laptop hard drive upgrade question

**Tonk** · 04-13-2008, 12:21 PM

i have a 60gb 7200rpm ata/100 hard drive in my dell 9300, and i find myself with less than 5gb free most times, i would like to upgrade it to a larger hard drive, but i dont want to lose the RPM's by dropping down to a 5400, but i cant seem to find what im looking for, which is this:

100gb (or larger) 7200rpm 2.5'' ata/100 (im not too big on the whole HD interface list but isnt an IDE the same as an ATA? i am pondering getting a sata/raid card and building a large external setup, but idk how a pc-card would perform in the area of bandwidth...

my question is, can i get a 120gb 2.5 IDE drive, and would it fit in my ata/100 laptop HD bay?
is ''ultra ata/100'' and ''ide/ata'' and ''ata/6'' and ''ata/133'' and 'dma/ata 100'' all the same?

**=DdogG=** · 04-13-2008, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonk

i have a 60gb 7200rpm ata/100 hard drive in my dell 9300, and i find myself with less than 5gb free most times, i would like to upgrade it to a larger hard drive, but i dont want to lose the RPM's by dropping down to a 5400, but i cant seem to find what im looking for, which is this:

100gb (or larger) 7200rpm 2.5'' ata/100 (im not too big on the whole HD interface list but isnt an IDE the same as an ATA? i am pondering getting a sata/raid card and building a large external setup, but idk how a pc-card would perform in the area of bandwidth...

my question is, can i get a 120gb 2.5 IDE drive, and would it fit in my ata/100 laptop HD bay?
is ''ultra ata/100'' and ''ide/ata'' and ''ata/6'' and ''ata/133'' and 'dma/ata 100'' all the same?

there are laptop drives that go as large as 200gig that run at 7200rpm.

you just have to get an IDE drive (no SATA) any 2.5" laptop harddrive will fit as long as it is not SATA.

But looking around the internet, it would seem that IDE laptop drives have all but disappeared. You can get a PCMCIA eSATA card and then plug in any eSATA enclosure and get full SATA speeds.

with 60gigs though, you have to have some data that could be dumped off to a large, slower, external drive. a 250gig laptop drive in an enclosure can be had for 150 or less. I have used an 80 to 120gig fast internal drive and large 5400rpm external drives for data for years, and until I got my 1720, I was carrying 2 250gig WD passports (2.5" sata2 5400rpm). I have put both 250's in the 1720 and carry the 120 that came with the laptop as a "transfer huge files to another computer" drive.

yes, they are all the same.

**Tonk** · 04-13-2008, 11:54 PM

how big a difference would a 7200 vs a 5400 make? cause i can get a 250gb 5400 but i cant find a 7200 bigger than 80gb

**=DdogG=** · 04-14-2008, 09:53 AM

negligible. 1 - 2% max.

the 5400rpm drives have an 8 or 16meg cache, so you will not see the difference. also, you will get more life from the battery.

**Bamboo** · 04-14-2008, 10:26 AM

A lot also depends on how clean you keep your drive and defrag it every so often.
I think Ddog has it right though to keep you drive you have now, and just buy an external drive to keep all your extra stuff you don't use constantly. That way you won't have to go through the hassle of reinstalling the OS and all the stuff you have on there now.
I got a good WD mybook external for like $79 on sale so my wife could do that for her work laptop. She didn't even have enough room to install Service Pack 2.
I think it was either a 250 or 320 gig. Something like that, but is pretty fast moving stuff back and forth. I actually paid more because I wanted one with eSATA so I could use it on my computer as well.

04-13-2008, 12:21 PM	#1 (permalink)
Tonk Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Luck, WI USA Age: 22 Posts: 2,896	laptop hard drive upgrade question i have a 60gb 7200rpm ata/100 hard drive in my dell 9300, and i find myself with less than 5gb free most times, i would like to upgrade it to a larger hard drive, but i dont want to lose the RPM's by dropping down to a 5400, but i cant seem to find what im looking for, which is this: 100gb (or larger) 7200rpm 2.5'' ata/100 (im not too big on the whole HD interface list but isnt an IDE the same as an ATA? i am pondering getting a sata/raid card and building a large external setup, but idk how a pc-card would perform in the area of bandwidth... my question is, can i get a 120gb 2.5 IDE drive, and would it fit in my ata/100 laptop HD bay? is ''ultra ata/100'' and ''ide/ata'' and ''ata/6'' and ''ata/133'' and 'dma/ata 100'' all the same? __________________ [url="http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Upbtuz&altl=\|UH-QDT\|"im running for president[/URL] -Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, in an attractive and well preserved body; but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, a beer in the other, body totally worn out screaming "YEEEHAW, WHAT A RIDE!!!" - my grandpa -My New Rig: cpu: AMD 6400+ 3.2ghz dual core mobo: Asus Crosshair ram: 8gb (4x2gb) geil exotera 4-4-4-12 video card MSI 8800GTS 512mb (g92) Vista:x64 Laptop: Dell i9300 2.16ghz-2gb ram-6800-17" 1920x1200 -Toasty/Tonk/Chair http://tgtonk.notlong.com Last edited by Tonk; 04-13-2008 at 02:49 PM.

04-13-2008, 11:54 PM	#3 (permalink)
Tonk Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Luck, WI USA Age: 22 Posts: 2,896	Re: laptop hard drive upgrade question how big a difference would a 7200 vs a 5400 make? cause i can get a 250gb 5400 but i cant find a 7200 bigger than 80gb __________________ [url="http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Upbtuz&altl=\|UH-QDT\|"im running for president[/URL] -Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, in an attractive and well preserved body; but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, a beer in the other, body totally worn out screaming "YEEEHAW, WHAT A RIDE!!!" - my grandpa -My New Rig: cpu: AMD 6400+ 3.2ghz dual core mobo: Asus Crosshair ram: 8gb (4x2gb) geil exotera 4-4-4-12 video card MSI 8800GTS 512mb (g92) Vista:x64 Laptop: Dell i9300 2.16ghz-2gb ram-6800-17" 1920x1200 -Toasty/Tonk/Chair http://tgtonk.notlong.com

04-14-2008, 09:53 AM	#4 (permalink)
=DdogG= Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Ennis, TX Age: 31 Posts: 1,692	Re: laptop hard drive upgrade question negligible. 1 - 2% max. the 5400rpm drives have an 8 or 16meg cache, so you will not see the difference. also, you will get more life from the battery. __________________ Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. -Harlan Ellison If all else fails: "rm -rf /"

04-14-2008, 10:26 AM	#5 (permalink)
Bamboo Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: On the beach north of Jacksonville, NC Posts: 3,043	Re: laptop hard drive upgrade question A lot also depends on how clean you keep your drive and defrag it every so often. I think Ddog has it right though to keep you drive you have now, and just buy an external drive to keep all your extra stuff you don't use constantly. That way you won't have to go through the hassle of reinstalling the OS and all the stuff you have on there now. I got a good WD mybook external for like $79 on sale so my wife could do that for her work laptop. She didn't even have enough room to install Service Pack 2. I think it was either a 250 or 320 gig. Something like that, but is pretty fast moving stuff back and forth. I actually paid more because I wanted one with eSATA so I could use it on my computer as well. __________________ LINKS 10th Tactical Guard Server Rules and SOP * Kicked? Banned? READ THIS FIRST!* Contact an Admin * Nominate your teammates for a ribbon Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at. -Carlos A. Urbizo-

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