Hard drive upgrade for laptop

[BG4533]

My laptop is an old Gateway Solo 5300. It has an 850MHz P3 processor, 384MB RAM, and a 20GB 4200RPM HD w/2MB cache. I would love a new laptop, but I never really use this one. This one only really sees use when I am visiting the family for holidays and stuff. Also when I have the occasional problem with my main desktop. The laptop dual boots Debian and XP and that takes a lot of my available space.

I want to replace the HD with a faster and larger but still cheap model. I doubt it is worth putting a 7200RPM drive in this laptop. I am looking at the Toshiba MK4026GAX from Newegg for $72 shipped right now. It is 40GB 5400RPM w/16MB cache. Is this drive a decent choice or is there anything better for a similar price I should consider? Will I experience any heat or power problems from a faster and larger HD?

I am hoping the HD will give a bit of new life to the laptop. It takes a while to boot up and programs take a long time to load. Things are adequate once started up though.

 

[BG4533]

On second thought maybe I will pick up a new cheap Dell laptop for $400 or so. The battery on my laptop has been dead for a while.

 

[Vegito]

u probably need more memory to make it run better...

 

[Vegito]

better idea.. if ur getting those dells.. u can probably sell this for like 150-200

 

[obeseotron]

The hard drive will make a major difference because you have a relatively low amount of RAM and a fair amount of swapping will go on with XP. I actually got the same HD when my mother's laptop HD died and certainly have no complaints. It didn't seem terribly snappy to me but I use a 2 drive RAID0 array (2x7200RPM 16MB Cache 300GB Maxline III) on my desktop. Don't get a 7200RPM laptop drive if the laptop didn't come with one, they fail a lot in my experience, possibly because of increased heat and power in designs not meant to accomodate them.

 

[BG4533]

I doubt I will add more RAM. The system has 2 slots, currently filled with a 256MB chip and 128MB chip. The system can only handle up to 512MB of PC100. A 256MB chip will cost ~$80 and I will only gain 128MB of memory. I doubt it is worth it. Besides, the system is really only used for web browsing, email and music.

 

[corkyg]

I had a Solo 9300cx. It came with a 20GB drive. I upgraded to a 40GB drive - no problem. Then I tried a 60 GB 7200 rpm drive - problem. The drive LED no longer worked. I put the 40/5400 back in and all was cool. Gave the whole thing to my son after 2 years when I replaced the Gateway with a HP.

 

[Vegito]

If you're going to keep the drive, read this 4.2k/5.2k/7.2k review

http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=1