Hard Drive Upgrade/use old HD as external

I have a Fujitsu T2010 tablet PC (yeah i know tablet..but question isn't tablet based) with a 120gb HD and was originally just going to buy a WD external...but someone mentioned how I should consider buying a bigger HD (and 7200 rpm maybe?) for my tablet and use the old one as an external...I was wondering what you guys thought of this....and another question:

My tablet is relatively new with not many documents or such on it (just kaspersky,office, PDF annotator and a few others) so would the easiest thing be to just put the new HD in my tablet and install from scratch (I can install Vista from recovery disks right?) or should i clone the HD (i'm thinking of buying acronis, this should do it right?) and then do it that way?

As well as general recommendations, any deals on enclosures/ hard drives would be great

Or: should i just get the WD external and live with the 120gb hard drive?

Or: should i use online backup solutions (anyone know any good ones?) as most of my backups will be of my school notes

Thanks



P.S I'm Canadian

 

Hi fellow Canadian,

It seems like your Tablet uses SATA hard drives, so I recommend you buy the biggest SATA drive you can afford.

I just purchased the following from NCIX:

Hitachi 500GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD for $98.99 Canadian

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=37410&vpn=0A57915&manufacture=Hitachi&promoid=1074

Install it in an external enclosure (get cheapest 2.5" SATA from Canada Computers). This is the one I use:

Mediasonic $11.99

http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=019774&cid=516.551

Clone your existing hard drive to the new drive in the new enclosure. Acronis TrueImage Home is free I believe, or is fully functional for a period of time.

Lastly, swap the drives.

 

Upgrading your internal harddrive is a good solution.
Your system uses SATA 2.5" harddrives, so you have alot of upgrade options.
I suggest looking into the 320gb 7200rpm drives if you want fast loading times. In particular the Western Digital WD3200BEKT and the Hitachi 7K320

If you want a higher capacity drive, the 500gb 5400rpm drives offer nearly the same speed as the 320gb 7200rpm drives. The Hitachi 5K500.B is the best 500gb drive in terms of power efficiency. The WD5000BEVT is another good option. It delivers the same performance as the 5K500.B, but uses more power.

You can use Acronis Trueimage to make a clone of your current setup. You can download a trial from Acronis' website for free.

K-TRON

 

Here is my experience...

I replaced my Toshiba 120GB from my Lenovo T60 with the Western Digital WD5000BEVT 500GB. The WD (as expected) is much faster and remarkably cooler than the 2 year old Toshiba.

I had a Thermaltake SATA-to-USB connector. Its not an "enclosure"; but atleast I didnt have to spend any extra money.

I did a complete reinstall. I hadnt reinstalled in 2 yrs; so wanted to do some spring cleaning.

I use Microsoft Synctoy 2.0 to Sync/ Backup to my old HDD. I like that because it copies the files and file structure as it is and not in a fuzzy ball that some of the recovery software does.

 

Was it really that much faster....because I think I can live with a 120gb HD if i need to (5 year old comp only using 98gb..xp though) and then the easiest thing would be an external WD solution

but if you say the difference is that much greater....then it might be worth it to spend a similar amount of money to get a better HD...question though...as the old HD you use as an external does not have some of the cooling features such as auto-off like WD...do u ever have bad experiences with it? Like did you ever notice it running very hot/loud?

And also, do you ever run into trouble having an external which is smaller then the size of ur HD?

 

On Newegg.ca the 5k500.B is only $10 more then the WD32000BEKT
(The WD is OEM the Hitachi is Retail, does this mean anything?)

On Tigerdirect the Hitachi 7K320 is selling for $10 less then the WD one...so i guess that is also a viable option

between the 2 which do you recommend (heat and noise is a big factor for me as well)

 

Did you even read my post? You can get the Hitachi 5k500.b for $98.99 at www.ncix.com

 

Yeah I read that...but ideally I'm trying to do all my shopping at once place to save on a bunch of shipping charges...although the $20 savings may make it worth it...although i would only net $10 or so extra..i guess money is money thanks

Also looking to buy Ram, enclosure of course as well as Acronis (Newegg.ca has retail version for $40 Canadian)

is there any difference between OEM and retail other then a pretty box?

 

What province are you in? Remember NCIX is based in B.C. so if you don't live in B.C. you do not pay P.S.T., just the G.S.T.

I wouldn't worry about retail vs. OEM with hard drives.

And I wouldn't bother buying the retail copy of Acronis, as there is a free trial. There are also other free programs that can accomplish the same thing (google).

 

If you need 500gb go for the 5K500.B (should format to ~460gb)
If you want more speed go for the WD3200BEKT (320gb formats to 298GB)

The WD is a bit faster and the higher spindle speed will show in real life usage. The 5K500.B is by all means a fast drive, the WD3200BEKT is just a bit faster

K-TRON

 

I do find my computer to be faster. Although caveat emptor - my old Vista installation was about 2 yrs old and had all kinds of detritus accumulated since then.

However I have installed pretty much all the hard hitting software that I had before - Photoshop, Acrobat, Flash.. and Windows 7 is noticeably peppier. Windows 7 could also be inherently faster.

This is my empirical observation. So take into consideration - the age of the old OS installation, the older drive and the new generation OS. I shaved off about 30 seconds off boot time.