Pls help...need to upgrade harddrive from 60GB

Hi all,

My sony PCG-K15 crashed a while ago and I am planning to replace the existing harddrive with a better one. It had a Toshiba 60GB IDE 4200 rpm.

I want to upgrade to a Hitachi 100GB 5400 or 7200 rpm harddrive. I called Sony support and they say they don't recommend harddrive upgrades and it's a risk because the mother board may not be able to support the upgrade. Is it true? Are there any problems in upgrading a 60GB 4200 rpm to 100GB 5400 or 7200 rpm? PLEASE HELP.

 

It should be fine... Since your notebook supports 60GB drive it can't be that old. Some older notebooks struggle to recognise very large hard disk but I believe yours will be fine.

The only thing is some Sony laptops it's harder to get to the hard drive.

You want an ATA / PATA / Ultra ATA / IDE hard drive (not SATA / Serial ATA).

 

Thanks much for your reply.

Hitachi has 2 models in the 100GB 7200 category.
Travelstar 7K100
Travelstar E7K100

Any idea which one I should go with? I couldnt make out the difference.

 

I believe one's a SATA interface and the other is Ultra ATA.

 

Correct. Make sure you get the correct one. That's also a very popular, good drive. That being said, if you value size over bleeding-edge performance, there are large 5400RPM drives that have very respectable performance due to their platter densities.

Personally...I'd go with the Hitachi 7K,

 

Do not buy the sata 100gb 7200rpm hitatchi drive (sorry I dont remember the exact model). Benchmarks have shown that it is slower than other 100gb 7200rpm drives, in some cases slower than a 5400rpm drive.

Also, I bought one a few months ago and it was very faulty, though I realize every company releases a few lemons.

 

What's your budget? Just get a 120 or 160 GB hard drive (5400 RPM). These can be had for less than 110$ shipped. Like others note, make sure to get the right interface - SATA or UATA.

 

I believe that the E prefix indicates that the HDD is intended for use in servers running 24/7. The normal 7K100 is fine for notebooks.

Personally, I've not had compatibility problems with HDD upgrades for at least 10 years. You could check the specifications of the existing and proposed HDDs to compare the maximum current and power draw. There is a small chance that Sony support are correct the M/B may not deliver the required power for 7200rpm, in which case 5400rpm would be a compromise. However, a current 7200rpm HDD may not need more power than a 2 year old 4200rpm model.

John