Vaio AR 520 - Hard disk replacement question + Vista Ultra installation

Hi guys ,
I have 3 questions regarding the Sony AR 520 laptop that I own :

1.I consider to replace the 200G 4200 rpm Hard Drive with a fastest one .
Is it possible to replace it with a 7200 rpm one ?
How much cost a laptop 320G 7200rpm drive ?
Shoul I use only a 1.8'' disk as the original hard drive is or there is enough room to replace it with a bigger sized hard drive ( as the ones on desktop PCs) ?

2.In the case I would like to ADD an ADDITIONAL 7200 rpm to the 4200 rpm that is already installed - Is it possible ? There is enough space to mount an additional Hard Drive in this machine ? Would this configuration be slower than in the case I'll replace the 4200 rpm disk with a new 7200 rpm , without leaving the 4200 rpm installed as well ?

3.I consider to format the disk and to install on it Windows Vista Ultimate .
I read somewhere that when an OS is installed on a SATA drive then I should have an "A" drive available ( I don't remember why) , so , I would like to ask if should I prepare for it an how before I'm performing the new installation ?

Thanks ,in advance !

 

Youre going to need to completely replace the harddrive. Most electronic stores have kits to help you with this. Is not too difficult.

For the speed, its probably best to go with 5400 rpm. The faster the HDD spins, the hotter it runs, i have the 590 and it gets really warm so you might want to avoid that.

You cannot add another harddrive to your laptop, you can only replace it. And you can only use the 1.8 laptop harddrives. They are smaller and run more expensive. As far I know, the 320 GB harddrives are just being rolled out. In fact, I can only find them in laptops and not individually yet.

I may be mistaken but if you are going to upgrade to ultimate, it might be best to do that before installing the new harddrive. Good Luck

 

will you mind if i say that all ARs can put 2 2.5inch harddrive in there
(actually Sony already give you two harddisk already)
i know it because i have already changed the harddrive for my AR270P months ago with two 250GB 2.5inch
i use this hdd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136123 go and check it out.
so i'm running a cool 500GB right now.

and yes you are able to change to use the 7200rpm drive(only 2.5inch the 1.8 inch is use in ipod or zune) and you will not be able to use the desktop 3.5 inch one too.

and for vista clean installation it will install just fine
but if you configure it to raid (0 or 1) you will not be able to install on it
except you install first and configure the raid array later

why do i know all this?
because i mess with my 270p for almost a year now and run into tons of problems myself (sure solve that myself too but some are still unsolve for me)
and now i'm running Vista Sp1 too.
and yes i'm an asian

 

BelligerentOC , titan_psp thanks a lot for your fast replies .
You both recommend to replace the existing 200G 4200 rpm with an 5400 rpm while I thought that if I'm going to replace it than to replace it directly with a 240-320G SATA 7200 rpm .
Is the difference in speed between a 4200 rpm to a 5400 rpm hard disk substantial ?

I'm using my laptop for few main tasks :
1.Watching HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movies from the Hard Drive to my LCD TV through the HDMI connector
2.Running electronics engineering applications (Cadence\Mentor) , mechanical (Pro-E) and math ( Matlab)
3.Internet and emailing
4.Video Editing from my Digital Video Camera ( through the firewire port) and Graphical Editing (creating web and DVD slideshows from my personal pictures) .

I am not sure if for this kind of tasks I'll feel any substantial difference by replacing the 4200 rpm drive with a 5400 rpm drive than if I would replace it with a 7200 rpm one .
What do you think ?

Thanks again !

 

When looking up your model, the site stated that you have 1 harddrive. Check underneath your laptop. It should be the bigger of the 2 things you can unscrew. If there are 2, then you can replace both, if there is one, then thats what you got. My bad on the size of the HDD, I had a mental fart and I thought of 1.8 as the smaller.


you cant watch HD-DVD on your comp. Sony invented Bluray so thats their baby. Playing these movies doesnt involve the harddrive, so checking it wont affect that.

 

BelligerentOC,
I don't have a Blu-Ray on this laptop and I'm thankful to Sony that they didn't put one and ask for $300 more for something that I don't intend to use in the near future .

I'm playing both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray that I'm downloanding from Internet by using PowerDVD 7.3 software .
It takes about 2 days to download a such movie (about 30G per movie) but once you download it you have the best quality possible .

 

if you are in raid0 configure with two 5400RPM inside your lappy
then you are about or a little bit faster than single 7200RPM hdd

 

Thanks ,
How much faster than the original 4200 rpm it will be in a such configuration ?

There is any pro in installing 4200 rpm hard drives in so much Sony ( and other manufacturers) laptops ? Should be some intelligent ideea behind equiped a Santa Rosa T7XXX series with 2GRAM with a 4200 rpm disk ...

 

At the end I think that I am concerned more about the disk storage than the disk's speed therefore as a first step of improvement I consider to buy a 500G Western Digital hard drive , from the new series with a eSATA connection as well ( for a future use) .

Replacing the 4200 rpm to a 5400 rpm will be ,first of all - expensive . For about $180 is possible to get a 240G 5400 rpm drive . For $250-300$ a 2X120G 5400 rpm .
It looks like 7200 rpm is not an option here because it gets hot after a very short using time and I don't know what influence it may have on the other components .

So , for now I'll check how it will work with the external 7200rpm drive connected through USB2 or firewire400 . I wish I would be able to use the 3Gbps eSATA port of the external drive but for now I cannot do that because I don't have a such port on the laptop's side .