Dell XPS 15 L502x Hard Drive Replacement

Question

Hi All -

the he hard drive on my 2 yr old Dell XPS 15 laptop recently crashed, and I'm currently looking for a replacement. The original hard drive is a 750GB 7200 rpm HDD.

My questions are as follows;

1. This computer is primarily used for gaming/web surfing/media viewing. If I downgraded to a 5400 rpm HDD would I notice a performance decrease? Curious as the best but near me doesn't have any 7200 rpm HDDs on hand!

2. Could I replace the HDD with an SDD? I'm not much of a techie, but have been told these are far superior?

Lastly, is the install process relatively simple if following dells set up guide? As a bit of background on myself, I've replaced video/sound cards and memory on a desktop in the past, however have never performed work on a laptop.

thanks in advance!

ejn63 · Answer

A solid state drive will be appreciably faster than any conventional drive. However, you'll likely have to sacrifice capacity for performance, as larger than 250G SSDs are quite expensive (and even a 250 will be quite a bit more than a conventional drive).

A good compromise if you need the space is a solid state hybrid drive - WD and Seagate both sell these. They have an SSD cache onboard a conventional hard drive. These exist as both 5400 and 7200 rpm units - the 7200 hybrids from Seagate are the Momentus XT models:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591

Installing the drive in this model is easy to do.

BMassey24 · Answer

EJN63 - appreciate the quick response and information provided!

I did a bit of searching, and found a 128GB SSD for $99 (link below). Any idea if this would be compitable with my system?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/q-series-pro-128gb-internal-serial-ata-3-0-solid-state-drive-for-laptops/1783025.p?id=1219063715521&skuId=1783025&st=categoryid$pcmcat201300050005&cp=1&lp=4

BMassey24 · Answer

Thanks for the input! Was thinking the same after I submitted the above post, and did a bit more shopping...

I found another option at 240GB (Intel 530 series). Width is 2.5", however not sure if this is for laptops or desktops (maybe both)? Am I correct to say form format = width?

Link as follows;

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/530-series-240gb-internal-sata-solid-state-drive/1780055.p?id=1219063707409&skuId=1780055&st=categoryid$pcmcat201300050005&cp=1&lp=2

ejn63 · Answer

128G is too small to be the WIndows drive, particularly if it's the only drive in the system.  You need 240-250G minimum for any kind of long-term use.

ejn63 · Answer

2.5' will work with either notebook or desktop.

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Dell XPS 15 L502x Hard Drive Replacement

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