Just ordered a new lappy hard drive

FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
edited November 2003 in Hardware
Just ordered a new Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 60GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache drive to replace my current generic 40GB, 4200RPM, 2MB cache drive in my Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop.

Looking on the drive compatibility list doesnt list the Inspiron 8500, but it listed all Inspiron models before the 8500.

Does anyone have any knowledge of compatibility issues with this hardware combination?

And has anybody tried the Travelstar E7K60? If so do you think Ill see a signifigant performance increase over the 4200 RPM? How well does it perform against a desktop 7200RPM drive?

Any input would be apreciated.
:wave:

thx

Comments

  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Hell yeah! The difference will be like night and day, especially on a lappy where the harddrive always is the bottleneck.

    A harddrive like that and a gig of ram would make a lappy almost as fast as a desktop. You have to make the lappy use LESS harddrive resources. Less swapfile etc. More ram means less swapfile usage.

    Unfortunatly it´s an (ex) IBM that you just bought. I have a personal battle against them so dont listen to me when it comes to IBM.
  • ShivianShivian Australia
    edited October 2003
    Well I'm also curious on this very issue. My laptop is driving me nuts with the slow harddrive. I haven't heard any issue with the Travelstars but I'd expect more problems with a 7200rpm drive in a laptop enclosure. The 4200's get hot enough as it is.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Strange, my 5400 doesn't get hot at all......

    Form: Your going to be pissed that I am telling you this now, but you can actually buy 16MB cache 7200RPM drives now.

    I dont see why it wouldn't work though, it's just a standard 2.5" drive.

    NS
  • ShivianShivian Australia
    edited October 2003
    I'll have to check again... (or the design on mine might be a bit dodgy).
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited October 2003
    NS, who's making 16MB/7200RPM laptop drives? I've seen 16MB/5400RPM Toshibas, but not 7200RPM ones...

    Oh, and Shivian... my HD gets extremely hot (during extended constant use, e.g. defragging) as well, because it's sandwiched between the top of the case and the modular bay, which usually has a battery in it. I now just take the modular battery out and put a fan on the side of the NB, blowing across the HD and it stays at basically room temperature.

    I'm looking @ upgrading my laptop HD as well (40 minutes for a virus scan, 2hrs to defrag is starting to REALLY bug me)
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Just saw one, model number: MK-5024GAY
    ehehehe..... GAY...........

    *cough* AAAAAaaanyway......

    Cant find the other I was looking at before.....

    NS
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited October 2003
    Im really stoked about it :) New egg has the Hitachi drive for 246$ which is the cheapest I have seen the drive go for.

    I was unaware of the 16 meg cache drive but from what i can see it only comes in a 50 GB model for around 270$.

    Im currently struggleing for space on the 40gb drive so upgradeing to a 60 GB for $246 vs a 50GB drive for 270$ still makes more sense for me despite the projected performance increase from 16 meg cache vs 8 mb cache.

    Should be here sometime next week, Ill let you guys know how it runs when it gets here.

    I cant wait. bf1942 maps take FOREVER to load on this 4200rpm drive. Its not even worth playing.

    I will also be getting more ram for it soon. Unfortunately dell gave me 2x256 meg sodimms (even though I ordered 1 512 those greedy bastards) so to upgrade i have to buy all new ram, cant just add to it. Gonna start with 1 512 and 1 256 which will put me at 768 which should help for a while. Till I can afford another 512 at least.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Firstly rant at Dell and demand compensation, and secondly, I will be interested in the change of battery life at all, because that is the only thing that worries me.......

    NS
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited October 2003
    NS, supposedly the 7200rpm drive is virtually no more power hungry than a 5400rpm drive... if I see the article MaximumPC did on it, I'll post the specs...
  • ShivianShivian Australia
    edited October 2003
    FormFactor said
    I cant wait. bf1942 maps take FOREVER to load on this 4200rpm drive. Its not even worth playing.

    I will also be getting more ram for it soon. Unfortunately dell gave me 2x256 meg sodimms (even though I ordered 1 512 those greedy bastards) so to upgrade i have to buy all new ram, cant just add to it. Gonna start with 1 512 and 1 256 which will put me at 768 which should help for a while. Till I can afford another 512 at least.
    I've been trying to run Desert Combat on my laptop (P4 1.6 w/ 256MB ram and the 4200RPM drive) and by the time the stupid thing loads the map has just about finished (slight exaggeration but my frustration is up there). Ended up using it as a game server for a single map (setting rounds to 99 or something high like that so it doesn't have to keep loading the map). :buck:
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited October 2003
    NS, Tried the Dell rant but its a big dibacle trying to get them to compensate. I ordered it through work so I idnt actually place the order. Dell says 2 256 mb mods were ordered, my work says 1 512 was ordered. I just decided to let it go. Ill let ya know how bad this drive rapes my battery. Should be here by tuesday.

    Shivian, I had the same problem. I threw a 7200 RPM desktop drive in a usb 2.0 drive enclosure and installed battlefield on that. That helped a helluva lot. Its big and clunky to carry around with the lappy though.
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited October 2003
    Ok,
    Finally got the drive installed and tested it. And I must say it has increased the performance of the lappy tremendously. Everything I do is soo much faster, from booting up, to surfing the web, to gaming.
    Definately worth the upgrade.

    It does seem to use the battery a little more. I would say it takes 15 minutes of my 2 hours of battery life. Since im always plugged in, its definately worth it.
  • ShivianShivian Australia
    edited October 2003
    Nice... sounds like my next upgrade option :D
  • godzilla525godzilla525 Western Pennsylvania Member
    edited November 2003
    IBM released a utilty a while back for playing around with the power management settings on the hard drive.

    If you leave it running a long time, keep the power management at or below 80h. That still will allow the heads to park and avoid the IBM/Hitachi-specific issue of the heads crashing into platters after hovering over the same area for a long time.

    set it to the lowest value when on batteries... according to the software predictions I can get over 3 hours with my I8200 on a year-old Li-Ion battery provided I dim the screen somewhat. :)
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