Replacing a laptop hard drive - can anyone help please?

brophs

Hi,

My laptop hard drive is acting up. I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 and the hard drive is a Western Digital WD3200BEVT-75ZCT2. The spec are as follows:

Product Identifiers
Brand	Western Digital
Model	Scorpio Blue
MPN	WD3200BEVT
UPC	0007156632130, 0102645902111, 0715663213017, 0718037727387, 102646017678, 4005922211998, 4016138479393, 4043023632007, 5051964116561, 715663213017, 718037727387, 718037730080, 890552607808

Key Features
Enclosure	Internal
Capacity	320 GB
Buffer Size	8 MB
Hard Drive Type	HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
Spindle Speed	5400 RPM
Interface	SATA II, SATA III
Designation	Laptop Computer

Technical Features
Platform	PC
External Data Transfer Rate	300 Mbps
Form Factor	2.5"
Seek Time	12 ms
Sound Emission	24 dB
Hot Swap	Yes

Dimensions
Height	0.37 in.
Width	2.75 in.
Depth	3.94 in.
Weight	0.26 lbs

I'm only a basic user so if I wanted to slightly upgrade, say to 500GB, do I have to match up things like RPM, Buffer Size etc.? Or can I 'upgrade' those for better performance? Obviously I know that it has to be the same physical size, SATA etc.

Thanks in advance.

Shzm

If it was me I'd probably just look to replace it with a SSD, unless you absolutely need so much storage internally in your laptop.

Torqay

Shzm wrote: »

If it was me I'd probably just look to replace it with a SSD, unless you absolutely need so much storage internally in your laptop.

Amen to that.

OP, if you really want improved performance (and robustness), get a solid state disk (128 GB = ~€80). But you'll have to compromise on disk space

johneire31

no you dont, simply get a sata 2.5 inch drive and replace it, partition it if needed, install the windows operating system back on it, get an internet connection going and go to the dell website and download your device drivers and install them, put your programs back on it, put antivirus on and your basically done. If you don't have Windows reinstalling/installing discs then you are in a bit of bother

Overheal

To answer the primary question OP: You can supply any 2.5" SATA drive you like. It can be Traditional Hard Drive, Solid State, or Hybrid, with any level of cache you want. All of that information is independent from the PC - the drive's Controller is what communicates to the PC. The only difference is how older operating systems handle SSDs, which is tweakable.

For a system that age, I would get an SSD, it will make the unit scream like a new baby unicorn and when the rest of the unit inevitably dies because the baby unicorn is made from the broken legs of a zebra, you can recycle the SSD into a new build.

unkel

Overheal wrote: »

I would get an SSD, it will make the unit scream like a new baby unicorn

Vid or GTFO

Freddy Smelly

Torqay wrote: »

Amen to that.

OP, if you really want improved performance (and robustness), get a solid state disk (128 GB = ~€80). But you'll have to compromise on disk space

i agree with torqay, an ssd drive in a laptop will greatly improve battery life as the spinning drives eat battery life but ssd drives use far less power.

RodgersLFC

For a regular user, there's no need to really worry about buffer size and disk speed. If you want improved performance, get an SSD. 128gb ones are quite cheap now, you'll have reduced storage but you only need large drives if you've got a large amount of photos or music/TV. You can always store these on an external HDD anyway.

Freddy Smelly

RodgersLFC wrote: »

For a regular user, there's no need to really worry about buffer size and disk speed. If you want improved performance, get an SSD. 128gb ones are quite cheap now, you'll have reduced storage but you only need large drives if you've got a large amount of photos or music/TV. You can always store these on an external HDD anyway.

soon we will have e coli hard drives

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/biostorage-scheme-turns-e-coli-bacteria-data-storing-hard-drives


it could be a money spinner for the hse... plenty of e coli in those hospitals... sell them to the chinese e coli hard drive manufacturers lol

paradisepaddy

SSDs are too over priced for little space for basic user. £76 on amazon for 500GB solid state hybrid.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-ST95005620AS-7200rpm-Internal/dp/B003V6AIWU

Clone your drive and swap them over (make sure you have repair disk to fix boot problems). I done this last night and can't believe the speed increase with all my programs photos videos music etc still perfectly intact.

PP

Freddy Smelly

paradisepaddy wrote: »

SSDs are too over priced for little space for basic user. £76 on amazon for 500GB solid state hybrid.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Momentus-ST95005620AS-7200rpm-Internal/dp/B003V6AIWU

Clone your drive and swap them over (make sure you have repair disk to fix boot problems). I done this last night and can't believe the speed increase with all my programs photos videos music etc still perfectly intact.

PP

128gb is decent for most laptops... store music/videos on an external drive.

paradisepaddy

without a doubt Freddy. For most i'm sure this is tons of space. Just personally i'm not sold on SSDs yet...


Edit... that was wrong link. same product but cheaper I paid for it. £61.95

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005EEZ0H0/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Torqay

paradisepaddy wrote: »

Just personally i'm not sold on SSDs yet...

You can't beat solid state drives, not in terms of speed and most certainly not in terms of robustness, which is particularly important for laptops as they are far more accident-prone than a stationary desktop PC.

Hybrids clearly improve the performance but you're still left with a fragile platter hard disk.

For anyone having to replace their laptop hard disk drive (which usually happens because it was bumped or crashed), a solid state drive is the natural choice, unless they need a vast amount of disk space and find an external hard disk drive somewhat inconvenient.