesome. I guess I'll have to find an online retailer that ships internationally. Sorry to be so picky – I'd just as soon buy a SATA drive, but AFAIK Asus never released that PATA-to-SATA converter cable, so I'm stuck using old technology.

 

Once know part # you need, google Canada stores on-line.
I'm positive you will find it

 

7200rpm ata drives are tough to find, I was looking for one for my V6Va I just picked up. Instead I went with this.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3540622&CatId=2675

250gb WD 5400rpm drive, nice and speedy and very close in performance to the smaller 7200rpm drives, I would recommend the above drive.

 

Hi, please note that recent 5400 RPM drives have gotten so good that they can at least equal, if not beat, the performance of 7200 RPM drives. Source:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...906,1881,1882,1911,1877,1854,1851,1897,1908,,
2.5" Hard Drive Charts - Tom's Hardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-galore,1762.html
2.5" HDD Galore: Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba : The New Notebook Drives For 2008 Are Here - Tom's Hardware

Combined with the fact that 5400 RPMs are usually offered in larger capacities, there is very little point in upgrading to a 7200RPM HDD.

I also suggest the Western Digital WD2500BEVE, which is a 250GB PATA 5400RPM drive. It is very fast (although not quite last-gen, it gets up to 50+MB/sec read), probably nearly as fast as most 7200RPMs out there; it is a bit power-hungry, but nothing that'll dent your battery life more than a few minutes.

As to:

This is ENTIRELY INCORRECT. Pentium M handles XP just fine, even starting from ~1GHz speeds.

 

You will find two of the 100GB Seagate version of what you want on auction at ebay now. Go there and search for ST910021A. One is not under warranty (the OEM one), but the other is.

EDIT: I see you are from Canada, and that the vendors say they will ship only to the US. You can contact them to ask for an exception, or try to get a friend in the US who uses ebay to be your agent in this matter.

I recently got two of these exact drives using ebay, both still under lots of warranty (Seagate's warranty is for five years, whereas Hitachi's warranty for their virtually equivalent drive is for three years.)

You will have little or no luck going through a retailer (I tried with two, and had to get my money refunded from both [RE-EDIT: one of the retailers had not charged my card in the first place]; the retailers before them simpy said it cannot be gotten except at exorbitant price by scavenger retailers, of which you have cited an excellent example). The Hitachi and the Seagate were discontinued last month.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I guess I'll take another look at the 5400rpm drives. My next question would be, what brand do I go with? I've had good experiences with Seagate and Western Digital, but I've heard Seagate and Hitachi are king when it come to notebook drives. Finally, does anyone with W3V experience know if there's a limit to the size of internal HD that the W3V supports? I want to avoid buying a 200GB drive if it's going to format to 100GB. Thanks again for everyone for answering my questions.

 

You may find a 7200RPM Seagate or Hitachi at a good price at less than 100GB capacity.

If I had known about the Western Digital 250GB 5400RPM drive E.B.E. mentioned in this thread (I had known about 160GB 5400RPM drives, but wanted 7200RPM over them), and about how much I would have to go through for what I got, I might have gone with the 250GB.

 

1. You'll find ardent supporters and detractors of all 3 major brands. Hitachi are supposed to be *slightly* faster, but all are good performers. You're more likely to be limited by who makes the size you want still in ATA-6.

2. XP will support any sized HDD you throw in there. Remember, of course, that formatted HDD size is always slightly less than advertised HDD size in all cases due to the 2 different definitions of GB.

 

The only really viable option is the one mentioned earlier. I have a W3V with the WD 2500BEVE mentioned above and it works perfectly without any problems. Because the data density is high, the performance is near 7200RPM hard drives, especially 7200RPM drives with < 100GB capacity. No other manufacturer I know of makes a drive this large in 2.5" PATA format... next largest is likely 160GB.

As for where to buy:

www.canadacomputers.com
www.infonec.com (better service)
www.atic.ca (perhaps if you're near Vancouver)