Can I install a hard drive larger than 120 GB in my Dell e1505?

I have a Dell e1505 I purchased in March of 2006 and it came with a 70gb drive. I was going to upgrade the hard drive recently, but Dell told me that "the e1505 supports 120 GB as its maximum". Is there such limit, or can I install any ordinary sata 2.5" drive?

Thanks,
-Daniel

 

Should be fine.

 

My HP came with a 80GB drive, HP told me max was 120GB, I went with a 200gb 7200 rpm drive from Seagate. Worked fine and no issues.

 

yes order from dell and you should be good.

 

Dell only offers up to a 120, and it's outrageously expensive. I was thinking more along the lines of either a Seagate 320 or getting an external 2.5 500 and swapping the drive inside for the one currently in the computer. I guess what I'm wondering is....are there any bios or hardware related restrictions on maximum hard drive size?

 

Nope, it will work fine.

I remember going from a 40gb to a 250gb in my very old Dimension 8200 (P4), and I had to find a new XP disk, since original XP disks (pre-sp1) couldn't create a large enough partition, lol.

It will work fine. So long as you get the same type of drive (I believe that the e1505 uses SATA) it will work fine.

Greg

 

I have the E1505, and it works with all 160Gb, 250Gb and 320Gb drives I have used in it. I have never had a 500gb laptop drive, but it is almost guaranteed to work in their.

The E1505 uses standard SATA 2.5" 9.5mm thick harddrives.
Just dont get the Hitachi 5K500 cause it will not fit in the system cause its 12.5mm thick

K-TRON

 

Excellent. It sounds like I'm pretty much set. A couple more questions, though. Would anybody advise against buying an external 2.5" drive and swapping the innards for that of my computer? Is that a common practice? Also, are there any better places than Newegg.com to look for deals? I found a Seagate 320GB 5400 RPM OEM drive with an 8MB cache for $89 & free shipping.

Thanks again for all the help.
-Daniel

 

Finally, one month later, I'm going to stop procrastinating and order. I think I'm getting a Hitachi 320, which comes to $60 after $20 rebate, unless there's some advantage to getting either the Seagate Freeagent Go, $100, or their regular internal, $80, plus an enclosure.
newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145227

What would you guys recommend for an enclosure to house my current drive?

Thanks,
-Daniel

 

Thats a great drive, good luck with the order and installation.
I would personally spend the extra $30 and get the 7K320 over the 5K320. The performance gain is definitely worth the $30. I spent $110 for my 160gb drive when it came out, the prices have dropped so much its ridiculous.
The 5K320 performs around 51mb/sec, and the 7K320 performs around 65mb/sec. Both are fast drives, but the 7K320 will have noticeable shorter loading times than the 5K320

5K320:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145227&Tpk=N82E16822145227

7K320:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145228

K-TRON

 

Thanks for the info. What would you recommend for an enclosure for my current drive?

-Daniel

 

enclosure types are a personal choice.
You just need to get one which accepts 2.5" SATA harddrives, and one which you can connect to your computer.
The E1505 has 4 USB and a mini firewire port, so you can use either a USB external or a mini firewire enclosure.
I would recommed using just USB so that you can use the external on more than one computer. USB is pretty much universal.

Any of these are fine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000090092%201053807124%201054107131&name=SATA

K-TRON

 

While looking around at the other 7,200 rpm drives, I noticed that Fujutsu's offering is $90 and both Seagate's & WD's $100. Would you still recommend the Hitachi?

-Daniel

 

Daniel,
It seems that I'm in the exact same boat as you. Trying to choose between the different 320GB HD from newegg for my 1505. See my post if you want, some opinions there...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=322378

By the way, what's the need for this enclosure you and others mention? What is the purpose? Do I need one to simply swap out my HD? Or is it just a means to utilize the old HD?

Thanks,

 

Yes, it's so I can utilize my current drive to back things up without having to lug around my desktop drives.

 

Hmm, too bad Tigerdirect is out of stock, otherwise the 320GB 7200RPM was going for $64.99 after MIR. I got two of them

What the external enclosure does is to provide a housing for your new drive, so that you may clone your current drive into the new drive, then swap out the hard drives. In the end, this would give you a brand spanking new 320 GB 7200 RPM(or whatever you choose) in your laptop, and a 70 GB (or whatever the old drive was) in the external enclosure, which can be now be used as your backup or doorstop or whatever else you may wish to use it for.

 

Keep checking between Zipzoomfly, Tiger Direct and Newegg. Usually their is always a great harddrive deal.

I wouldnt go for a Fujitsu drive, only because their is word that they are going to be bought out by WD.
I dont know what happens to warranty when this kind of acquisition occurs, so it may be better to stick with WD, Hitachi or Seagate for now.

K-TRON

 

I ended up ordering the Hitachi 7k320 and a Transcend enclosure. Both Zipzoomfly and Newegg have 7,200 rpm for $90 and the 5400 rpm for $60, so I think the $65 deal on the 7k320 is over.

-Daniel

 

Sounds good, the 7K320 is a nice drive. I cant hear my 7K320 in my E1505 at all. I usually have the fans running at full speed with I8KFANGUI, but even with the fans shut off the harddrive is barely audible.

Oh yeah one other thing,
the 7K320 has a triple thick metal cover on the drive, which isloates the noise much better than its competition. WD, Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu have a single sheet of metal as a cover.

K-TRON

 

Check sig.

I have a 200 GB HDD.

 

Which Transcend enclosure did you go for? I just want to make sure the one I get is compatible. I'll likely go with the same one you went with.

Thanks,

 

I got the TS0GSJ25B, $14.99, because of the reviews. If you wait a day I'll finally have it and can give you my opinion.

-Daniel

 

K-Tron, what software do you recommend I mirror my current drive with?

 

Acronis Tureimage has never failed me.
There is a trial download on Acronis' website:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/

here is an informative video to show you what to do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj7iMAgji0I

I hope this helps,

K-TRON

 

I got my drive and enclosure yesterday and all I can say is wow. The drive is noticeably faster; I'm getting a write speed of between 75 and 82 MB/sec on average. Adobe PS LR is running quite a bit smoother, as I typically work with catalogs of hundreds (or thousands) of 10-15MB RAW files.

I didn't mirror the old drive because I wanted a clean install of CS4 and MS Office. Rather, I swapped drives, installed Windows and SP3, and in order to pull data off the old drive, now in the enclosure, I had to change ownership of my old user folder in docs and settings.

Thanks again for all the help with this. Now I await the introduction of 7,200 rpm 500GB drives. Actually I'd be happy if I could put another drive in the DVD bay....

-Daniel

 

I am glad you are enjoying your new drive.
You can run hdtune and post a benchmark here if you like.

I have not tried putting two harddrives in the E1505, but I am sure it is possible. A optical drive to harddrive adaptor is made which you can install in place of the optical drive. That will allow you to have two harddrives installed. However the one in the optical drive area will run a bit slower because it would have to run through the ATAPI interface the optical drive uses.
Here is a link:
http://newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_27&products_id=168

Good luck,

K-TRON