HDD and RAM Questions, I need some help!!!

I have some questions on things I think I know, but want to be sure about, and need some advice on others...any and all help will be most appreciated!!!

First Hard drives:

1. What's the difference between these two drives? I just can't figure it out and one is selling for almost $60 less than the other?

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,682,00.html

http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,636,00.html

2. Can somebody recommend an 80 or 100GB HD for the W5a. Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi or Western Digital? I want Quiet, efficient and reliable. I'm thinking 5400RPM, but I'm open to 7200RPM if you think this little guy can pull it off.

3. If I buy a high capacity external 3.5" 7200 RPM hard drive that connects via USB 2.0, will it be efficient enough to run applications off of?

now onto RAM:

1. If you had to choose between Corsair and Samsung, what would you go with for both the V6V and W5a?

2. What do you guys think about the Ultra brand memory that tigerdirect sells/carries???

3. Can someone confirm this for me...everywhere I look it lists the memory in these laptops as DDR2 400 or DDR 400 PC3200, how many Pins am I supposed to be looking for, because I've seen 184, 200, and 240 listed under combos of the above ram options. I want to get the right RAM, so am I looking for SO-DIMMs, DDR, DDR2, 400, PC3200??? I thought I needed So-Dimms with 200 pins to be compatible with the W5a and V6V, so what gives? Also, what's the best Mhz rating I can get and stay compatible with both these notebooks? I want to buy 2X1GB sticks for the V6V so It can run in dual channel and be maxed out...and I guess I can only add 1X1GB stick to the W5a, which obviously won't run dual channel with the onboard 256MB, so what's the best Mhz rating to go with for that, It has to stay compatible and run at it's best with the onboard memory though?

Those are the questions, I know It's a lot, but I could really use the help and advice, so If you have the time, please offer your knowledge, thoughts, and/or opinions.

OH, one more thing I've asked before but never got an answer too, Did anybody get Microsoft Works bundled with their V6V? Retailers, was their a copy of Works with this model? Thank you

 

hmmm...
taking things one at a time:

Hard Drive:
1. they seem to be the exact same to me. Is the cheaper one refurbished?

2. I'd recommend Seagate for quiet & efficient. I've got a Seagate hard drive and I almost never hear it. And 5400RPM would be quieter, although 7200 would give you a bit more performance.

3. I'd guess so, but I'm not absolutely sure, as I haven't had any experience with external hard drives

RAM:
1. Either will work fine. Just about all memory brands have a lifetime warrantee, so you're set either way.

2. I haven't heard much about it, but they make lots of peripherals & power supplies. Should be fine.

3. You'll need 200-pin PC2-3200 400 Mhz DDR2 SODIMM memory to match, although 200-pin PC2-4200 533 Mhz DDR2 SODIMM memory will work as well. But if you get the faster memory, you should swap out both memory modules so they're running at the same frequency.

Hope that helps!

 

I'd recommend Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi. I would stay away from Toshiba and Samsung. I have seen a Hitachi travelstar 60GB 7200RPM for as low as $99. I would go for Corsair, OCZ, or Kingston. But as long as they have a lifetime warranty it doesn't matter too much as long as it's a reliable company that will replace it if it goes out.

 

I couldn't figure it out either at first, until I looked at the data sheets. They're almost identical... the only difference being the power requirements. The ST98823A comes out ahead, although it draws a little more power in standby. Also, the ST9808211A is PATA only, while the ST98823A is also available as SATA.

Does your notebook have firewire? If so, that may be a better option since in my experience you get a better sustained throughput off firewire than USB. Besides that, it's certainly doable.

Unless you're planning on overclocking it's not that important. If you are, I'd say that the Corsair would have a little more headroom. Otherwise, go for the ram with the tightest timings at stock speed (either 533 or 667MHz depending on your machine). This article over at Anandtech may be illuminating.

I'm not familiar with tigerdirect, so can't answer other than to re-iterate what I mentioned above... Unless you're overclocking you probably won't notice a difference.

Have you tried the memory configurator at www.kingston.com? According to them you need either PC2-3200 (DDR2 400) or PC2-4200 (DDR2 533) sticks for the V6V, the W5a only supports PC2-3200. Be advised that they also believe the maximum RAM you can add to the W5a is 512MB. You're after 200 pin SO-DIMM packages for both.

I can't offer any suggestions regarding notebook hdd's, my experience there is limited... although I've always been partial to Seagates and Western Digitals.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the feedback so far, please keep it coming, the more opinions the better...even though in the end I know It's my decision.

Nope, they're both new hard drives, no refurbs, I can't figure it out myself, But since they both have different serial numbers or product codes, and they're both currently listed...and one's cheaper than the other, something has to be different I would think???

I can't swap out both modules on the W5a because 256MB of RAM is on board built right into the motherboard/CPU as I understand it. For the V6V, I will be swapping both out, but I need to know what you guys think Is my best option for the W5a. RAM wise, It's either Samsung at $89 bucks Canadian per 1Gig stick, or $133 bucks for the Corsair per 1Gig stick, does that help with your opinions??? Those prices are If I go the 400Mhz route.

Hard drive wise, I want at least an 80GB or higher capacity, otherwise I just don't see the point in upgrading it. I'm just worried going with a 7200RPM drive might be overkill in such a little system...I want everything to be safe and stable.

Thanks djembe and Jason for taking the time to respond so far. Please keep the opinions and suggestions coming, I really appreciate it

...thanks Ted, It's strange then that the 8211A HDD is the more expensive one. Since these machines will eventually be given to my parents, the RAM will never be altered or overclocked. I know for a fact that Justin over at Proportable was running a W5a with a 1GB stick in the expansion slot, and other's haven't had a problem either, thanks for pointing that out though. Now that Ive listed the prices, do you have an opinion one way or the other? Just so It's clear, what Mhz rating would be best to add to the W5a's onboard 400? The V6V is compatible with 667Mhz RAM? I know firewire would be better, but USB 2.0 gives me more freedom in my situation. Thanks again though.

 

No, the V6V will run either 400 or 533 DDR2, not 667. You could install 667, but it will only run at 533 speeds. I'd confirm the max RAM for the W5a with Justin, he knows his stuff. Again, the W5a won't be able to take advantage of anything faster than 400 DDR2.

Given that both Corsair and Samsung a reputable manufacturers (Samsung supplies modules for other memory manufacturers), I'd go the Samsung and save $88 CDN.

Firewire would be ideal, but USB2 will work too. I ran a dual G5 powermac at work off an external drive for a week to meet a deadline... the internal system drive picked the worst time to crash, as usual.

Assuming the datasheets on the two Seagate drives are correct, I'd go with the cheaper (and better specced) one and not lose any sleep over it. What I've seen about the new Momentus drives so far has been quite favourable.

 

You posted while I was still writing that response, I went back and edited it though, so your ego is all good now. Thanks again for the feedback

 

Go with Seagate, they have a massive warantee (5 years from memory?) and very good seek times, I mean if you look at the detailed specs it is easy to compare, type in make, model, then review into google, and check out a couple, I have seen great reviews for segate Momentus (I now have 3X100gb Seagate drives.

Running an external drive for applications, I would not do that, even if your laptop has firewire unless it is a mac I would expect it would have fire wire mini (400) which is the same speed as USB 2.

You should buy a laptop that will run twin HDDs, not many do it, but thats why im getting the W3J... I am buying the HDD enclosure for the optical bay and will be running one of my segate 100GB drives, giving me a total 200gb sorage in a 14'' laptop!! and it is usefull for running large photoshop files you can set the second disc as a scratch disc imprving performance, this set up will run faster than any external drive.

 

In fact, Samsung is the world's #1 memory manufacturer, by far. A lot of it is NAND memory and other non-DIMM memory, but they are generally the market leaders in memory technology.

 

Alright, sounds good guys. I think I'll go with the 80GB Seagate 5400 RPM drive for the W5a, that should keep things reliable while still offering a nice boost in performance and capacity. Does anybody know what the warranty is that Samsung is offering on their RAM, I can't seem to find it? If It's decent, then I'll grab 2X1GB sticks of 533Mhz So-dimm for the V6V, and 1X1GB stick of the 400 for the W5a.

Anyone else wanna voice their opinions on the Ultra brand of memory that tigerdirect.com/.ca carries? I'm just curious about it.

Check this out, http://www.kanguru.com/flashdrive_max.html
and http://www.kanguru.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=75
how crazy is that??? Once the price drops enough, and they find ways to stabilize it for even longer periods of time, the potential applications and possibilities are endless...I just had no idea they were already this close. At least this close and public, who knows what the government has it's hands on already!!!

 

WAIIITTTT

I know ted realized this before, but he never emphasized this:

The more expensive one is SATA, while the others only p-ATA. SATA has a much better means of data transfer. Well worth the extra $$

Go to the two fact sheets and look at the two model numbers in two different brower windows and compare.

Its 100 megabytes per second verses 150 megabytes per second. No brainer.

 

Thanks Androo, but since the drive is for a W5a, I don't believe I can get a Sata drive even If I wanted too...I think I'm going to go with the cheaper Pata only drive, unless someone thinks the W5a is Sata compatible, which I don't think is very likely, then I may reconsider.

I might have to look into other options anyways, the retailer I was going to buy this drive from, seems to have just sold out. They have a few other locations, so I'll see If I can source one, but otherwise It's back to the drawing board because no one near me has these Seagate drives for anywhere near the price...which changes everything!

Anybody think the W5a can handle a 7200 RPM Seagate drive Quietly and reliably?

 

From my understanding the laptop will need to support SATA, I see some Asus laptops have SATA drives but will a laptop that has a PATA drive support SATA??

I thought the answer is NO, anyone know any better??

 

Looks like I'm going to have to restart my search. I'd really rather buy a drive in store/in person instead of having to wait for it to ship and deal with extra fees etc...

So does anyone wanna chime in on the whether or not you think the W5a can handle a 7200 RPM Seagate hard drive reliably and Quietly??? Is there anyone on here with a W5 series notebook running a 7200 RPM drive? I'd really appreciate some feedback

 

Two gotchas on this one Androo... There's no point buying a SATA drive if the machine doesn't support it. I wouldn't be overly concerned about the bus bandwidth either, there isn't a single 2.5" drive on the planet that can saturate either bus... the only time you'll notice a difference is for reads from the onboard cache.

I'm going to argue the point on running apps from an external drive while I'm here too... it's certainly doable. I've done it. It works. It's not ideal, but until 300GB 2.5" drives are readily available it's still an option. Oh, while technically USB2 has the edge on firewire (480Mbps vs. 400Mbps), you'll get much better sustained transfer speeds (which is what counts) using firewire. More details and benchmarks here.

:EDIT: Removed boneheaded mistake.

 

You mean 300GB 2.5" drives right???

Thanks for the link.

 

Dang, you're right... I'm showing my age.

If it's any consolation, the first HDD I used was on a Prime 900 minicomputer... it was a massive 20MB and about the size of a washing machine.

 

Alright, I'm going to order this stuff tomorrow, so I just wanted to clearify one last time exactly which RAM I need to be buying for both the V6V and W5a.

I'm to order 2X1GB of Corsair PC4200 DDR2 533Mhz 200 Pin So Dimm for the V6V...And 1X1GB Kingston PC3200 DDR2 400Mhz 200 Pin So Dimm for the W5a if I so choose, and they're 100% compatible right?

I keep getting confused because The RAM can also come in DDR spec as well as DDR2, and they both share the same PC3200 and Mhz ratings, as well as being 200 Pin So-dimms. So I definitely need the DDR2 RAM in both cases right?
I'm also going to buy a 100GB 5400 RPM Seagate hard drive for the W5a incase anyone wanted to know. Thanks again for all the replies and help, I really appreciate it

 

V6V and W5A also use DDR2 PC2 4200 (533Mhz) memory. When you open up the memory cover, you can realize what type of memory they need. Corsair and Kinston are the best choice and compatible to work each other as long as you use a memory testing software to check, make sure no any error there. After putting in and boot up a Windows, it should work perfectly.

 

I hate to ask you this Danny, because I know you know your stuff...but are you 100% sure I can put DDR2 PC2 4200 (533Mhz) RAM into the W5a as well? Is it going to run at 533Mhz, or only 400? I want to add a 1GB stick, so 533Mhz memory will be compatible with the onboard ram? I just want to be absolutely sure before I place my order, thanks

 

Can somebody please give me an answer or some feedback on my last post above, regarding the W5a and RAM...I really want to get this over with and move on...I just want to get my order right the first time, and make sure It's the best setup possible. Thanks

 

easy question. You can run 533 mhz ram just fine. But remember when you mix different speed ram it will always run as fast as the slower one.

But since 400mhz ram is getting harder to find and is the same price just buy 533. there wont be any compatability issues. Be sure to buy a decent brand.