internal 7200rpm notebook drive flies!!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 10:18 pm

Hi

I've installed a 60gb 7200rpm internal drive in my laptop and it absolutely flies now, even just things like booting up and other normal windows stuff, opening apps etc - it's now clear how much my system was waiting for my hard drive!

Highly recommend it for audio! (more so than an external drive because your OS and apps are still being accessed from the internal SLOW laptop drive)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 10:27 pm

how much, where did you get it , and did you install yourself or have someone do it.

regarding external. are you saying that external firewire, usb 2.0 drives
are still slow and being accessed by a slow internal drive???
please explain a little.

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 11:01 pm

Chris Ochre · Post by **Chris Ochre** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:25 am

How quiet is it? Does it vibrate the laptop at all? I've been checking out the 7k60, but I can't find too much info about the actually aesthetics of the drive in use.

Buleriachk · Post by **Buleriachk** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:44 am

I agree. I upgraded my Toshiba Satellite from a 5400 to a 7200 laptop drive, and what a difference!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 2:53 am

Where do you get the drive (and what type) for the toshiba--I think I want one for my satelite 2430.

Thanks

Buleriachk · Post by **Buleriachk** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:04 am

As I remember, it was www.harddrive.com.
But they are pretty standard (9.5 cm)? drives by now, and easy to replace, especially with a unit like EZ-gig.

Chuck

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 9:43 am

Anonymous wrote:how much, where did you get it , and did you install yourself or have someone do it.

regarding external. are you saying that external firewire, usb 2.0 drives
are still slow and being accessed by a slow internal drive???
please explain a little.

The Hitachi 60gb drive (which as far as I know is the only one around at the moment) cost me £150 UKpounds (200-300 USD?)

I did it my self and it was straight forward once i figured out how, powerbooks are usually dead easy with a catch on the keyboard or in the battery compartment which you pull and the keyboard flips up and it's right there,

PC notebooks vary and I spent a whole morning after undoing the screws on the bottom trying to figure out how it came off before I realised the panel in between the LCD and keyboard could be prised off easily and under it where the screws for the keyboard which then flipped up like a powerbook and gave me access to the HD. It then just sat in a caddy which pulls out and you just take it out of the caddy and put in the new one.

To upgrade the ram I then had to undo more screws and take the bottom off to get to the ram chips , but it was all do-able. The keyboard, trackpad and powerbuttons all have these flat plastic cables that connect them to the motherboard which popped and and scared me before I realised that they easily slot back in, I just had to undo a clip and do it up.

Some laptops, Like IBM thinkpads are even easier

The only thing to be aware of is some manufacturers consider their warranty void if you do this yourself.

Overall if you know how it's about 30 mins work all up and well worth it.

The drive is not noticably louder and performance of the PC is DRAMATICALLY improved and I was doing all my audio from an external FW drive, but it's now clear how much difference it makes having a fast internal drive too.

If you're in the UK http://www.dabs.com does them for £150

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 11:25 pm

excuse my idiocy, but if replacing the internal C drive, does one have to back everything up and install the OS on the new internal drive, and then re-install all of the programs on the new drive... That would be a pain, but it sounds like 7,200 vs. 4,800 for the drive running my applications would indeed make a difference in performance, even though I already have my audio files on a 7,200 ext fw drive. Or would the difference really be that much, anyone? (P4 2.4 xp pc gig ram)

Ryan

drush · Post by **drush** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 1:11 am

Anonymous wrote:if replacing the internal C drive, does one have to back everything up and install the OS on the new internal drive, and then re-install all of the programs on the new drive.

yes

Anonymous wrote:That would be a pain, but it sounds like 7,200 vs. 4,800 for the drive running my applications would indeed make a difference in performance, even though I already have my audio files on a 7,200 ext fw drive. Or would the difference really be that much, anyone? (P4 2.4 xp pc gig ram)

can't give you numbers but yes, it would be that much

montrealbreaks · Post by **montrealbreaks** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 1:32 am

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 2:14 am

without a doubt on the two-drive tip, MB. With my setup I max out at recording about 8-10 tracks of 24/48 audio at once on just the internal 4,800 RPM C drive for both Live and audio files. When I use my external 7,200 RPM fw drive, I can record at least 16 tracks of 24/48 at lowest latency on the RME at once, haven't needed to try more, but I suspect it can do it. Especially for sets with long audio files (or lots of them, like my 40 gig studio album set for one of my bands), having an external drive for the audio files is almost a must. judging from my experince there, I had to assume that the internal drive change would indeed make things like vst effects and overall zippyness even more smooth. I guess I'm kind of greedy, it works great already, but it could be better...the grass is always greener. Maybe I'll save that money for the new notebook I'll surely buy in 2-3 years when this one is considered a relic.

Ryan

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 2:16 pm

a lot of people don't understand the importance of hard drive speed. working in audio you should never settle for anything under 7200rpm. In my studio, I have 4 7200rpm drives all with 8mb cache. 1 is the system drive, 1 is the audio drive, 1 is the bounce to disk drive, and the other is the swap file. I have an athlon 64 3000+ with 1.5gb of ram. the computer has yet to fail a task I throw at it. Some things like this are impossible on a notebook. So your better off buying the fastest possible drive since your using it for everything in and out of your computer. make the upgrade to a 7200rpm drive, I guarentee you will notice a difference instantly. I can't recommend it enough.

Chris Ochre · Post by **Chris Ochre** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:00 pm

Anonymous wrote:excuse my idiocy, but if replacing the internal C drive, does one have to back everything up and install the OS on the new internal drive, and then re-install all of the programs on the new drive... That would be a pain, but it sounds like 7,200 vs. 4,800 for the drive running my applications would indeed make a difference in performance, even though I already have my audio files on a 7,200 ext fw drive. Or would the difference really be that much, anyone? (P4 2.4 xp pc gig ram)

Ryan

Actually, you wouldn't necessarily have to reinstall. If you have something like Partition Magic simply copy the partition(s) from the old drive to the new, resizing partitions as necessary according to drive size difference.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:37 pm

Anonymous wrote:excuse my idiocy, but if replacing the internal C drive, does one have to back everything up and install the OS on the new internal drive, and then re-install all of the programs on the new drive... That would be a pain, but it sounds like 7,200 vs. 4,800 for the drive running my applications would indeed make a difference in performance, even though I already have my audio files on a 7,200 ext fw drive. Or would the difference really be that much, anyone? (P4 2.4 xp pc gig ram)

Ryan

I used Norton Ghost which came with my iomega external drive - it can take a few hours all up, (stick it on and go out or whatever it just ticks over) but allows you to completely clone your hard drive so that all you need to do is stick the new one in and it goes - you will need to re-authorise alot of your software though as the hardware config has changed, but that's not a major drama

and with the gig of ram I just stuck in it's like a new machine - well worth it