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Fast Laptop Hard Drives -- Advice?

S

smadavid

Member
Does anyone know where I might be able to find a comparison of laptop hard drives, as far as speed is concerned? I've got an Inspiron 8100 w/ a 30 GB 4200 RPM drive, and I'd consider upgrading to something considerably faster, perhaps a 5400 RPM drive.

Any opinions on which brand is the best quality, and which models have the best performance? Also, any recommendations for the best place on-line to purchase laptop hard drives?

Thanks 🙂
 
Hey,

well, go to ibm's website and look for the travelstar series or just click here Click.
they have 60gb with 5400 rpm, but those are expensive. also, you want to click on the documentation for the hard drive and then click on compatibility to make sure it works with your inspiron... i'm in a similar situation, i have a inspiron 4000 with 20gb, 4200rpm, but lookin to upgrade as well to a bigger hard drive. the 40gb hard drives are only 4200 rpm, but i read that they are coming out with a new travelstar series of 20,30,40 gb capacities running at 5400 rpm.

anyway, i think the 48gb, and 60 gb versions of the travelstar are compatible with your 8100.
 
There are currently two Travelstars in the stores @ 5400 rpm. The 60 GB sells for about $489, and the 48 GB goes for about $379. That's fairly expensive, and a comparative bench test would be interesting to see if the performance on paper justifies the cost in real money.

DCD
 
Thanks for the info! I did a search on Pricewatch, and it seems that I can get the 48 GB Travelstar, 5400 RPM for about $300. Yes, expensive, but it might be worth it. If I get this, perhaps I should do some "before and after" benchmarks. If I do, I'll post 'em up here for everyone to see.

I do have two other questions:

- Where is the best place to sell used components? I've got the original 128 MB of ram that came with the laptop, plus, if I get the new hard drive, I'll be able to sell the old one as well.

- What is the best way to transfer the data on my old drive to the new? I'd rather not re-install everything. I suppose I could use Norton Ghost, but I'd rather not have to spend any more than I am already 🙂 I do have a copy of Partition Magic 5, but I don't know how I'd connect both drives to the system at the same time to do the transfer.

Thanks again,
Dave
 
the new toshiba's coming out are 5400rpm 9.5mm and 16mb cache. the ibms' are all 12.5mm so they dont work in a lot of machines (it'll work in the 8100 though) and only 2mb cache
 
I have 48Gb Travelstar in my Thinkpad and I'll be more than happy to benchmark it if anyone is interested.
 
Does anyone know when the new Toshiba's are coming out? I might wait if it will be relatively soon.

Andrey, how is the IBM drive for noise? Is it relatively quite? If you don't mind posting that benchmark, I'd appreciate it. I'll benchmark my drive for a comparison.

Thanks,
Dave
 
My IBM Travelstar is very quite and it actually seems that fans make more noise inside of my laptop than the hard drive itself 🙂

Which utility should I use to benchmark the drive? Will HDTach work for everyone who's interested in the score?
 
Ok, here is the screenshot from HD Tach using Windows XP Professional
IBM Travelstar 48GB HD Tach Scores

Random Access Time: 15.5 ms

Read Burst Speed:
Read Speed -- maximum 22188.0 kps
Read Speed -- minimum 12848.0 kps
Read Speed -- average 18489.3 kps

CPU Utilization: 2.4%
 
Thanks for the benchmarks! I won't have my laptop with me for a couple more days to run a test on the 4200 RPM drive, but if anyone else has one, perhaps you could post the results sooner.

I just placed an order for the IBM 48GH. $334 from CDW. There was another place cheaper, Googlegear for $311, but I've heard bad things about their service. Plus I was able to get next afternoon shipment from CDW for $10.

Any advice on how to transfer the information from the old drive to the new one? I've heard there are adaptors to connect 'em to a desktop PC, where the transfer would be easy with Partition Magic... anyone know where they can be found? I've been looking all afternoon, but no luck.

Thanks again everyone.
 
Finally found the adapter at a number of places. I was spelling adapter wrong 🙂 But I picked up a couple at computer geeks for a nice price.
 
Seems like you've discovered that you can transfer the files using a desktop computer and drive adapters. Most of the Manufacturers' utility disks have a drive copy feature-slow, but it works- check the IBM site for their free downloadable utility. Seagate advertises that their utility will work on any brand of drive, haven't tried it.
 
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