Suitable replacement HDD

I need suggestions for a replacement hard drive for my HP Pavilion zx5040US.Specs as follows:
2.5 inch HDD
At least 5400RPM
At least 80GB,preferably 100GB
And did I mention that I only have $180 to spend

 

Both the Hitachi and Seagate 80GB 7200RPM drives can be had under $180. They both will offer desktop like performance. The Seagte runs cooler and quieter, the Hitachi is faster. Western Digitals are good as well if you want to 5400RPM.

 

Go with the Hitachi Travelstar. They have one that has 100GB's and 7200 RPM. It runs around $200, but is the best!

 

What do you plan on doing with the notebook?

P.S. Nice avatar zazonz ^

 

Study,music,movies,some RTSs(C&C Generals,maybe Act of War).Note that I will be in Africa for a couple of months so reliability would be appreciated .

 

Thanks. I think you will be fine with a 5400RPM drive, they are considerably less money for the same capacity drive. I like what zazonz said earlier about Western Digitals - I recommend the 80GB Western Digital Scorpio (5400RPM, 8MB Cache). I have one in an external enclosure, taken out of my previous notebook. Excellent drive, very well made. Quiet, cool running.

You can find it on ZipZoomFly, Newegg, and a bunch of other tech stores.

A Seagate would be my second choice.

 

More importantly,will these run coolly?I don't fancy having the thing burst into flames on my lap .

 

Does a 16MB cache make any difference?Assuming if course I can find one?

 

Not really. Unless you are doing intense video editing, there most likely won't be any noticable difference. 8MB cache is plenty.

Western Digitals run very cool . . in my old HP zv5000z, the 80GB Western Digital ran at 35*C. Of course, that depends on the laptop . .

 

I'm leaning towards this one:

Seagate Momentus 5400.2 ST9100824A 100GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache Notebook Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST9100824A
Item #: N82E16822148090

Found it on newegg for $165.And it's newegg reviews aren't bad.'Sides,it's 20GB extra.What do u think?

 

Can't go wrong with Seagate. Segates are supossed to be fast, reliable and quiet. I say go for it.

 

I ran HDtune on my 4200 Hitachi 80 GB that came with it. HD Tune:
Transfer Rate Minimum : 11.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 29.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 22.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.5 ms
Burst Rate : 75.5 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 5.3%

Will I see signigicant performance increase with a 5400? 7200? My extenal usb maxtor 40gb just 6 months after warranty expiration died so I could use the old drive as a backup usb drive.

 

You'll see about a 15-20 percent performance gain when you move from a 5400 RPM drive to a 7200 RPM drive. The faster drive shaves off about 10-15 minutes of your battery life, depending upon what you're doing.

 

i too am considering another hard drive for my Acer travelmate 4000. it currently has a 60 GB hitachi deskstar @ 4200 RPM and a 2MB Cache (i think, i'll run hdtune to know for sure)

i would like to replace it with a faster higher capacity drive for my OS and programs and use the hitachi in an enclosure for my music (currently 40GB)

will my programs open faster and windows start up faster with a higher performing drive? or is that more of a memory issue? (i have 512MB) my laptop seems a little slow right now, but the remaining disc space is only 4 or 5 gig???

 

Yes, you'll see a big increase in performance with the 5400RPM drive. In my last notebook, I had a 4200RPM drive - upgraded it after about 4 months to a 5400RPM - amazing. Definitely worth it.

Pretty much anything that requires the hard drive will see an increase in performance.

 

ok sounds good thanks.

anybody reccomment a good drive enclosure? i'm looking for something that can be powered by USB. Also, how hard is it to assemble an enclosure to a hard drive?

 

I am guessing the enclosure thing is easy, I had an old Maxtor external 40gb that stopped working, broke open the case, disconnected the drive and attached it to my desktop and was able to fully access the drive - entire process about 15 minutes, so putting a drive in an enclosure should take about 5 min.

Chazman - can you provide feedback on my hdtune results? Is that typical for a 4200 rpm?

Btw, I also want to buy a new enclosure for my maxtor drive. I am assuming 3.5 in - just want to be sure - width is about 3.75 in and lenght is almost 5.75 in. - is this 3.5 in?

 

Putting a drive in an enclosure is easy. Steps involved in assembling my no name hdd box are:
1. Connect hdd to pc board (I think thats what its called) of the enclosure.
2. Insert into box and screw down.
3. Connect USB cables to enclosure and PC. I used 2 USB slots in my pc to make sure I have enough power.
4. Enjoy.