Hard Drive Upgrade P-7811 FX

I am quickly running out of room on my stock 200 gb drive.
For some reason I thought I had read that the max space this laptop could read per drive was 320gb. Is this accurate?
I'm looking for something with as much space as possible as opposed to speed. There is no point for me to have something that goes really fast, if I can't fit anything on it. Any suggestions of a reliable drive that does well?

 

WD5000BEVT 500gb 5400 rpm hard drives sound pretty good right about now. heck, you can even run 2 of them in RAID 0 if you wanted.

139.99 at newegg with free shipping

 

Why is that one better than the Samsung?

Also, is there anyway for me to keep my current drive and add another one? I don't really want to just put my brand new drive on the shelf....

 

ill let the people that have owned the samsung drives express their input.

as for just adding a new hard drive, yes, it is possible to keep your current drive and add another internal laptop drive as the 7811 has two hard drive bays on the underside of the laptop. same as the 6860 and 6831.

a quick 5 minute install for the new hard drive, boot up the computer and a quick disk activation, and you should be all set to use the new hard drive.

 

the samsung has 3 platters

the western digital and seagate have 2.

less is better.

 

Yeah pick up the WD. I am getting mines for black friday or XMas.
Unless the 7200rpm 500gb WD comes out b4 2009.
*crossing fingers*

 

less platters equals more data density, equals better performance. I think the samsung was the first 500gb notebook drive so it is slightly out of date

 

Avoid the Samsung's. I had them before the WDs and they were awful. Poor performance, hot and noisy.

Greater data density does not necessarily mean more performance as has been proven in the hardware section recently. There are too many other variables. However generally speaking it is expected.

 

Do I have to upgrade the Bios to install one more HDD ? I am using 2887 one

 

You don't have to update the bios to use a second HDD, unless you want to put the drives into a Raid array.

 

removed link... apparently a bad product.

 

For Raid the two drives have to be of the same size right? That's what I heard.
I never messed with Raid much even on my desktop, so I know little about it.

 

yes same size and same rpm. i'd even go with exact same drive...

edit:check post #18

 

Don't buy that SSD! Major problems with the JMicron controller - new version should be out soon. Until then avoid.

 

oh haha here it is... maybe i should not have posted in two threads, Eh?

 

Yeah they cause major system hangs. All SSDs with JMicron controllers suffer the same problem. How they ever passed quality control I will never know. New version of the controller is rumoured to be out in January. Until then Intel SSD is the only way to go but $$$.

 

I'd rep ya but i must have resently done so... How bout a *hug*

 

For the best performance, yes you'd want a matched pair of drives. But you can use two drives of different speed and size. But you end up with the lowest common denominator for each feature. For example, My 7811 came with a 200GB 7200RPM drive. If I add to that a 320GB 5400RPM drive, then my RAID 0 set behaves as a pair of 200GB 5400RPM drives. But a RAID 0 pair of 5400RPM drives is still faster than a single 5400RPM drive. And depending on the 5400RPM drive, may even be faster than a standalone 7200RPM drive. And that still gives me 400GB to play with, which is more than I have on either drive today. So if I already happen to have that 320GB drive around, it might be a viable option.

If you are really paranoid and decide on RAID 1 (Mirror), then from my example above, the 320GB drive is treated as a 200GB drive, and my disk access takes as long as the slowest drive.

And no, you do not get access to the lost 120GB on that 320GB drive.

I'f you are wondering about taking that 60GB drive from your old laptop and using it in a RAID configuration, don't bother.

 

What are the different Raid options and what is the difference, 0/1 etc?
It seems like the best idea for me is to pick up another stock drive and just get a TB external.

 

check out the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

 

The RAID options available on the 7811 are:
RAID 0, striping - increased performance, increased risk of failure (one drive goes bad and you lose the data on both of them). The RAID data size is double the smallest drives data size (i.e. with a 200GB drive and a 250GB drive, you get 400GB RAID capacity)
RAID 1 (mirror) - redundancy, if one drive goes bad, you still have a copy, performance is only as good as the slowest drive, The mirror data size is only as large as the smallest drives data size (i.e. with a 200GB drive and a 250GB drive, you have a mirrored 200GB drive)

The 7811 does not have a facility for mirroring or striping existing data on the drives (like commercial RAID sets often do) so setting up RAID will ERASE all existing data on the drives.

 

I can run two differently sized drives together though right?
Just not in raid because that would be pointless...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148307
Is that the stock 7811 drive?

 

PROS: Yes you can run any size and speed hard drives.
CONS: Both hard drives will perform like the lowest spec'd hard drive.
-fiziks paraphrased

 

Alright. Understood.

Is that hardrive that I linked to the stock 7811 drive?

 

i wouldnt know. can you go to your device manager and look up the hard drive.
let me know what tha is and i will help you out the best i can.

 

Yes, you can run them or as two seperate drives (the default) or as a RAID pair. And as you point out, it would be pointless to RAID them from a capacity standpoint (but you could do it if you want).

The reference URL does indeed point to the Seagate 7200.2 200GB drive that comes stock in most 7811s. The Gateway support site lists two 200GB drives as potential options, the other is a Hitachi. So, as PopRoxMimo suggests, you should look in devicemanager to see which one you have.

 

Admiral was talking about non-RAID mode in which case they will perform individually to their specs.

 

I was not aware iaTa, guess i misread the meaning of understanding. now i stand here confused.

 

lol eh?!....

 

iata did you have a different screenname. like those specs are under a different persons sn but... ugh.

 

Well spotted - iaMtHeAnimaL condensed down to iaTa

Blackviper is a nice guide btw - I had forgotten about it (I now use Vista Manager which does most of the tweaks plus more).

 

i was wondering where the animal went!
Sweet setup. I am waiting for lower prices to copy yours lol. especially the HD.

 

Ignore what I said, it looks like therookie over at OCZ forums has just found a very unlikely way of getting these drives working to their full potential. Going on this I've just picked up a Core V1 128GB for the amazing price of $194.99! Absolute bargain.

Looks like I will have to revert to 32-bit but therookie proposes a way to use the 1GB of unavailable RAM as a RAMDisk. Interesting.

 

just to get this straight, if i add lets say a wd 500 gb with 5400 to the 200gb 7200 stock drive and i run them not in raid mode just for additional space sake, is the slower one still downgrading the faster one to 5400, and the 200gb drive still limiting the 500gb to 200gb?
Or does this only apply to raidmode?

 

Only when you create a RAID array.

 

I noticed that Seagate offers a 500gb 7200rpm hdd. Is there much difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm?

How about between WD and Seagate?

 

It was supposed to be out already but latest reports are a delay until March. Not good. Check out the benchmarks in the hardware components section for differences in speed. 7200rpm drives have better access times generally, and slightly better transfer rates.

 

I have a question if someone can help me answer it here, since I don't see the need to make a new thread about it.

I plan to buy a 500 GB HDD foir my 7811FX and then use the 250 GB that came in my 7811FX in my PS3, but I want to know if I can just transfer everything to the 500GB from the 250GB HDD, even the OS. Is that possible? if so what program do you guys recommend for the migration?

 

yes, its possible to make an image of your 250gb drive and reload it to the 500gb. i recommend acronis true image.

 

But don't I need a External HDD to create the image? Or I will create the image inside the 500GB HDD and then just extract the image inside the same 500GB HDD?

The problem is that I don't have an External HDD and I'm short in cash right now, so I don't want to have to buy another HDD besides the 500GB one I plan to buy.

 

Why would you need an external? You have 2 HD spots in teh 7811, just use acronis to clone your first drive into the 500gb drive (using your second bay)

Should work out the same as using an external esata

 

I want to install a new 500GB drive and I am going to transfer everything from the old drive to the new. My question is, to make the system boot from the new drive do I need to physically swap the drive positions or is there a way to do this in the software ?

Thanks