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2.5 PATA for notebook - which one?

M

mikek753

Senior member
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This is the same decision I've been making for several friends and myself with older PATA based laptops. The current WD Blue IDE (160GB, 320GB) and Samsung HM160HC are the best mechanical drives, but I wouldn't spend more than $60 for the 160GB varieties. I own both the Samsung HM160HC and WD Blue 320GB. The Blue is ever so slightly faster with one ms faster access time and benches generally 2-5% faster than the Samsung, but the Samsung is nearly silent.

I also own the Transcend 32 GB IDE SSD with the fixed Jmicron controller and highly recommend it if you plan on keeping the laptop for more than a year. Performance is awesome, but it'll cost you about $120 on the web or about $90 on ebay.

Your other option is a SATA to PATA adapter in your CD-ROM drive. The cost can be the same as an IDE SSD, but your SATA SSD choices are much wider. Performance will still be capped at PATA speeds, but it's plenty. Check notebookreview forums for recommended enclosures. By going this route, you can buy a USB CD-ROM enclosure for cheap on ebay for your decommissioned CD-ROM drive.

Best of luck.
 
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thanks all for reply.
RunCore is kinda unknown brand to me and speed wise is slow for the price - IMHO
unless some mistake in read/write speed that is a little faster then 5400 rpm hdd, but way slower then intel 25m for example.
 
You'll have to give up hope of any PATA drive that is as fast as SATA for the same price. Previous tech prices always seem to be that way. The closest you can hope for is the SATA to PATA route.

I've also been watching those RunCores from mydigitaldiscount for a long while. They have been backordered for as long as I've been interested. Same with the Transcend that I recommended. Newegg had some new 2010 versions in stock a month or two ago giving me hope that Transcend will still be making them, but Newegg hasn't stocked any since.
 
mikek753 said:
thanks all for reply.
RunCore is kinda unknown brand to me and speed wise is slow for the price - IMHO
unless some mistake in read/write speed that is a little faster then 5400 rpm hdd, but way slower then intel 25m for example.
Click to expand...

unknown, yes. slow...because of BUS limitations.
personally, I'd spend the money on a new computer and forget upgrading an ancient computer
 
pata is a dead end - no NCQ is a huge huge huge loss since ssd can process many reads/writes at the same time - the bus speed limit - well that sucks too.

i could like with 133 bus speed but no NCQ would really steal your sunshine from the ssd experience.
 
RTL is retail box. I think, it's a longer warranty. The 320GB I purchased is retail from Best Buy and it didn't come with anything other than the HDD, box packaging and manual. No screws, no software on CD, nothing.
 
razel said:
This is the same decision I've been making for several friends and myself with older PATA based laptops. The current WD Blue IDE (160GB, 320GB) and Samsung HM160HC are the best mechanical drives, but I wouldn't spend more than $60 for the 160GB varieties. I own both the Samsung HM160HC and WD Blue 320GB. The Blue is ever so slightly faster with one ms faster access time and benches generally 2-5% faster than the Samsung, but the Samsung is nearly silent.

snip
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat looking to replace the OEM drive in my old Asus Z71A laptop. It has an 80Gb ATA100 drive and is nearly full. The laptop, although slow by today's standards, is still functional. So I'm looking for a cheap upgrade to the HD. I'm tempted by the Samsung (~$53 at SuperBiiz, while the WD1600BEVE is ~$65.)

I think they're both single platter designs.

I'm having a hard time deciding between the two.

Any late reports on these drives?
 
you could sell it and get the cheapest wal-mart $299 laptop and throw a $64 ssd in and 8gb of ram ($34/AR) and it would decimate your old laptop 🙂 just sayin'
 
Thanks for the code! $47.99 with shipping made the sale.

I've had good luck thus far with Samsung 3.5 inch drives (320Gb and 2TB drives). I've had bad luck with two WD OS drive failures last year. But WD's customer service is superb.

Each has its appeal, but the price is too good to pass up.

Now the fun begins. While I have my data backed up, it's the program customization and tweaking that takes me forever when I do a reinstall.

It is what it is.
 
Emulex said:
you could sell it and get the cheapest wal-mart $299 laptop and throw a $64 ssd in and 8gb of ram ($34/AR) and it would decimate your old laptop 🙂 just sayin'
Click to expand...

What's the storage on the $64 SSD? I've already run this 80GB drive to 70GB or so.

I run an Intel 80Gb SSD on my desktop and love it. It replaced the two failed WD740ADFD Raptors.

OTOH, your solution becomes $400+ vs the under $50 I just spent. 😉

Would it be helpful if I run an HDTune test before and after? (never used it before, so other than setting it for accuracy, I don't know what other test conditions need to be set.)
 
there in no SSD for PATA
and yes, hdd upgrade vs whole system works when you have spare cash - IMHO
sure it make sense, but ...

So far WD PATA has worked ok
 
mikek753 said:
there in no SSD for PATA
and yes, hdd upgrade vs whole system works when you have spare cash - IMHO
sure it make sense, but ...

So far WD PATA has worked ok
Click to expand...

Actually, there is an SSD for PATA, but it's pretty expensive for what you get.

IAC, the SSD was discussed in regards to getting a new el-cheapo laptop and putting an SSD in it.

I elected to go the sub $50 upgrade the HD route.
 
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