Upgrading laptop hard drive

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I’d like to upgrade the hard drive in my Compaq Evo 600 laptop from a 30 gig to an 80. I’ve found some on eBay, but something I’m seeing in the specs has me nervous. They mention its RPM capacity, but notes that it has power specifications similar to a slower drive.

Power specifications – is that something I need to be concerned about – i.e., that the power supply might not be able to support some hard drives?

I can’t find any info in the manual on the stock 30 gig hard drive I’m using, except that “Any 9.5 mm hard drive can be used in the hard drive bay.”

Here are the features for a 7500 RPM drive. Below it are the features for a 5400 RPM drive. I assume the 7500 PRM unit is better, but being an audio guy, I have no idea what any of this stuff means. Hopefully some of you can decipher some of it for me.

• Enhanced Adaptive Battery Life Extender 3.0 for maximized battery life
• Low Power: Spins at 7500 RPM for fast performance but has power specifications similar to slower 5400 RPM drives
• Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor for lower acoustics and increased non-operating shock tolerance
• Ultra Quiet : Advanced noise reduction using a Voice Coil Motor (VCM) Damper
• S.M.A.R.T. compliant detection system that gives advanced warning of possible drive inconsistencies
• Stiffness-reinforced base casting construction offers enhanced stability and greater vibration/shock resistance
• Antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) "pixie dust" media
• Specular Layer giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads
• Ramp Head Load/Unload technology
• Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) read channel
• Adaptive Formatting

• Enhanced Adaptive Battery Life Extender 3.0 for maximized battery life
• Low Power: Spins at 5400 RPM for fast performance but has power specifications similar to slower 4200 RPM drives
• Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor for lower acoustics and increased non-operating shock tolerance
• Ultra Quiet : Advanced noise reduction using a Voice Coil Motor (VCM) Damper
• S.M.A.R.T. compliant detection system that gives advanced warning of possible drive inconsistencies
• Stiffness-reinforced base casting construction offers enhanced stability and greater vibration/shock resistance Antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) "pixie dust" media
• Specular Layer giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads
• Ramp Head Load/Unload technology
• Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) read channel
• Adaptive Formatting

Regards,
Wayne

[Otto]

Hi Wayne,

The power specification is normally intended toward those that want to maximize battery life -- the less power used, the longer the batter will last. If you're like me and leave your laptop plugged in pretty much 24/7, you won't care about power specs. If you fly a lot and want to watch DVDs on the plane, you will be more senstitive to power requirements.

The higher spin rate of the drive, the faster you will be able to read the data from the media (all else being equal). If you are performance sensitive (opening large files, can't wait for XP to boot, etc.) you'll want as high a spin speed as you can find/afford. For many people, it won't make that much difference. I primarily use my laptops for web browsing and remote desktoping, so performance isn't critical for me. If you are opening large files and/or file swapping a lot, performance might be more important for you.

As far as the power spec relating to the concept that your laptop won't be able to apply enough power to it to allow it to work properly, I don't think you should worry about it. All the power stuff that I've dealt with is always related to power savings for battery life. Your laptop should have no problem powering a 7200 (or 7500) or 5400 RPM drive.

The only thing I would worry about in this case is heat. It's one of those weird things that could cause problems that would be intermittent and nebulous to describe. The 7200 RPM drive will almost surely generate more heat (it's spinning faster) and that could cause trouble in your system if it's on the edge of being too warm already. Now, I've replaced two 5400 drives with 7200 RPM drives (two different Toshiba Satellite laptops) and haven't had any troubles with heat.

FWIW, I would very much suspect that your original drive is a 5400 RPM drive.

All the other features don't make a lot of difference to most end users. For the past eight years, I've worked for either of the two major hard drive companies, and I find that many of the features and performance enhancements are for our customers rather than the end users. Sure, there are gamers, high end users and companies that really need everything that can be offered, but for the average user, the highest performing drives aren't really necessary.

If I guess right, you'll be just fine with a relatively current, 5400 RPM drive. It will be adequate and reasonably priced.

Anyway, that's my tak e on the subject.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the great info, Otto! There’s only $10-12 difference between the two, so I’ll probably get the fast one.

Regards,
Wayne

[basementjack]

Wayne - there are 2 interfaces for Laptop drives - P-ATA and S-ATA
Sata drives have shown up in newer laptops - if you search tiger.com or newegg.com you'll see laptop drives of both varieties.

Be sure to pick up the one you have now.

A new laptop drive is one of the best ways to speed up your laptop!

It might even be worth looking for laptop drive reviews on the internet - storagereview.com might be one place to check - tomshardware.com might be another.

aside from the internal drive, you could also add an external.

There are small USB powered external drives (they are usually 2.5" laptop drives in an enclosure)
there are also larger external drives that require the use of the included power adapter.

one relatively new category of external drive is one with an e-sata interface.
Sata is the most common interface on new PC's, and Esata basically lets you connect a hard drive to your PC, with no loss in drive speed (USB is slower than most hard drives, hence the need for something like e-sata)
I have seen Laptop PCcards with E-sata ports (PCCards used to be known as PCMCIA cards way back when)

- Jack

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks, Jack. I don’t know how old this laptop is, I figure at least 3-4 years. So I doubt it’s a Sata?

The eBay vendor doesn’t specify which kind it is, but I assume that since it’s model-specific for mine, it’s the right kind?

Regards,
Wayne

[Otto]

Hi Wayne, guys,

Yeah, it's probably not SATA at that age. You can certainly tell if you open it up, and that shouldn't be hard -- they're usually just behind a panel on the bottom in some way or another. If the eBay vendor doesn't specify, I'd ask him just to be sure.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

An update, I got the 80-gig high speed hard and it's installed and up and running great. Thanks everyone for the guidance.

Regards,
Wayne