beginner harddrive question please..

Im looking to upgrade my laptop harddrive. What am i looking for? I know it has to be 2.5" right? What's the difference between SATA or the other ones out there?

basically i need one bigger than the one i have. Im also looking into an ssd but i would prefer a regular fast hdd due to cost.

 

Budget, Size, Interface, etc.

There are also 1.8'' drives, but 2.5 are more common and used by manufacturers, but without knowing what laptop you have is hard to say. Also there different height drives, most are 9.5 but the bigger ones like 1tb are mostly 12.5 and not all laptops can fit this drives, so be careful.

Sata is the interface, and if you laptop is relativly new it should have that interface, could be sata I or sata II (sata III probably arriving with Intels SB and AMD new chipsets).

Really comes down into how much space you need, how much you willing to spend and what purpose you will give it. If 500gb is enough... then probably check Hitachi 7K500, is probably one of the fastest drives around with very good feedback from users. If you want a little faster drive probably also check Segate Momentus XT 500, an hybrid drive that should give you a good boost from normal mechanical drives. And if you dont mind the price or space then look for an SSD like Intel X25m, Crucial C300 or OCZ Vertex 2.

 

Thanks that was helpful.

Im looking to spend no more than $100, and its for my m11x. Want to upgrade to 250gb to 500gb but no more. 320gb would be perfect..

If the seagate momentus xt only has 4gb of ssd out of 500gb, isnt that kind of useless? How does it work or how does it know how to put what in the ssd and the others in the regular portion of the harddrive?

 

Everything gets put on the regular portion of the hard drive. What it does, though, is it tracks access. The files that are accessed the most from the hard drive also get stored in the NAND, and thus get faster access. This is why it takes multiple reboots before reboots start speeding up; it takes time for the XT to "learn" which files keep getting accessed and thus should also be copied to the NAND. There's an entire long thread on it here.

Price-wise, though, if your budget is $100, you can buy pretty much any platter-based drive that isn't an XT. On sale, for example, the Hitachi 7K500 (500 GB drive) goes for about $60. I've seen the Momentus 7200.4 for $50 (although a lot of people will tell you to stay away from this one). Even the Samsung MP4 HM640JJ (640 GB, 7200 RPM) has a usual price of about $80. An XT (500 GB version) will usually cost you a bit more, averaging somewhere around $125 when not on sale at last check.

 

Agreed. I got a Momentus 7200.4 OEM in my VAIO and I hated it. Replaced it with SSD and the Hitachi 7K500. The Hitachi is great. Very soon, they're launching a 7K750 9.5mm drive. I can't wait!

 

Remember HDD get slower as they get filled, so its always better to have a bigger drive. If you are aiming to use 320gb then a 500gb would be ideal, most of the time, i aim into not passing 70% of its capacity, unless is a pure storage drive.

As Judicator said, at $100 budget your looking into mechanical hdd mostly, although i seen the momentus XT around $105 on sale sometimes, Hitachi Deskstar 0A35415 7K500 is what i bought and i have nothing but good comments about it, almost no noise, no vibration, very fast. There are newer version, like HITACHI Travelstar 7K500 0A72335, $61 with shipping, so probably would go for that inside $100.

But if you want a hybrid, which should be faster, then you will have to dish extra $20, Seagate Momentus XT 500

 

Well pre-Christmas the 500 GB Momentus XT was like 89 shipped lol. I'm sure prices will drop. I'm personally happy with my Scorpio Blue 640 GB in my D620 and paid like 55 for it too.

 

Yeah i have been also looking on craigslists because sometimes there are gems out there for brand new or new condition computer parts. I found a 64gb SSD but that seems way small for my needs. 320gb or even 250gb would suffice, I only would use about 150gb or so and the rest goes on my external.


How is installing an SSD or hybrid drive? Or any harddrive for that matter? I've installed floppies, cd drives, ram but no harddrives. Is there something special you need to do or is it plug and play?

 

They're plug, format, and play. Or plug, install OS, and play. Or plug, restore from system image, and play.

 

There are "tricks" you can do if you want to optimize (more with SSDs), but for the most part, yes, plug and play.

 

Awesome. So once i get the hardware installed, there's nothing that i necessarily have to do software-wise like going into dos or bios and setting some advanced settings right?

 

Generally, no.

 

I recommend installing Windows 7 in AHCI for the SATA mode if it's available as an option in your BIOS.

 

Depends a little bit on how the drive is to be used, but the process is still pretty simple. If it's a secondary or storage drive that you don't plan to boot from, you'll need to go into disk management and initialize the drive, most likely turning it into a single simple partition spanning the entire drive (or multiple partitions, if that's how you want to handle it). If it's a replacement for an existing OS or boot drive, you'll need to boot from an OS CD (like a Windows CD or USB key) after installing the drive, and then you can just install the OS onto your new drive. If cloning, then it depends on whether you're cloning before installation or after. If before, clone the drive in an external enclosure or dock from your existing drive, and then simply swap drives, or else clone your existing drive to a CD/DVD restore disc, install your new drive, and then use said CD/DVD restore disc just like the OS CD mentioned previously.