Hi all--where in the UK can I buy a hard drive for a Sager 8790. I believe it takes a 2.5" 9.5mm physical drive size. It's a 7,200rpm I want, nothing slower. (just out of curiosity, why are laptop hard drives slow in rpm?).
Sager laptops should use standard laptop hard drives. 7,200rpm is standard for a desktop machine, Most laptop hard drives run at 4,800 because of power consumption. What size are you after and are do you feel confident to replace the drive in you laptop?
wrl2, the only manufacturer that is presently making 7200 rpm dives for laptops (2.5" X 9.5 mm) is Hitachi, who makes a 40 gig and a 60 gig version and they have 8 mb cache. Toshiba was making a 50 gig 7200 rpm drive with 16 mb cache, but it's not listed on Toshiba's site any more. I have the 60 gig Hitachi in my new laptop and it makes a heck of a difference in load times over the 4200 rpm drive that was in my old Dell laptop. As far as finding them in the UK, I'll have to leave that to someone else. If you lived on the US side, I could tell you right away.
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Straight_ManGeeky, in my own wayNaples, FLIcrontian
edited June 2004
To answer why they are slow:
First, the tinier the drive the better production Quality Control has to be, and design, to get same reliability as a drive that is larger form factor and which has been out longer so the designs are also better tuned and production QC problems adressed better.
Second, spinning up a drive faster and keeping it spinning faster at speed needs more wattage flow. faster drive, unless you have a bigger battery, will mean you need to have an existing laptop plugged in more often if the battery was nto speced to allow for bigger wattage draw at 12 V to spin the drive using the drive rotation motor. Bigger batteries are heavier. Your Sager can probably handle the faster drive, in a 40 Gig version. 60 might need more power and the time on without being plugged in will suffer some. I would have to know the battery specs to tell for sure how much, 3\4 the time of a laptop that is otherwise totally the same is typical for a two platter HD versus a one, you are more likely to get a two platter HD in small factor at 60 GB and up.
2.5" form factor 40 GBs with single platter exist, and due to power considerations and cost I would go to that, and Hitachi makes those very well. The big-drive plus higher speed spin drives eat significantly more power when they are multiplatter.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited June 2004
I wouldn't go for a 7200rpm drive in the 8790. I've got one in my 5620, and while it's fast, it drives me nuts. Clevo (Sager's OEM) put the hard drive in both machines under the wrist rest. A 7200rpm drive will get uncomfortably warm- >50*C, in fact, and you run a risk of toasting the drive (quite literally). I'd get 2 4200rpm or 5400rpm drives and RAID them.
Geeky, the Hitachi drives don't run nearly as hot as your Toshiba drive. I have no hot spots at all on my PowerPro M 5:6 on top and mobilemeter shows my drive temp at 34 C.
Comments
First, the tinier the drive the better production Quality Control has to be, and design, to get same reliability as a drive that is larger form factor and which has been out longer so the designs are also better tuned and production QC problems adressed better.
Second, spinning up a drive faster and keeping it spinning faster at speed needs more wattage flow. faster drive, unless you have a bigger battery, will mean you need to have an existing laptop plugged in more often if the battery was nto speced to allow for bigger wattage draw at 12 V to spin the drive using the drive rotation motor. Bigger batteries are heavier. Your Sager can probably handle the faster drive, in a 40 Gig version. 60 might need more power and the time on without being plugged in will suffer some. I would have to know the battery specs to tell for sure how much, 3\4 the time of a laptop that is otherwise totally the same is typical for a two platter HD versus a one, you are more likely to get a two platter HD in small factor at 60 GB and up.
2.5" form factor 40 GBs with single platter exist, and due to power considerations and cost I would go to that, and Hitachi makes those very well. The big-drive plus higher speed spin drives eat significantly more power when they are multiplatter.