W3J 4200RPM Hard Drive Worries

I'm in the UK and am considering getting the W3J. However, it comes with a 4200RPM hard drive (I think it's the Hitachi Travelstar) and I keep reading on these forums that this speed is just too slow.

I was under the impression I could change it myself for a 5400 or 7200 if I really found it to be a problem. However, I have also read this will void my warranty; is this true? How would they know I had changed it (assuming I kept the original); is there a security seal on the drive bay?

It seems a little unfair that Asus ships it with the slowest speed drive they could find and then don't want you to change it.

 

From what i've read on this forum so far, as long as you keep the original drive, and put it back in the machine before sending it away for a warranty repair you'll be fine for any warranty work on your notebook. Also based on what i've read, there are no stickers over the HDD or Memory.

 

^ I'd say those are both safe assumptions based on what I've read as well. I don't know what gotchas there are there though (ie...if there's an issue created from the new HD...etc.)

As another option Mike, you could also try to find a reseller that will mod it for you and offer their warranty in place of the Asus warranty. Only caveat there is you need to feel comfortable w/ the reseller.

 

Buy an external USB carrier and you can use the original HDD for backups (we all do that, don't we?). And as long as you don't reformat the original HDD, iif Windows falls over on your new HDD you can quickly put it back and get up and running again. I used Acronis MigrateEasy to clone my original HDD.

John

 

Thanks for the replies. I feel happier knowing there are no security seals on the original hard drive. I will definately be making an Acronis Image even if I don't replace it.

I found one UK reseller that will allow you to choose the hard drive speed but (as expected) that works out much more expensive than fitting one yourself.

 

The reseller on Tottenham Court Road London told me that changing the hard drive wont void the warranty... i dunno if he was bluffing or not but thats what he told me. It would probably be best to call up Asus UK and ask them..
cheers

 

We recommend that you get a 2.5" external hard drive box for a backup storage.
Here is the steps you can do
1) take out the 4200rpm hd to a USB external hd box
2) put a 7200rpm hd to your W3J
3) insert a image application software CD to an optical drive and booting up
4) through the USB external hd box to clone the drives to 4200rpm hd to 7200rpm hd(you can create the an new image later as a backup in case a Windows is corrupt)
5) your 7200rpm hd is ready to use, 4200rpm hd can be kept as a backup storage

You must keep your 4200rpm hd for your personal use if your W3J needs a Asus' service so that you can put it back to it before bring.

 

Most people will not even notice much difference with a 4200 RPM. try it with it if you think its to slow get a faster one. Unless u are tranfering lots of large files. Or care about 15 second more wait when loading a game then just stick with the 4200 rpm it will run cooler and battery life will be alittle better.

 

I do notice a difference some of the time between the stock W3V Fujitsu 4200RPM hard drive vs. my previous Samsung 5400RPM hard drive in the M6. When the screen saver activates, it takes a long time for the computer to get you back into the login screen especially the hd is 'multitasking'. With my 5400RPM drive, the lag is much less. Last week, I was burning an image file with Alcohol 120% on to a DVD at 2X. The 128MB Ram Buffer ran out before I recovered from the screen saver and logging back in. The 4200RPM is just plain slow. I never though it would be that slow before.

 

Even better... why don't you buy the Hot swappable HDD enclosure for the optical bay, then once you have installed a new 7200 rpm drive, you can run the original HDD in the optical bay as a second drive, data storage... or whatever you fancy!

I am sure you could use the multibay to do what CanadaSys recommends above.

Anyway I have about 3 laptop HDDs in external cases, and find them very useful, just dont drop them while they are copying, the neighbours dog ran through the house and caught the cable as it went past and the drive landed on the floor while it was copying..... needless to say data recovery is expensive! another good reason for using the multibay, keeps th drive well protected

 

Dogs and cables excepted (were you running the external HDD off an external power supply? - most 2.5" external units can get enough power from the USB port), I find the external case more attractive because (a) it is smaller; (b) you can plug it into any computer with USB port; and (c) it is less expensive. Each to his own....

And be thankful that the dog didn't manage to drag the computer onto the floor!

John

 

Does anyone know if the USA version is coming with the 4200rpm drive or something different???

Thanks

 

No it is coming with a 5400rpm.

 

I sure hope so...

 

Well I guess I should clarify. The latest confirmation via Justin via Fremont is that it is coming with a 5400.

 

So true I actually take out my main lapotp HDD slip it into an Argossy HDD enclosure (very good only takes 1 USB port and is bus powered, very strong case) so I can take it to work and listen to music etc.

Yeah the one I was using was a cheep IBM one from Ebay, the most annoying thing was it was out of it protective case when it fell, hit hard on the corner then bounced, it actually coppied throughout the fall (it was a 128mb mp3 file) and worked fine for a month and a half afterwards, just started to lock every now and again, then eventually it stopped!

Anyway the reason I will be using the optical bay HDD is more perminant, because i want to run my W3J with twin HDD's