Is laptop HD upgradable on your own? IE from a 4.2K to a 7.2K?

[nanyangview]

Anyone did that on your own before? If lets say your laptop comes with a slow 4.2K drive and you want to upgrade it to a 7.2K but the manufacturer does not have option, can you do it on your own? Where would you go about purchasing a laptop HD?

 

[azazello]

Yes, of course. Keep in mind that laptop HDDs come in two heights: 9.5 and 12 (?) mm. Most new ones are 9.5. They are sold in a huge variety of online shops. The leading manufacturers are IBM/Hitachi and Fujitsu, and there are several runner-ups.

 

[Mday]

I have done so for my laptop (but 4200 to 5400). I used norton ghost to handle everything. I burned the ghost images onto CDRs and made them bootable to restore.

Originally posted by: azazello
Yes, of course. Keep in mind that laptop HDDs come in two heights: 9.5 and 12 (?) mm. Most new ones are 9.5. They are sold in a huge variety of online shops. The leading manufacturers are IBM/Hitachi and Fujitsu, and there are several runner-ups.

This is quite important, as few laptops actually fit a 12.5 mm HDD anymore. also, your laptop may come with some retaining mechanism for mounting the HDD itself into the laptop. so, be sure to know how to put everything back. a quick search in google may come up with the experiences of someone else who has done the upgrade on the laptop. you can find out if the HDD in your laptop is 12.5mm or 9.5mm by opening it up and checking the model unless your OS tells what model it is. then look up the model in google or something.

another thing, this WILL decrease power drain on the battery, so it wont last as long as before. hitachi is the only one that i know of that has announced a 7200 rpm HDD for the laptop.

 

[Black.Lotus]

check Hitachi's datasheets on the 7k60 and the 5k80- you'll notice that, aside from spinup, the power consumption is identical... guess they weren't lying when they said they developed some power reducing technology.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Expect a fair increase in heat production going from 4200 to 7200.

- M4H

 

[BuonaDomenica]

so far I upgraded 3 Sony Vaio SuperSlim Z505 series laptops from 4200 to 5400rpm Hitachi/IBM 40GNX 40GB Hard Drives. You will notice a substantial performance increase and the newer drive seem to be much quieter. So far I have noticed a 15min decrease in battery life with the 5400rpm drives in all three Laptops. The last drive I purchased from Googlegear for $131 shipped. These Laptops are quite old one is a Z505RX PII400Mhz, and the other two are Z505JS PIII650Mhz. They all run Windows XP Pro and I'm quite happy with all the extra space now. The drive does not get realy hot unless I transfer a lot of files over the network. Then I can feel the drive gets warm.

All I can say with the SuperSlim Sony Laptops Hard drive upgrade was a real pain since I had to take the entire Laptop apart. There was no easy access door like on Dell notebooks. If you up to the task I would recommend go for it.

I wonder when the new Hitachi 7K60 7200rpm drives will be available? I read the estimated price will be around $289. I guess I will wait until the price drops.