Western Digital 500Gb SATA on VAIO SZ ?

Has anyone installed this hard disc on the Sony Vaio SZ series notebooks:

Western Digital WD5000BEVT 5,400 rpm 500Gb SATA

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=506

If yes, then I would like to know how it performed (too hot etc?)

I don't know which hard disc my SZ came with. I think its a 5,400rpm Toshiba.

Cheers,
z.

 

Hi, I don't know of any SZ owners who have installed the WD5000BEVT, but dawn777 installed it in his/her Z, you can read it here.

Oh, to identify your current HDD, you can check it in Device Manager (Control Panel), look under 'Disk drives'.

 

Did a little digging, and unless I am wrong, the disc I asked about won't work on the SZ notebook because the SZ speed is 1.5Gb/s and the Z is 3Gb/s. The WD disc I asked about is SATA II at 3Gb/s.

Just for info, the current hdd in my SZ is this. The AS suffix on the product part refers to SATA (1.5Gbit)
description: ATA Disk
product: ST9120821AS
vendor: Seagate
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 3.14
serial: 3PL0B4H8
size: 111GiB (120GB)

What I don't know is whether I can put a SATA 3gbit drive into my SATA 1,5gbit controller. I think a SATA II controller will fall back to 1.5gbit when it sees a slower disc, but will it work the other way around, and although these are part of the specification, did the disc or controller manufacturer bother to implement the specification.
Excert from wikipedia on SATA 3Gbps:

Given the importance of backward compatibility between SATA 1.5 Gbit/s controllers and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices, SATA/300's autonegotiation sequence is designed to fall back to SATA/150 (1.5 Gbit/s) speed when in communication with such devices. In practice, some older SATA controllers do not properly implement SATA speed negotiation. Affected systems require the user to set the SATA 3 Gbit/s peripherals to 1.5 Gbit/s mode, generally through the use of a jumper,[6] however some drives lack this jumper. Chipsets known to have this fault include the VIA VT8237 and VT8237R southbridges, and the VIA VT6420 and VT6421L standalone SATA controllers.[7] SiS's 760 and 964 chipsets also initially exhibited this problem, though it can be rectified with an updated SATA controller ROM.

 

It depends on which SZ you have. But there is no problem with SATA I (1,5Gbit) and SATA II (3Gbit). Anyway, the AS suffix does not mean SATA I:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...f64f9110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US

 

I have an SZ90PS (Japanese model). It is the first batch that came out when originally released. I suspect that it is similar to the first SZ series that was released in the US at the same time.

Your link above is to a disc that I do _not_ have in my SZ. I have the ST9120821AS and not the ST9320421AS. The links for my disc were pulled from Seagates' web site, and although in the site search indices, clicking on these gives a 404. However, there is a link in Google's cache.

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache.../+ST9120821AS&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=opera

 

You were saying that "The AS suffix on the product part refers to SATA (1.5Gbit)", so I just told you that you were wrong. Your HD may be a SATA 1,5Gbit, but it has nothing to do with the AS suffix.
I think your SZ90PS is like my SZ3 (chipset Intel 945GM + ICH7). I changed my HD for a Seagate 7200.2 SATA 7200rpm 3Gbit and I don't have any problem

 

OK, I am with you now baout the AS suffix.

My SZ is more like an SZ1 than an SZ3 because mine was released just before the SZ1 was released.

These devices are in mine:

product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
# lshw |grep ICH7
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller
product: 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller
product: 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller
product: 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller

 

It doesn't matter. SZ1--->SZ5 has the same architecture with the same mainboard (chipset 945GM + ICH7).

 

Therefore, you say that connecting a 3Gb/s drive to the SATA controller on the SZ will work, and that the controller & disc will auto-negociate down to 1.5Gb/s.
I shall find out if the Seagate Momentus® 7200.4 discs will work.

 

PS. NHT, Many thanks for your help & clarification .

 

Hi zii, so what happens? Have you bought the WD 500 GB SATA and installed it in your SZ?

 

I am running the Seagate 500gb 7200.4 on my SZ691, it's fast!

 

I won't buy the WD because its 5400 and the Seagate is 7200rpm.
Senor MxMoney has set the scene with his statement so its off to the shop for a Seagate 500gb 7200.4.

MxMoney, your notebook specs read as a SZ with a X9000 CPU. The SZ691N usually comes with a T7700. How and what did you do to change this? I am interested in upgrading my SZ1 CPU to something else, if at all possible.

 

I'm a little suprised that it didn't burn his laptop. zii, you have a 945GM chipset, so you can upgrade to a T7600 max.

 

A little late but anyway. Just a note about the T7600.

My laptop has this in it, but I have no idea whaich marketing model number it is. Anyway, I shall by the Seagate 7400.4 tomorrow!


*-cpu:0
description: CPU
product: Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2600 @ 2.16GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 4
bus info: cpu@0
version: 6.14.8
serial: 0000-06E8-0000-0000-0000-0000
slot: N/A
size: 2167MHz
capacity: 2167MHz
width: 32 bits
clock: 166MHz
capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc up arch_perfmon bts pni monitor vmx est tm2 xtpr cpufreq
configuration: id=0