Laptop HDD Replacement Advice Wanted

Delboy101

Hi,

I'm looking at replacing my old laptop hard disk with something larger but can't seem to identify a suitable drive. The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A30-714 and has a 40GB 4200rpm IDE drive. I realise that I can't just use the largest drive available but I've seen (unsubstantiated) comments that this machine can't use anything larger than 60/80GB and other comments from those who claim to have fitted much larger drives.

If I have to, I will settle for 80GB but, as the cost of larger drives is very little extra and this is likely to be the only hard drive upgrade for this ageing machine, I thought it worth going to a reasonably large disk.

I was looking at this 120GB Hitachi drive from PCWorld:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/152051

Hard Drive Capacity 120GB Interface ATA-7 Spindle Speed 5400 rpm Buffer Cache 8 MB Average Seek Time (read) 11 ms Avarage Latency 5.5 ms Discs/Heads 2/4 Bytes per Sector 512

Could any of you more knowledgeable souls let me know if you think this would be okay to fit?

Many thanks
Derek

aerostar

Your laptop seems to be quite modern, so there should be no reason why you cannot use the one you found. Have yet to find anywhere that says you cannot have bigger than 80GB in it.

Delboy101

aerostar wrote: »

Your laptop seems to be quite modern, so there should be no reason why you cannot use the one you found. Have yet to find anywhere that says you cannot have bigger than 80GB in it.

It's all relative I suppose! - It's 5 years old but still manages quite well with what I ask of it.

The comments about being limited to 80GB seem to be based on the largest size drives that it was originally available with, although I found some discussion [which I don't fully understand] regarding addressing limitations due to not having "48 bit logical block addressing" .

Thanks
Derek

Delboy101

loaner wrote: »

That particular brand of disk aren't the most reliable.

If it doesn't work, you could always stick it in a usb caddy

Hmm, that isn't the best news I could have hoped for.

Do you know an equivalent with a better reputation I should be looking for?

Thanks
Derek

fwor

Delboy101 wrote: »

The comments about being limited to 80GB seem to be based on the largest size drives that it was originally available with, although I found some discussion [which I don't fully understand] regarding addressing limitations due to not having "48 bit logical block addressing"

The thing that may be causing confusion here is a limitation in the original release of WinXP, which had the constraint that you mention, and couldn't address a HDD larger than 137Gb IIRC. However, SP1 included a patch to overcome that limit.

loaner may be right about Hitachi drives, but in general most people's views on reliability of individual makes is based on failures of drives that are several years old, which may or may not be relevant to what you would be buying today.

isofa

I'm sure fwor is correct. Unless there is something specific in the laptop firmware which won't allow a larger drive, I'd say it's unlikely as it's a "modern" laptop. A quick check of the Toshiba website and a call or e-mail to their support should give you a definitive answer.

Try Scan for more products: http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-18-41-0

You can get a 120Gb Samsung Spinpoint for virtually the same price as the PC World one. (PS PATA is the same as IDE)

or Dabs.

PS The only drive I've ever had fail was an IBM(?) TravelStar in a Dell laptop, and I've had a lot of computers over the years.

TBH for everyone you'll find having a drive lasting forever, another with than brand will have experienced a failure, HDs do fail more in laptops generally for obvious reasons.

Delboy101

loaner wrote: »

Difficult to advise, because all disk are prone to failure, particularly with high densities.

If it were my choice, I'd get Seagate/Samsung/Western Digital over anything with "star" in the title.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar_75GXP

Thanks Loaner - that page doesn't inspire confidence. I'm minded to go with either of the Seagate/WD drives from the link isofa provided.

almillar

The Deskstar thing is ancient history, and ruined a reputation. Apart from that, IBM/Hitachi drives are one of the best brands out there, though there isn't really such a thing as a bad brand with hard drives IMO. I've had 2 Maxtors fail, so I personally don't use them, but I'm not gonna tell the whole world to avoid them. The only realistic limitation has been mentioned above, old Windows XP had it, your laptop may have it, that's the 48-bit addressing (that simply means the bit of your laptop that talks to the hard drive can only count up to 137gb). IF your laptop has this limit (and we haven't confirmed that) there may be a BIOS update to fix it, check Toshiba's website, but even if you're stuck with the limit, if you put a bigger drive in, you'll only see 137gb. No harm done, and perfectly usable.

totalsolutions

With almillar all the way
Get Hitachi /IBM , Samsung, I tend to steer away from seagate, maxtor, WD

isofa

totalsolutions wrote: »

With almillar all the way
Get Hitachi /IBM , Samsung, I tend to steer away from seagate, maxtor, WD

Any reason?

I've used all the three brands you've mentioned since the early 1990s with no issue at all, I've 10 year old Macs running fine with Maxtors and Seagates. Equally PCs fine with Samsungs.

Have several older WD externals which are very reliable.

As someone in IT, like many of us here, I get through a lot of systems

All drives will fail from time to time regardless of brand. As I said earlier, as soon as one person recommends a brand, another will point out a failure they have had.

almillar

Yes isofa, that was kinda my point, I've had 2 bad Maxtors, but don't generally tell people not to buy them. Most brands are the same, but I just wanted to save Hitachi's reputation, as people are putting them down for a fault with a 10 yr old IBM desktop hard drive, which has zero relevance to today's laptop HDDs.