Toughbook CF-W5 - recommendation for silent harddisc replacement

Hi,

I've looking for recommendations for really silent harddiscs
replacements for the 60GB drive that comes with the Panasonic
Toughbook CF-W5.

My previous laptop was the CF-W2. It's 40GB harddisc span totally
silent. I only heard the head move from time to time.
One of the best features of the CF-W2 is that it's fanless and
really quiet.

Alas the Toughbook CF-W5's drive spinning noise can be heards all
the time in quiet rooms, just like a fan. It's only a low volume noise,
but still annoying.

As the drive is also still quite small (at 60GB), I think it's best to just
replace it with something larger and quieter. Alas the new SSD-types aren't
available/affordable at 64GB, yet.

Any recommendations?

 

Welcome

I would suggest the SAMSUNG HM160HC
A Single platter makes this one of the quietest 160 gb 5400 rpm 2.5 ata laptop drives around.
It has low power consumption and excellent performance competing head to head with some 7200rpm drives.
I have one in a cf-73.
Here's a link to changing the drive out

http://cropcrusher.web.infoseek.co.jp/shufuden/hardware/w5/w5.html

You will have to brush up on your Japanese.
But it has some good pictures.

Alex

 

Thank you very much for your recommendation!

I was under the impression that the CF W5's Hard Drive
was the smaller 1.8'' type (and the reason why Panasonic
uses such small sized drives in the first place) - I'm probably
wrong here, but will open my laptop to check this before ordering
the Samsung just to be safe.

 

I think you have a normal size.
Check in device manager for details
Then do a google search
Samsung has a 2 platter model as well
It ends in JC, don't buy that as its has none benefits of the single platter HC model

Alex

 

I did a Google search for the "Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9160821A"
that was mentioned in the Japanese instructions - so it's highly likely
that I have a normal 2,5'' drive. (I'll know for sure when I get home
so that I can check that.) If it is, I'll go by your recommendation,
if the hard drive exchange is managable by our company IT department.

Again thanks for helping.

 

That’s what we are here for.

You will be happy with the Samsung drive
It meets all your requirements.

Alex

 

I used to have the W5 - it is definitely a 2.5" type IDE drive.

 

Hi,

some feedback. I ordered the Samsung drive and it took only a few minutes to
exchange it. No need to remove any pins (like with the CF-W2 model).

While not totally silent, it's much better than the Toshiba drive
that came with the CF-W5. And the performance has improved, too:
Using Vista's own performance tool the MK6034GAX had a performance rating
of 4.4. The Samsung HM160HC get's a 5.4.

So thanks again for the recommendation.

 

That’s the way an upgrade is supposed to work.

These 5400 rpm ata drives are really exceptionally good .

Now that the 7200rpm drives are not available in ata, these drives are the new performance champions, and probably they are going to be real hard to find in a few months.


Alex

 

Just got one of these and fitted it to my CF-18 mk.2

All appears well. Just done a fresh install of XP Tablet and installed all the drivers and related software from the Japanese Toughbook download site. It is quiet. Once I've got some more of my software installed I'll see how it performs.

 

Dazzer,

What drive did you install?? I have a CF-18D mk2 that I want to put a bigger drive in and I want to make sure it recognizes it. Are you still happy with the drive??

Steve

 

Steve

He used the SAMSUNG HM160HC
drive that I recomended

As I said in posts about this drive it uses a single platter, and because of this it’s comparable to a 7200rpm drive
I have personally upgraded 6 toughbooks with this drive
A few years ago I upgraded toughbooks with a Hitachi 7200rpm drive , but that drive is no longer available.
The drives that you were inquiring about on a earlier post will all work for your cf-18
Using a 160gb drive will not be a problem with windows xp sp-1 and later
You bios might show it as 137gb , But windows will see the whole 160gb less the normal format difference which leaves 149gb total capacity
Remember that you need a pata drive not sata
Trust me the Samsung drive if you can find it, would be a great boost in boot times etc


Alex