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    upgrading vostro 1700 hdd ?s

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by sinfolmatt, Jul 31, 2007.

  1. sinfolmatt

    sinfolmatt Notebook Geek

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    Hi I ordered the Vostro 1700 with dual HDD 120 gigs each for a total of 240gigs. They are both 5400 rpm.

    I just realized I actually have a 200gig HDD with 7200 rpm that I am not using. Am I able to run 1 HDD at 7200 rpm and another at 5400?

    The HDD I have is a Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JS 200GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM, if it matters.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144416

    Also if I am able to do this replacement would people recommend it?
     
    sinfolmatt, Jul 31, 2007
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  2. sinfolmatt

    sinfolmatt Notebook Geek

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    if I do this I will probably order an external enclosure for the other HDD and use it as an external HDD
     
    sinfolmatt, Jul 31, 2007
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  3. cgd

    cgd Newbie

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    Sorry, Dude, but the WD Drive you mention is a 3.5" drive and won't fit into your Vostro - you will need a 2.5" HDD for that. The largest 2.5" HDD with 7200 rpm at this time has 160GB capacity, afaik, but Samsung has announced a 2.5", 200GB, 7200rpm HDD (the Series is called MP1), and Hitachi also seems to offer 200GB@7200rpm soon.

    You can, of course, have two HDDs with different speeds and sizes in your Vostro perfectly well. One thing I should mention, though, for all who think about upgrading their Vostros with a 2nd HDD on their own: You need a special drive cage and and adapter for your HDD to fit into the drive bay of your Vostro. For the time being, DELL does offer this cage/adapter only in combination with a HDD (at least that seems to be the case here in Germany), so you will need to buy your Vostro with two HDDs even if you plan to buy and use a faster/larger HDD later, just to get the drive cage and SATA Adapter....

    This won't pose a problem in your case, since you are getting yours with 2x120 GB HDDs anyway.
     
    cgd, Jul 31, 2007
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  4. sinfolmatt

    sinfolmatt Notebook Geek

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    yeah realized that it was a different size about 30 minute ago, didnt think to check about that for some reason. thanks
     
    sinfolmatt, Jul 31, 2007
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  5. Jengu

    Jengu Notebook Guru

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    FWIW I think you can run a 7200RPM and a 5400RPM simultaneously without issue. If they were different ATA speeds I think one would limit the other though.
     
    Jengu, Jul 31, 2007
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