Whay HD should I buy for my ASUS, Recovery Disk question?

I have an ASUS U30JC-X3K with a 500GB HD 5400RPM I think. I need to check cause I am not sure if it is SATA I or II or if it matters what I put in it.

Are there any hard drives I should consider? I was looking at the following:

WD Blue 1 TB Mobile Hard Drive: 2.5 Inch, 5400 RPM, SATA II, 8 MB Cache - WD10JPVT

Seagate Momentus 7200 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive ST9750420AS

Seagate Laptop Thin 500 GB Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gb/s 64 MB Cache 2.5 Inch ST500LM000

WD Blue 500 GB Mobile Hard Drive: 2.5 Inch, 5400 RPM, SATA II, 8 MB Cache - WD5000BPVT

WD Scorpio Black 500 GB SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive (WD5000BPKT)

Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM 2.5-Inch Mobile Hard Drive

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 750 GB SATA 5400 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive - WD7500BPVT

Seagate Momentus 1 TB 5400RPM SATA 3Gb/s 8 MB Cache 2.5-Inch Internal Notebook Hard Drive - Retail Kit STBD1000100

Or??? Looking for $100 or under unless something is not too much more but well worth the extra price. I was leaning towards WD brand. Wasn't sure about the Seagate Hybrid drives either though.

Should I stay with 5400RPM or does 7200 add enough performance to notice it without greatly added sound or reliability? I have read reviews and done some searching, but I wanted to see if I could get some opinions for my case. I sometimes have the laptop on for a few days at a time but normally have been leaving it off when not in use, but will still have on at times for up to 3 days in a row. I wouldn't mind any performance boost as well.

Last, will the recovery disks that ASUS had me make be all I need to install windows 7 back on this machine? Does it do it as factory new? Do I need a recovery partition still or???

I greatly appreciate any help. I prefer either a faster drive and/or larger drive. I am pretty sure my fan is what is making noise and i just ordered a new fan, but I was thinking about changing the HD while I am at it.

 

first of all, for any HDD out there (except very few new desktop Seagates that can do 200MB/s) it doesn't matter which SATA revision you're using.

I'd be guessing your laptop comes with SATA2, but didn't verify that.

I know you're asking about HDD, but are you sure you need that much capacity? After using an SSD, I would never want my laptop with a HDD only.

regarding Windows, you can pretty much clone the whole drive over to new one or perform clean install using W7 iso from Digital River and activate it with serial from the sticker on your laptop.

 

I did look at the Samsung MZ-7TD250BW 840 Series Solid State Drive (SSD) 250 GB Sata 2.5-Inch that is $170 (120GB is $100) I guess I need another ext. HD for large files anyway. I have a 160GB & 320GB WD ext. drives and a ton of flash drives I use for backups (64GB, 32GB, 16GB, 8GB & others etc...).

I have my drivers disk that came with it. I didnt know about using a win7 iso without ordering it. I don't get how the Win 7 x64 SP1 differs from the media refresh version?

So Should I download the Win7 Home Premium x64 SP1 iso and that with my drivers disk be all I need?

Is the SSD MUCH better. I would only get up to 250GB if I went that way. maybe I will order a new 1TB small ext. HD then look into an SSD.

 

yes, any good SSD in that price region and capacity (240GB+) (840, few Sandisks, Crucial M4, M500, maybe Intel 330/335) is a better choice than HDD.

if you never owned an SSD, I guarantee you will like it. it's night/day difference compared to HDD.

if I was you I would consolidate the external drives and replace them with something larger - around 1TB if you need it portable or 2TB if you won't be carrying it around. roughly same price.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-digitalriver-windows-7-sp1-13-languages.html

here are the links for Windows, I always try to do clean install, but last few times I couldn't be bothered and used Paragon to copy the contents of the old drive onto the SSD.

Also forget about the driver disc, download newest drivers from Asus website, if you'll go for the clean install.

yes, you need to download iso of W7HP, as that's the one you have license for. create bootable USB and along with drivers it'll be all you need.

 

I am burning the disk now. I have never booted from USB before, do I enable that in the bios?
I was looking at buying a 1TB WD passport cause I don't care for drives that need a power supply.

Thanks

 

it's just faster and generally more convenient from USB (also not all notebooks have ODD now)

you just need to set boot priority to USB flashdrive in BIOS first and reboot or keep hitting F8/F12 button (whichever activates advanced boot menu) at boot and select the drive.

2.5" WD passport is a good choice.

 

Just ordered the 1TB WD 2.5" passport drive for $79 from Amazon a couple minutes ago (free 2 day ship via Prime).

 

That's sounds good and all but remember that laptop only has one drive bay and if they use it to store as well as their O/S to use as a everyday computer that SSD isn't going to help them in the space arena. So one needs to look at the larger picture SSD per/byte vs HDD/byte isn't matched correctly in storage/price area. So for their storage needs HDD currently will do more for them then SSD. Sure faster response and speed but then you loose alot in capacity and trying to find a SSD match HDD capacity they will be paying alot for something that will later come down in price on SSD isn't really cost effective for them. And for recovery CD/DVD I would say a definitly get them cause you will never know when you will not be able to find the drivers on the net or from Asus site as older model get removed and newer computer take their place for driver download. So having recovery cd/dvd is insurance that you can reboot your laptop and get using it right away.

Sound good but I don't see prices the same for larger drives when compared to a 1Tb HDD...I just looked up and find that conclusion not a good one to make...

a SSD 500mB = 350US
a HDD 500mB = 50US

So your claims isn't holding water here...as to they like it sure they will like it but their bank account won't like the hit. We shouldn't be in the business of saying gurantees or anything to that extend but give them at least opinions based on experiences we had.

That's good but laptop was made for portability not having to carry more hardware then you need other then just the laptop that has all your software and data to on the go. Laptop was made for portability not having more attachments with you and to loose or damage those hardware.

 

I thought it was obvious enough that SSD have worse GB/$ ratio than HDDs, but it seems I was wrong. btw. have you ever owned an SSD?

SSD are not just about performance jump. it's the lower heat, better battery life and shock resistance + other things that make them better than HDDs. sure, size vs. capacity, but see the first point.

HDDs and SSDs usually come in GB sizes not miliB as you state.

I said consolidate external hard drives, as there is no point in having multiple low capacities. no one ever said that portable drive eventually needs to be carried around with the laptop all the time.

 

If I did order an SSD, what all do I need to check to be sure I can use an SSD in my laptop? I seen one post mention "Enable AHCI in BIOS before installing." about SSD drives. Is there anything else I should check? I am not sure what I will do, I will look at prices more etc. cause now I will have a bigger ext. drive so drive failure wont be as big an immediate concern.

 

nothing really. your laptop can run with SSD just fine. all you need to to before is enabling the AHCI mode.

you don't really have to do anything afterwards (apart from installing OS obviously), but there are few guides on how you can tweak some of the settings. sometimes checking for available firmware update prior to installation might be a good thing, because there's always a disclaimer you can lose all the data, so saves the hassle of creating a backup.

Windows 7 SSD Tweaking Guide

Samsung are doing cashback on 840 series here in the UK, making the prices very attractive (around $160 for 250GB, which especially in an expensive country like UK is a deal)

you might check if there isn't anything similar going on in US or wherever you live.

 

ok, thanks. I seen one Samsung i think it was on amazon for $170 (250GB) and a Crucial for like $190 I think it was. I just got my 1TB passport today, backing up stuff to it now.