Biggest Hard Drive for P-7805u FX?

Hi, Folks,

A basic noobi question: what's the largest single hard drive I can install on my Gateway p-7805u fx? I'd like replace my 320GB (7200rpm) with a 500GB hard drive, and use the original 320GB drive as storage.

Is that possible? Will my computer be able to "see", and so use, the extra 200 gigs on the single hard drive? Or is it as I read on another site (I don't remember where and haven't been able to find it again): that the Gateway FXes will only "see" a maximum of 640GB, split between the two hard drive slots?

My old Gateway 6023GP supposedly can take up to a 160GB hard drive, 4 times the original 40GB, without becoming buggy, or so I read somewhere (again, I can't find the original source, dammit!), but I was wondering about the FX series.

Also, any recommendations on the best HD to buy?

Thanks!

 

You can use any 2.5in 9.5mm Drive.

I have a pair of 750GB western digital's in my 6860 right now

 

750GB? Holy...!!

Okay, another question: when you say "any 2.5in 9.5mm drive," does that mean I can pretty much buy any model internal laptop drive of the size/speed I want from, say, Newegg... and it will fit in my laptop? Or do I need to find one that is specifically designed to fit in the Gateway P-Series (or even more specifically, this model of) computers?

I apologize for being such a noob about this! I have replaced a laptop hard drive before (my 6023GP), but that was after the old hard drive had already tanked. In fact, my assumption that the 6023 had become a doorstop is what caused me to buy this computer...and I am admittedly way more chary of screwing it up (which not going to stop me from upgrading the screen as soon as I have the chance!).

So please bear with my somewhat simple questions.

 

Standard laptop drives are in the 2.5x9.5mm size. There are some non standard size drives, notably thes are the older 640GB, 750GB and 1TB drives. There are also some enterprise drives out there designed for business that can be of issue as well.

Right now the HOT primary drive IMHO is the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB. This may be over shadowed by the new WD 500GB Black but that has yet to be seen............

 

You can put ANY 2.5" 9mm high HDD in your laptop as long as it's the same interface as what your PC requires (probably SATA). There is at least one HDD (WD Scorpio Blue 1TB) out there that I know of that is 12.5mm high; that's too high for our laptops and probably will NOT fit!

I have (2) 500GB HDD's in my P-7805u FX. One is a Hitachi 7200rpm drive and the other is a Seagate 7200rpm drive.

The HDD's in a P-7805u FX are INCREDIBLY easy to replace; all the Gateway laptops built on this chassis design should be identical and be just as easy!

Dennis

 

Yeah, I seriously considered buying that Seagate drive for my P-7805u FX, but I ended-up buying a Hitachi 500GB 7200rpm drive instead to supplement the Seagate 500GB 7200rpm drive I already had in there. I decided on the Hitachi over the Momentus XT because I read of WAY too many failures of that drive. Plus, it helped the Hitachi was $60 cheaper!

I installed the Hitachi as my boot drive because I think I'm having problems with my Seagate; Windows wants to run a disk check just on the Seagate nearly EVERY time I start windows!

Dennis

 

I had to RMA my first XT, also gave it a 1 egg review because of it too. I went back and gave a five egg as it and the second drive I have are great.

I had the 7K500 as a primary in my U81 and replaced it with the XT, notably faster on boot and first launch of applications. Faster than the 7K500 even using a 8GB readyboost SD card so I am happy so far. If the fail prematurely I won't be though so yes they are a risk too.............

 

Yep 2x750GB, but then again i'm a storage junky. As soon as 1TB 9.5mm drives come out i'll be upgrading to them.

As to beeing a "noob" no worries, we were all new at this stuff at one point. You'll learn.

And yes any internal 2.5in 9.5mm drive will work, just go go new egg and select laptop drives and it will generally give you most all of the choices you could want. No hard drive is specifically made for gateways so no worries there.

Its an easy upgrade and should take all of 5 minutes from start to finish... the screen on the other hand is a bit more indepth, but nothing hard by any means.

 

I did the screen onmy old 7805u. Loved it afterward. If you do upgrade the screen, look HERE Worked great in mine. Just have to swap and use the inverter as it is JUST the LCD.

 

DO NOT BUY THE SEAGATE!!!

I have both the seagate 500GB and Hitachi 500GB drives. The seagate does nothing but click and pause, there are many issues with these drives just check the seagate forum. The Hitachi is super quiet and reliable, unlike the seagate which is loud and hot.

 

Oh my GOD!!

Yes, I am yelling at the top of my lungs at the price of that monitor! Thanks so much for supplying the link, pmassey. Of course, now I'm going to have to choose between getting the hard drive first and getting the display...

Thank you, everyone, for your input; I can't overemphasize how much I appreciate it. I will likely go ahead and get the Hitachi hard drive, as I noticed in both the Newegg and Amazon reviews that the ratio of satisfied to dissatisfied customers was quite a bit higher than with the Seagate hard drive.

$98 bucks for a 1900x1200 display... Lordy, Lordy...

 

just a quick reminder that you can setup RAID 0 with 2 identical hard drivers, double the space and speed, but the reliability drops drastically

 

You mean 1920X1200. And really easy to swap. 6 screws on the lid and 6 or 8 I think inside. Took me like 20 minutes. Nice, cheap upgrade and worth every dime. Just be careful with cables.

 

I had the clicks etc. with my old 7200.4, this is NOT an issue with the XT's. I have two and they do not do that, even the one RMA'd did not click etc.

I have heard of others with the "Pause" issue, I have not experienced this though. YMMV of course but this is with my P7805 and U81a. Now the RMA'd drive paused all the time but there were other issues too with it so I can't blame any one thing.

 

In what way? Does it crash the system? Slow things down like crazy? I'm not sure what you mean.

 

Its basically the fact that if any of the drives go bad you lose everything so you "technically" double your chance for catastrophic data loss. As to whether that actually matters is up to the individual user.

Most people run RAID arrays for years with no issues and some have them crash out in a matter of days due to one bad drive.

Its basically a shock and awe way to say that if a hard drive has a 0.1% chance to fail then by running a RAID you now have a 0.2% chance to lose all of your data. Still pretty insignificant but double what it was

 

another aspect is that if you got RAID 0 setup, you cant just take the hard drive out and connect it to another computer to copy data. Instead you need to find a computer with the same SATA controller, which is not easy sometimes. Either you send the computer back to Gateway for repair or repair it locally, most times those repair guys would wipe out the hard drive. So basically any part of the computer breaks you will have trouble with the data. I just had such problem. The graphic card fried and I have no access to my data. Almost caused serious consequence.

 

Hmph...well, okay. Looks like I won't be doing RAID 0 for the moment; I'll just use the second hard drive as storage as I originally planned. I do greatly appreciate the explanations, though.

Thanks again, everyone, for all of your input; I can't begin to express how much I appreciate it and the existence of the Netbook Review forum. I'm going to go ahead and get the Hitachi hard drive... and while I'm waiting for it to come, I'll occupy myself by engaging in a bit of "abuse" on my old Gateway 6023GP, which is still in perfectly lovely condition, but needs a larger hard drive.

But that's about to be a discussion for another thread...