Need the Biggest Best Hard Drive for my M1530

Would love some help here folks.

I want to buy a 2.5" HDD for my M1530. I already have a 320 gig drive. But it's a bit less for my needs. Now what I'm looking for is a 7200 rpm drive. And the biggest I can see around is 500 gigs. Is there a bigger hard drive available ??

Also, which company should I go for ?? Western Digital, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba, Hitachi.... ?? I just want the best one out there. Just two criterion :

a> It should be the biggest... is there something bigger than the 500 gig ?

b> 7200 rpm and the best brand out there.

Looking forward to some valuable insights before I make my purchase decision.

 

Yes I think 500GB is currently the biggest size. Don't have any recommendation though. However I'd pick a 500GB with just 2 platters for reduced noise and power consumption:
WD Scorpio® Blue™ WD5000BEVT
http://www.wdc.com/de/products/products.asp?driveid=506
Samsung HM500JI (not the MH500LI, which has 3 platters):
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...p=72&type=62&subtype=67&model_cd=446&tab=fea#

If you're crazy you could pull out the DVD writer:
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1530/en/SM/optical.htm#wp1038494

It's attached by PATA though. And with some PATA -> SATA adapters (which aren't exactly easy to find for notebook slim sizes) you could put in a second hard drive with 500GB. Which will give you 500GB + 320GB.

But that's a hack.

 

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayooooooooooooooooooo

 

That's some ingenious thinking with the DVD writer... sadly though, I need it.

The problem with the WD Scorpio Blue and the Samsung is they are 54oo rpm drives... and whatever they might state... they'll still be slower than a 7200 rpm. So I'm kinda hellbent on getting a 7200 rpm drive with the biggest capacity from the best company... Hope it's not too tall an order

 

The Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS is 500GB and 7200RPM. They are sold out on Newegg right now though.

 

Not available on Ebay as well.

But come to think of it.... not one major vendor... Hitachi, WD, Samsung etc. have any 500 gig HDD with a 7200 rpm speed. The only exception being Seagate. Seems strange.

Could someone enlighten me on how the Seagate Momentus hdd fares in terms of performance and reliability ?? Should I go for it ??

 

500GB 2.5" HDDs came out recently.... and u want 7200rpm to come with it?..

 

But are my choices really limited to ----> 1

 

yup for 500gb its only seagate right now.

Now a good 320gb would be the WD Scorpio Black, i have one in my system and its very reliable.

 

Nah... really don't wanna move in a horizontal direction. I already have a 320 gig drive... so replacing it with another 320 would be pointless...

 

500GB is currently the largest size for 2.5". Maybe if you wait, larger capacity drive will come out. Or, you can buy an external drive. They have small, portable, USB powered ones like the Western Digital Passport or Seagate FreeAgent Go.

 

I can't offer anything to this discussion, but I'm curious what is it that you need so much space for on a laptop, that can't be made up for with external drive(s)?

 

well you're talking about speed here, the scorpio black is arguably the fastest 320gb notebook drive on the market. I see your current one is a 5400rpm, maybe it'll be worth the upgrade.
But I agree, you should look into getting some external drives perhaps. Can't imagine needing 300gb of space for everyday use...i fill up my desktop 1tb drives, but its mostly storage for videos/music/pictures/documents that i don't access everyday.

 

I agree...

It seems like a lot of foot work, and money JUST to gain 180GB. I'd MUCH rather spend less money on a much larger external. For the same price, and in many cases for less, you can get a 1TB external to use WITH your current 320.

180GB just really isn't much nowadays, and not enough in my opinion for the extra cost/hassle.


This is just my opinion though, more power to ya' if you're stuck on the 500GB 7200.

 

The 500 gb 7200rpm HD is awsome =D

 

hey 7oby,

how do you know, how many platters a hdd has, i'd like to buy one with only one platter (silent), but so far only toshiba lists the number of platter used in their hdd's, but i'd rather buy a western digital...

 

Thank you so much guys for all the input....

Regarding your query bout filling up space on my drive... Apart from the usual stuff like Office, Adobe Suite, Corel Suite which take up about 15 gigs and some movies and mp3s' which take up another 30 gigs, I have a lot of banking files and huge presentations along with confidential data. Each file is approx. 600 - 700 MB in size, most are even larger... and the compilation only keeps on increasing. I still have about 70 gigs free, but I don't really wanna run out of space.

As for the external hard disk... I have two problems :

a> I mainly carry my laptop in the provided sleeve, and more importantly...

b> Because of the sensitivity of the data and the non disclosure agreements I've signed... I don't wanna risk storing the data on an external disk easily prone to getting lost or nicked... Atleast on the XPS, I have a hard drive lock and a fingerprint reader, which though not foolproof, do provide adequate security.

And therein lies the reason for my search.... But I never really expected to have just 1 choice out of so many vendors available...

 

give it a few more weeks, im sure WD'll come out with one soon.
Seagate seems these days to be 1st in terms of raw size (as shown by their 1.5tb drives)

 

have you ever thought about getting an external hdd?

 

I think he just answered the reason he doesn't want to go in that direction a few posts up

 

An external drive using decent comercial encryption will provide better security for your files than the finger print reader on your laptop, every day of the week. If you're happy with the finger print reader then you should be more than fine with an external drive, using encryption which will be a lot more secure. Obviously there's the issue of losing it, but you could also lose or have your laptop stolen. And if the data is that valuable, are you backing up with a proper setup and routine? If not you are a disaster waiting to happen and need to resolve that right now!!

 

As for the data backup... I do it almost every second day on the bank's mainframe. But the issue is that I keep on traveling most of the times... and that's where the problem comes in.

As for the encryption programs... I've tried a couple of Enterprise level software... but the only problem is that they are so darn slow. To encrypt a 800 MB file takes almost 15 - 18 minutes... and almost the same time to decrypt them... so unless you have tons of processing speed and loads of time... this is not feasible. Think bout it... I'm sitting with the VP of some company... and i gotta open some file.... I take out my external drive, connect it... start the decryption program... and then Wait and wait some more. Doesn't leave a very good impression.