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Hard drive too good to be true?
I have been looking at upgrading my Inspiron 5100 hard drive for some time now. Its only 30gb and its pretty much full, which is contributing to my laptop being slow and sluggish all the time.
I have been looking at getting a new hard drive and came across this one
toshiba mk1032gax
A 100gb hd, running at 5400rpm and with a 16mb cache, all for only £80.
http://www.pricegrabber.co.uk/search_getprod.php?masterid=16840816&search=toshiba+mk1032gax
Now presumbing it works in the inspiron, I think this is a really good deal, does anyone else have any experience or suggestions of if I should go ahead and purchase this?
I have been looking at getting a new hard drive and came across this one
toshiba mk1032gax
A 100gb hd, running at 5400rpm and with a 16mb cache, all for only £80.
http://www.pricegrabber.co.uk/search_getprod.php?masterid=16840816&search=toshiba+mk1032gax
Now presumbing it works in the inspiron, I think this is a really good deal, does anyone else have any experience or suggestions of if I should go ahead and purchase this?
Jakpro
340 Posts
0
May 20th, 2006 17:00
I don't know how much they are in UK, but I did better on a Hitachi 7200 RPM drive which runs smoothly, cool, and quiet.
You might check New Egg or Buy.com, but I don't know who will ship overseas. You really only need the correct form factor size to install it, most of them will work. The increase in speed from 4200 or 5400 to 7200 RPM is worth the small price increase.
jothemango
109 Posts
0
May 20th, 2006 22:00
From personal experience and some limited research I believe the Toshibas to be a little unpredictable. I had one in my i8200 which only lasted just over a year and would not buy another. The one I have like the most is my Samsung Spinpoint 80Gb 5400rpm because it is very responsive and extremely quiet.
I have a direct comparison on noise level in my machine because I have a second HDD in the Media Bay which is an Hitachi 40Gb 54000rpm and is considerably noisier.
The Samsung is on offer at PCWorld and if you order online and then collect, you will save a further £10.
I hope this helps.
Barry
hotnuts21
9 Posts
0
May 21st, 2006 13:00
7200rpm or a 16mb Buffer?
For the size I want which is 100gb minimum, all the 7200 drives are 8mb and all the 16mb drives are 4200 or 5200.
Thoughts?
rwm32
557 Posts
0
May 24th, 2006 12:00
I have just ugraded from a 30Gb / 4200 Hitachi drive to the 60Gb 7200 (7K60) with 8Mb buffer. You can get this in the UK for close to GBP 80 (inc VAT) plus P&P if you shop around.
Once the acoustic control is enabled (for which you need the Feature Tool download from Hitachi), the 7K60 is very nearly as quiet as the old 4200 disk. Performance improvement is -- well, it's like having a new machine.
My suggestion would be that the faster performance of the 7200 significantly outweighs the advantage of a 16Mb buffer. Unless you're constantly loading / reading / writing seriously large files, is a 16Mb buffer going to make much difference? By contrast, the 7200's performance makes a difference to all I/O.
Hope this helps.
Message Edited by rwm32 on 05-24-200608:22 AM
jothemango
109 Posts
0
May 24th, 2006 15:00
An interesting read because these are the laptop drives around at the moment for the keenest prices.
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2004/12/13/nine_notebook_hard_drives_make_their_debuts/index.html
Enjoy
Barry
rwm32
557 Posts
0
May 24th, 2006 18:00
Hmm. I wonder if the slightly cheaper one is in fact simply old (non-RoHS-compliant) stock. You could try having a look at the Hitachi Global Storage website and hunt for the difference:
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.368c8bfe833dee8056fb11f0aac4f0a0
Good luck!
Rom
PS you can also download the Feature Tool from this site.
Message Edited by rwm32 on 05-24-200602:36 PM
hotnuts21
9 Posts
0
May 24th, 2006 18:00
I really like the look and sound of this hard drive, the slightly expensive one.
http://www.dabs.com/compare.aspx?&ql=3VNK&ql=3XCB&NavigationKey=4294960494,364110000,367650000,4294960493&CategorySelectedId=11154
hotnuts21
9 Posts
0
May 24th, 2006 19:00
One point I did think of, is will the SATA drive work in my inspiron 5100??
i will look at that link many thanks :D