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    Upgrading hard drives..!

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by unclocked, Apr 4, 2006.

  1. unclocked

    unclocked Notebook Enthusiast

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    Almost all manufacturers increase their prices drastically to configure and own a little more hard drive space. For e.g, Dell asks 300$ to go up from stock 40GB to 100 GB SATA. What do I need to know about aftermarket disk drives so that the new disk is compatible with hardware and fits the space perfectly?
    TIA,
    UC.
     
    unclocked, Apr 4, 2006
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  2. cvec7

    cvec7 Notebook Evangelist

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    Generally, you want mainly the same interface and size....for instance, you were talking about SATA, so you'd want a 2.5'' notebook SATA 150 drive. (I'm pretty sure notebooks only use SATA 150) And, of course you'd want same or better specs (hopefully you would, lol) like seek times, buffer, rpm, capacity, ect...
    I may have forgot something, but I think I covered the major points..
     
    cvec7, Apr 4, 2006
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  3. unclocked

    unclocked Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks cvec7, but do notebooks typically have space for more than one disks?
     
    unclocked, Apr 4, 2006
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  4. NetBrakr

    NetBrakr Notebook Deity

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    Sadly, no. There is only one disk space.

    JC
     
    NetBrakr, Apr 4, 2006
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  5. otaku

    otaku Notebook Deity

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    Actually some desktop replacement models have room for more (alienware and others) which come with Raid 0 or Raid 1 these are of course large notebooks.
     
    otaku, Apr 5, 2006
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  6. matt_h1

    matt_h1 Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    Some notebooks do have 2 hard drive bays or one bay that can have a battery, optical drive or HD installed but generally most only have the one.
     
    matt_h1, Apr 5, 2006
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  7. dahunk84

    dahunk84 Notebook Guru

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    Hey..

    Does only a 2.5" work with notebooks? What abt the 3.5". And i havent seen any1 talk abt it.. so i'm assuming you cannot replace the existing HD with a 250GB or 300GB. Guess those are not for notebooks.
     
    dahunk84, Apr 5, 2006
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  8. Notebook Solutions

    Notebook Solutions Company Representative NBR Reviewer

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    Hey Dahunk,

    Unless you have an Acer 17" (old model, used to had a P4 3,2) you cannot put a 3.5" in a notebook. Did you ever saw how huge a 3.5" is compared with a 2.5"! The difference is huge. You can buy an external tough, if you want to.

    Charlie-Peru :)
     
    Notebook Solutions, Apr 5, 2006
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  9. John Mahoney

    John Mahoney Notebook Enthusiast

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    :fujitsu:

    I just bought a N6410 at fry's and swapped out the hard drives for 2 Hitachi Travel stars, but it came with 2 4200rpm 160gb Sata drives. (Made by Fujitsu)

    It is a bit of a challenge to load the drivers for the new hard drives, as you have to use a floppy to do it. I am still trying to find a USB floppy and have a bid in for one on ebay. (for about 10.00$)

    The Hitachi 7200 rpm SATA 100gb drives ran 395.00 for both. (free shipping) Now they are out of stock where I purchased them.

    I think Seagate is the best from what I have been reading lately, but Hitachi is the fastest. (7200 SATA 100GB)


    If your notebook does not have the SATA interface, you have to use IDE drives. Pretty clear on that.

    You might be able to use an external SATA drive out the firewire port, but otherwise you would match your motherboard's controller type. (SATA, Ultra DMA , etc..)

    I upgraded mine physically pretty easily, it's the driver loading that seems to be the big hassle!!!

    (Especially with SATA driver's they are brand new)

    good luck and I would advise you to have the store install the hard drive if at all possible. In my case I had to special order the hard drive's by mail and install them myself.
     
    John Mahoney, Apr 5, 2006
    #9