New Harddrive for Alienware M11X

Hi. Newbie here. Our Alienware M11X harddrive died - will not boot up past the alien head screen.. Bar goes about half way across then stops. Harddrive makes a clicking noise that it was not making before. The computer is about 3 years old and used mainly for gaming and internet

Anyway, I suspect that this has been posted here before, but we're going to get another harddrive.

Current harddrive is Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 - HDD: 7K500-320 SATA 3.0 Gb/s

Does anyone recommend a better (cooler, faster, more efficient) HDD than this one? Will the WD3200BJKT work in the ALienware M11X? The WD3200BJKT has the free fall sensor option - is it worth it? Or should we just stick with the Hitachi drive? Other drives? Crucial M4 perhaps? Reasonable price range preferable.

thanks in advance.

 

See:
Hitachi 750GB Travelstar 7K750 SATA II 2.5in HDD w/ 16MB Cache at Memory Express

Possibly the best 'deal' right now on a fast, current and cool and quiet HDD.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the Advice. The 7K750 you suggest is SATA II and the current drive that we had is SATA III. Will that make a difference or does it not matter?

THanks.

 

there's currently no SATA 3 laptop HDD

but there is SATA 3 SSD

 

SATA II--------3.0 Gb/s
SATA III-------6.0 Gb/s

So the drive you had is also SATA II and the one he has recommended is SATA II as well.

 

Yeah, no SATA3 HDD's for notebooks yet (not that they would make a difference anyways - except use more power) and it does not matter in notebook HDD land.

You did mention 'reasonable price range' which is why I only suggested a HDD.

If you do have the ~$400 for an M4 256GB, you will see a substantial increase in storage sub-system performance ('snappiness') but also a decrease in usable capacity (if you wanted to keep this high performance over the life of the M4 no matter what you threw at it; I would recommend using at most ~150GB or less than 65% filled with the rest simply left as 'unallocated').

An inbetween choice (performance-wise) is a Seagate XT Hybrid 500GB drive. Very SSD-like 'feel' with this hard drive powering an O/S, but with the prices for HDD as they are now, I feel that either a Hitachi as suggested or the M4 is the best use of your money. In other words, the performance increase (from the Hitachi) to an XT is not worth the $$$ currently asked for an XT Hybrid.

See:
Buy the Seagate ST95005620AS MomentusXT 500GB Solid State at TigerDirect.ca

While the M4 at much less than half the capacity (usable) and double the money of an XT doesn't seem like the better 'buy' over an XT - it is a better choice when your needs match the few limitations and O/S responsiveness is your goal. The added benefit of course is that it is much more rugged/durable than a HDD and this counts a lot in a mobile platform.

Hope this gives you the info you need to make the right choice.

 

Now I am going to be getting a Crucial M4 for my own M11x (r3) soon, but this is my logic as someone who loves to get the best "bang for buck" -

The 128GB M4 gives a 44% performance increase over the 64GB version. But it is only 11% slower than the 256GB & 512GB versions.

So from a value perspective, the 128GB version @ around $200 is the better purchase.

However having an older M11x (most probably an r1), you have to realize that your motherboard only supports SATA2 while the Crucial M4 is SATA3. It's still backwards compatible, but you won't get the full performance from it.

 

Thanks. You guys are awesome!

On the label on the Hard Drive we have it says SATA 3.0 Gb/s - I mistakenly thought that meant SATA 3. I'll consider the Seagate XT Hybrid too but will likely settle on the Hitachi.