HP 8710w with 2 hard disks??

Hey guys,

is it possible to put 2 hard disks in the 8710w or is it limited to 1?

Thanks!

 

No, it's not possible.

 

It only has 1 hard drive bay

 

Why do they make the hard disk so small if it's designed for professional 3d work and video editing? Are you meant to work with an external hard drive?

 

And in case you're wondering, the optical drive bay is not modular.

 

Sorry...could you please explain to me what that means?

 

And now he is wondering...

 

Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. Some notebooks allow you to replace the optical drive with an additional hard disk, which is a way in which you can have 2 hard disks in the laptop without requiring a dedicated hard drive bay. However, the 8710w doesn't support this.

 

What hard drive do you have?

If it's too small, you can easily upgrade it with a bigger one.

 

What do you mean small?? How big is your HDD? You can swap it for a bigger space hard disk, but the biggest they have on the market now is about $320GB? Maybe there's a 500GB hard disk just came out recently, but that is about it. How small is your hard disk now?

 

I'm currently using a 300GB desktop workstation and I don't find that big enough as it is. Haven't purchased the 8710w yet and the HDD size is my only concern. I guess I could just get a fast external HDD to compensate though. Is it slower working off an external HDD assuming it's also 7200rpm?

 

why would you wanna work on an external hdd ??

makes more sense to use the external for backing up your work.
i´d get the 200 GB /7200 rpm model in the 8710 and a big external drive to synchronize / backup the data.

working on files from an external hdd is a not very good idea....

 

True...thanks for the advice. Also, just to confirm....in your review chrixx you said "upon boot-up, you get to select to go either 32-bit or 64-bit with Vista". Does this mean it ships with both 32&64bit versions of Vista installed and does it also come with both 32&64bit XP? Do you have to pay extra for this or is it standard?

Thankyou!

 

yes and no.... yes to vista 32/64 your license is not bound to a specific OS, but no there is no XP installation on the hdd.

your license is not bound to one OS. you can choose which one you want. but after you have selected one, the installation files will be deleted. you should asap make a system backup.

there is also an option, when ordering the notebook, you can get the installation media for each OS for a few bucks. i recommend buying the installation discs.

 

wow that's so cool! Thanks for all the help everyone. It's been really helpful!!

 

Im not following you. What installation files get deleted? and are you saying make a system backup before those files are deleted? From what you are saying, that doesnt sound possible, so if you are saying make a SB after installation files are deleted, what is the point (other than making backups of your system in general anyway?

Can someone tell me what the advantage is to working in 64? I am going to possibly buy one of these. and I have no info as to why I may choose 64. Will all my current programs I will install run on 64?

Also, I too wish there was a second hard drive and am surprised they only offer a 200G 7200 drive cause I believe there are bigger now.

I work off of external drives. I have a music library that is over 400 GB and a picture library that is over 100G and work with music and a program that INSISTS that you DO NOT work on the system drive to record and edit music. Everyone in the music business uses external drives (SCSI and mostly firewire).
Some applications require it.

 

there is vista 32 and vista 64 on an installation partition. as soon as you select one for your first install the other one will be deleted.

and a system backup of the first install is not the worst idea. when you decide to install xp, or to delete the recovery partition you can easily get back your fresh first install of the OS you chose.

64 bit is the future of computing, and soon a lot of programs will be coded for x64. the advantages is the double precision. it´s far more superior than 32 bit concerning quality and speed. until now the speed is not that much better than x32 , but x64 will become faster.

you know that you can split up your hdd in more then one partition. you do not have to use the partition c: for storing your work.

i am studying architecture and do work for architects doing visualizations ( images and movies), programming flash websites and sometimes work as a freelancer for architectural contests. i have tested quite some storage solutions, but when it comes to work the fastest you can get is the internal hdd.
there is no sense in working from an external drive, since it will slow down your work flow...

and btw having only the original files is quite risky.
what will happen when you loose your external drive ? or the drive stops working ? you´d be in deep sh*t when you loose your originals....

 

Ok I get what youre saying about the install stuff now. But I still dont know why I would want 64 right now and Im afraid that I will run into things not working for 64 yet. Hell, Pro Tools - the biggest audio recording software in the recording industry doesnt even support Vista yet at all (except for its lower consumer and very limited version of the software).

Still involving the drive issue though, people use external drives for music and post production work and do not use internal drives. Drives are always moving from person to person and facility to facility and even with a partition, I dont believe you can record to your system drive. Recording 48bit audio at 50 tracks at a time is very taxing on a system. And everyone always is backing up stuff to other drives all the time. most facilities actually incorporate servers that all work is backed up to at the end of the day - even though we are working on external drives.


I myself am planning on buying one of these computers and replacing the hard drive with one I already have (cause I dont knwo what else to do with it). Its a 200G 7200 drive I had for a computer I didnt end up getting. Anyway, I am told by HP that if I get the install disks, it will put that recovery partition also back on the drive. I find this hard to believe and ultimately I guess it wont matter cause Ill have the disks for a recovery, but Im just wondering if anyone has changed drives for these machines right after getting them, and also, if you have the disks, can you start over and choose 32 or 64 bit again?

 

why do you think the bandwidth and speed of the internal sata is worse than the bandwidth and speed of an external drive connected to an external port ( usb / firewire) ?

 

Im not saying the bandwidth is better or worse. Im saying the software company strictly advises against using a system drive for the destination of media used with or recorded with this software. And we HAVE tried to do it on large sessions and get problems. I dont claim to know all the reasons why.

Now mind you, 95% of professional facilities use Macs for this software (at least in the US - europe is different.). Are Macs SATA? is there something about the Mac that would lead this to make more sense? I dont claim to know. I plan on running this software (the PC and lower consumer version) on this laptop though and I for one wish it had a second drive on it internally.

 

my comment above:
"Anyway, I am told by HP that if I get the install disks, it will put that recovery partition also back on the drive."

is WRONG. I am getting my info wrong and just wanted to clarify.

It was Chrixx that told me "If you restore from these self-made DVDs, the HDD will be partitioned the way it came from the factory, however if you use the DVDs HP provides, it will be a clean Vista install without the recovery partition and stuff."

This was from me asking him about replacing the drive after receiving the laptop.


sorry, just didnt want to spread bad info out there to anyone.

 

HP also provides another DVD labelled "Applications and drivers" and if you install the Backup and Recovery Manager software, there is an option to create the recovery partition.

 

Thanks Chrixx. I was getting all my info mixed up. ha ha. Too much researching! haha