Another plea for advice on HD upgrade.

I am looking to upgrade the hard drive in my Vostro 1400 running a Core 2 Duo T7500 and 2 GB RAM. It’s currently got a Hitachi HTS722016K9A300 160 GB, 7200 RPM, 14.8 MB Cache. I mainly want to increase the storage capacity but an upgrade in performance would be welcomed also. I’ve read that the Western Digital Scorpio Black Editions are good. I found WD3200BEKT for $55, WD5000BPKT for $70 and there’s a sale on the WD5000BEKT Bare Drive for $65 this weekend. What’s the diff between BEKT and BPKT? What about the Hitachi 7k500? I heard these recommended before. Are there others worth considering? I’d also like to find out what compatibility issues to look for and what will fit and what won’t in my chassis so I don’t purchase the wrong one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

BPKT is the new advanced format drives use 4k sector size instead of the old 512k. Generally the older drives are a little cheaper, like the BEKT. IMO just stick with the WD5000BEKT.

Though I personally haven't had a good experience with Hitachi nor do I buy them, the 7k500 has alot of good reviews.

 

Isn't Hitachi owned by Western Digital now?

What kind of upgrade in performance are you looking for? 7200 RPM is nice, but I think the Seagate Montentus XT hybrid drives are really something else, for 500gb and performance inbetween 7200 RPM and an SSD.
Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus XT STAN500100 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Laptop Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive

 

Unless the Seagate Momentus XT is around the 89-99 dollar mark, I can't recommend it. It isn't the fastest drive, and the boot times are disappointingly slow as a traditional mechanical drive. And I've owned 2 of the 500 GB now. Hitachi was bought out buy WD but for now Hitachi stuff in stores and warehouses are still "Hitachi".

 

Seagate Momentus XT drives may benefit boot time or a user with extremely consistent usage patterns, but like Tsunade said, for any random usage patterns, the Scorpio Black wins.

With that said, going to the Scorpio Black will get you the capacity increase desired, but I'm doubting the OP will find huge differences in performance from the Hitachi already there. The Scorpio is faster, and I find WD has better service and RMA policies (at least until WD integrates the companies), but not many users put a hard drive through the types of usage patterns that will show a difference --and current generation 7200rpm hard drives fall reasonably close in performance to each other.

I'd go with the BEKT that TH recommended.

 

Hey, thank all of you for your input. I’m mainly going for more capacity. I have my current HD partitioned with 40 GB for the OS and it is all filled up. I put everything else including all other programs on another data partition and am running out of space. I did look at the Seagate Momentus XT but don’t think I really need the extra performance for the price. I think the WD5000BEKT is the best bet like you recommend, especially for what I use it for and the price. Besides, the Vostro is three years old and although it still works pretty good, I don’t think I should invest too much more into it. Thanks again.

 

The Vostro 1400 should still be a pretty decent laptop, even at three years old. The T7500 processor is decent, even if it isn't cutting edge.

One note I forgot to mention --the 320GB Scorpio Black may be very slightly faster than the 500GB, as it is a single platter drive. If you don't need 500GB of storage space, it's a good choice. Otherwise, the 500GB drive is just fine, and I've been very happy with mine.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. My system is pretty decent except for my GPU(NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS) and my HD capacity. I can't do anything about my GPU but I can increase my storage. I was also looking at the 320GB Scorpio Black, it seems to be very popular, but for about $15 more i could get 500GB. I am also thinking about increasing my RAM from 2GB to 4GB.

 

What operating system are you running?

I'd probably go to 3GB if it's a 32-bit OS, and I'd do the 320GB hard drive; the $15 could go towards the RAM.

Otherwise, the 4GB would be great if you're on a 64-bit OS.

 

the real question is do you need 500gb ? i rather upgrade to 4gb of ram for the extra 15$ (you'd also have to install x64 OS to use all of 4gb too)

 

I'm running Vista Business 32-bit with no plans to go 64-bit. I know it will only use 3GB but when you install ram shouldn't they be a matching pair for best performance?