In search of a 2.5 9mm internal hard drive(secondary)

I just got my ASUS N550JX-DS71T as a graduation gift from my parents so that I have something to use in college. I had asked the reseller/retailer to put an HGST HTS721010a9e630(1TB/7200RPM) instead of the stock 5400 rpm drive.

Before my life ends, I will be putting an SSD(Samsung 850 Pro/Evo 512/500/256/250 GB depending on the budget), replacing my hard drive. This hard drive doesn't appear to have sufficient space, which is a great surprise because before this laptop, I had(I still have it though) a 7 yr. old(in my possession) 2nd-hand Gateway NV44 laptop which only had 320GB of storage.

The main purpose of the HDD, the current, and the theoretical new for that matter, is to store files like pictures, videos, movies, documents, college requirements, and the like. I may also install some applications that are not that, uhh, demanding(??? I don't know the word/phrase but yeah you get the point) so speed may be a factor but not that much.

By the time that my current HDD is full, I'd have my SSD then(hopefully, if not, meh lol) and the current will have been at the optical drive slot.

Don't advice external hard drives because a.) I already have one b.) It will have a different purpose

FACTORS(ACCORDING TO PREFERENCE)
1. Storage Size(Nothing lower than 1TB)
2. Reliability
3. Speed
4.Temperature(I sometimes put my laptop on my lap, if that's a concern)
5. Price
6. Noise
7. Brand

Now, the main dilemmas.

A. What to do: Replacement or Additional
.
1.) Buy an HDD larger than this current's capacity. Then transfer all the files from the current to the theoretical new, still having easy access to the files from my current HDD.

2.) Buy another one for additional space and just hot swap whenever.

I don't know what reasonable storage size to get. (yeah, yeah, it all depends on my load...I still have no idea how much to get hehe)

B. What kind: SSHD, 5400RPM, or 7200RPM or WD Black2 Dual Drive 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD(which brings us to dilemma C.)

- As I've said, the main purpose of the new drive will be for storage.
- Speed is a plus but may or may not matter that much because I may do a lot of transfers, saving, and such that speed will be a factor of. So I don't know, should I really be concerned with speed?
- I'm naive about the pros and cons of each, just the speed so please enlighten me

C. What brand and model: THERE ARE SO MANY, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO INCLUDE
There's HGST and WD, Seagate, and others
- Leaning towards
HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache
WD Black2 Dual Drive 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD
Seagate 1TB SSHD
WD Black 1TB 2.5-inch Hard Drive

If you can suggest something else, please do.

 

I have the HGST Travelstar 7K1000 and it's pretty fast and snappy...

If you want a 2TB drive, the 5400rpm Seagate/Samsung M9T drive is an option.. I personally went with the 7K1000 as I wanted speed..

 

Get a 2TB 5400rpm drive. Hitachi and Samsung both have models that fit that profile.

I'd actually recommend you specifically look for 5400rpm drives. As you mentioned, speed is nearly irrelevant for the type of content you're storing. A 4GB BluRay MKV rip will play back equally well whether you're on a slow 5400rpm drive or a fast SSD. But a 5400rpm drive will run cooler, quieter, and give you higher capacity options than 7200rpm drives can offer today.

 

2TB Hitachi?! Where???

 

My mistake. When I did a search for suppliers of 2TB 2.5" hard drives, Hitachi's name came up. But for their 1TB product. It looks like they currently do not have a 2TB part.

Right now, it looks like Samsung-Seagate is the only one that has a part.

 

I'm looking for a 2.5" 9.5mm 2TB drive other than Seagate/gnusmaS for quite some time now, but there are none. Hitachi has 1500GB 5400rpm though.

 

i am in the same situation, i have HGST 5k1000. can't decide should i get 7k1000 / m9t 2tb / SSHD 1tb or save the money for a SSD

 

Once you've bought an SSD you'll look back on this post and lol at yourself. (hint; save your money).

 

yeah that's what i decide every time, but my laptop has only 1 drive bay. so i have to buy at least 500GB SSD
which costs 250$ in my country.

When i get 250$ in my pocket. i can't decide should i get SSD or 27" 1080 display.
"i never tried 1080p or more laptop/PC display ;_;"

so i decide to buy another stuff instead

 

Agree with you to ignore SSD's smaller than ~480GB's. (SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB or larger highly recommended).

If you want a system that is the most responsive for you (the user), then this is the order I would suggest to do the upgrades:

• Clean install of Windows 10 x64 Pro (after you've upgraded from Win7/Win8/8.1 to take advantage of the 'free' part).
• Max out the memory to 16GB RAM or more.
• SSD, Clean install of latest O/S with additional OP'ing of ~30% of actual (indicated during Win Setup advanced settings) capacity.

Yeah; the SSD is at the bottom of the list. Performance of the system depends on the CPU+RAM combo (and gpu if gaming is your thing). What an SSD will do is make things snappy. OP'ing (over provisioning) will keep things snappy (almost) no matter how you use your system.

 

My windows 10 experience was bad. it consumes my bandwidth and sometimes the cpu overheats in idle.

So i made a clean windows 8.1 setup .. check ✓
16GB ram .. check ✓
CPU is 4712hq quad core i7 processor. check ✓

just ssd is what the laptop waiting to be fully upgraded. i am looking at 850 evo 500GB, but 250$ for 500GB can't be accepted by my mind

 

When was that (bad experience)? Clean install?

CPU overheating is a thing on it's own...

Did you install all necessary drivers and update the ones that needed it?

With Win8.1 (which I loved...) the same system (I've updated over 150 so far) was slow, laggy and much more work to setup. Win10x64Pro is 2015.75 and... in the last month since it's official arrival, has been improved immensely.

(For example; about 9 days ago I couldn't get my U30Jc to stop crashing/freezing on a clean Win10x64Pro install. I left it (off) for about a week because I was working elsewhere and when I did a couple of cumulative updates on it, no issues at all - most impressive? The crashing/freezing was happening on Win8.1 update 1 too (with all available updates installed) for the last few months. Took MS a while, but what I thought was hardware failure, M/B?, was simply a matter of getting the O/S and drivers sorted out (which MS did all on their own; not anything I had to do).

The hardware you have is great and Win8.1 is doing the best it can to make it shine and an SSD will make it better too.

But if you want to really see what your system is capable of; get an SSD and install Win10x64Pro on it and persevere until you get it stable.

 

It was an upgrade from a clean install windows 7. i was using all the available updated drivers with windows 8.1 drivers

"i installed it at day one release", there are much more updated drivers now to be honest.
i should give it anothre try but i am afraid from windows 10 being "Privacy nightmare" for me

 

Big difference today vs. Day 1 release.

If you're concerned with privacy, Windows 10 is only building from Vista (yeah when cavemen started using computers...). There is almost nothing new in Win10 that isn't in Win8.1...

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9575/the-anandtech-podcast-episode-35-windows-10-and-skylake


Listen to the podcast around the 25 minute mark.

 

Okay I will do it tomorrow, hopefully my 4 years old private tracker user won't be banned

For the OP: if only storage is the matter get the 2TB M9T. performance? check hdd.userbenchmark.com to compare

 

@ AhmedouviX @tilleroftheearth I'm actually learning a lot lol )))))))))) Thoughts about Seagate's SSHD and WD's Black Square Dual Drive? They're promising but I'm not so sure...

 

They're pointless.. I would honestly if you have $250, get a 1TB HDD like 7K1000 and then use the remaining money to get a monitor... When you have more money, get an SSD and put the 7K1000 in the Optical disk drive bay if you have a disk drive bay...

 

@TomJGX I don't need a monitor but yeah okay Yeah I do have an optical disk drive bay My budget for the HDD is only 100$ They're pointless in such a way???

 

Lawrence, SSHD are pointless as storage drives because deliver absolutely the same performance as HDDs in such scenarios while more expensive; they're only good as OS drives, but ofc worse than SSD. You can probably get 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD + odd-hdd caddy within $100, it will be better.

 

Get an SSD.

If you can save $200 - $250, then get a 500GB SSD. If you only have $100, then get a 256GB SSD, and put your existing mechanical HDD in an external USB enclosure. Use that to store your bulk content that eats up a lot of space (music, videos, photos, pr0n, etc). That type of content doesn't rely on speed at all. A 4GB MKV BluRay rip movie will play back equally well on an ultra-fast SSD, or a slow mechanical HDD.

Honestly, if you're looking for performance, you're wasting your money getting mechanical HDDs, because you get terrible bang-for-your-buck. To give you an idea:

* Upgrading from a 5400rpm HDD --> 7200rpm HDD (either a plain HDD, or hybrid hard drive) will get you maybe 15% - 30% performance increase in random read/write performance (which is 95% of what determines how fast and responsive your computer feels).

* Upgrading from 5400rpm HDD --> SSD will get you literally 10,000% performance increase in random read/write performance (95% of what determines how fast and responsive your computer feels).

So you can spend $100 to get a 15% increase, or $100 - $200 to get a 10,000% increase. If you're looking for performance, buying another mechanical HDD is a very poor bang-for-your-buck decision.

 

Guys okay uhm there may be a confusion Hahaha It's already part of the plan to HAVE AN SSD This post is about a new HDD that will replace my other(current) HDD as another storage drive at the time it gets full @kent1146 @Starlight5

 

Lawrence00, then get a 2TB Seagate-Samsung M9T and call it a day.

 

what about Seagate Expansion 3TB Portable
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expan...p/B00ZTRXTPW/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
this HDD can fit into laptop??

 

..the reality of extremely cheap nand production without the usual "budget" problems on ssds (along with competent controllers) has basically materialized in the market, finally, so no need to have a backup hdd in the setup. So.. get a crucial bx100 1tb (or an mx200 if you're a snob ), and maybe some external casing with an usb cable for your hdd, or something like a wd passport?

(Btw, recommending the crucial ssds because of their choice of controller hardware and software, the marvell setup, in combination with the nand layout on the larger drives on the later iterations - very solid and cost-efficient setup).

 

BX100 doesn't have the Marvell controller. It's Silicon Motion 2246EN.

It's not exactly as fast as the Marvell, but still a reasonably good one. Handles typical consumer load without any problem, even stable under heavy load.