A lot of folks are unaware of the ease with which a laptop hard drive upgrade can be performed and, because of that, they might get rid of a perfectly good laptop, thinking its obsolete, years before its useful life is over. The most common reasons cited for apparent obsolescence are insufficient space on the hard drive, insufficient memory (RAM), and insufficient CPU speed. In the first two cases, hard drive and memory, relatively simple low cost upgrades can prolong the life of a laptop. This section focuses on upgrading the hard disk drive installed in a laptop. Armed with a little information, a screwdriver and a couple hundred bucks a laptop hard drive upgrade can be accomplished with relative ease.
Assuming your laptop was manufactured after 1997 and/or currently employs a 3.0GB or larger hard disk drive; your laptop hard drive upgrade choices are, essentially, unfettered and unlimited. With few exceptions, and all those pertain to laptops manufactured prior to 1997, laptop hard drives utilize a 9.5mm hard drive height. Likewise, laptop hard drive mounting hole patterns are standardized with the screw holes located 3 inches apart on the long side. The screw holes are used for mounting the bare hard drive to the hard drive caddy with eight screws; four on the bottom and two on each long side.
Laptop Hard Drive Choices
Since laptop hard drives are not proprietary to any laptop manufacturer; any laptop hard drive will work in any laptop. Almost. While nearly all laptops incorporate 2.5" mobile hard disk drives there are a few ultra-portable laptops that use 1.8" drives. Three or four more things to consider when shopping for your new hard drive include:
- Capacity: Not all laptops, due to BIOS or Operating System limitations, can take advantage of hard drive capacities in excess of 80 GB. In order to access the full capacity of an ATA interface hard drive, for example, with a capacity greater than 137GB, and properly support 48-bit logical block addressing, a minimum operating system configuration of Windows XP (Service Pack 1) or Windows 2000 (SP 4) is required.
- Speed: Laptop hard drives are currently available with the following spindle speeds:
- 4200 RPM: The spindle speed most commonly found in older laptops. Since it takes less power to turn the platter at this slower speed; battery life is extended.
- 5400 RPM: Most of the newer 5400 RPM disks provide a boost in performance with very little, if any, reduction in battery life. If both performance and long battery life are of importance to you then chances are good that a 5400 RPM hard drive will suit your needs.
- 7200 RPM: High-performance; but with a sacrifice in battery life. Even at truck stops I'm usually able to plug-in so battery life isn't the most important issue; at least for me. High-performance, though, generally equates into higher cost so I've not opted to upgrade my laptop hard drive to a 7200 RPM speed and power burner.
- Interface: Most laptop hard disk drives use an ATA (IDE, EIDE) interface while fewer, and mostly newer, laptops might be set up to use a Serial ATA (SATA) interface. Your laptop will be equipped with one or the other. ATA and SATA laptop hard drives are NOT interchangeable.
- Buffer: The Buffer Cache is a temporary data storage area used to enhance drive performance. When data's requested from the hard drive the buffer cache is checked first since it's a lot faster to retrieve it from the cache than the drive. Most laptop hard drives incorporate 8MB buffers. Some, however, are limited to 4MB while still others may offer a 16MB cache.
There are quite a few great places to shop for laptop hard drives including the following:
- TigerDirect
: I've bought quite a lot of equipment from TigerDirect and I've yet to be disappointed with the price or the service.
- Drive Solutions, Inc.: This is an outstanding site; good information, service, selection and price.
- NewEgg.com
: One of the premier discount computer equipment retailers on the web.
- Toshiba: High-quality laptop hard drives; direct from the manufacturer.
Transferring Data From the Old Drive to the New Drive
So...now you've got to get the files and programs, including the operating system, currently stored on your old laptop hard drive transferred to the new drive. There are actually quite a few ways to accomplish this task.
...Using a Desktop PC
One method of transferring data requires the use of a desktop PC and is performed, roughly, in the following way:
First - the old laptop drive is removed and connected to an open ATA/IDE channel on the desktop; using an adapter (I've never tried this with a SATA drive but, I assume, the method would be the same). Second - an image of the drive is created, using a utility like Norton Ghost, and stored on the desktop's hard drive. Third - the desktop is shut down, the old laptop drive is removed, the new laptop drive is installed in its place, the desktop is rebooted, and the image stored on the desktop hard drive is transferred onto the new drive. You might think, by the way I've described this method, that I don't think much of it; you might be right.
...Using an External Hard Drive
Another method, one that's preferred by many, involves the use of an external hard drive and a back-up utility. Some who prefer this method recommend it to those whose current laptop hard drive is failing or those who'd like to do a clean install of a new operating system. Rather than enumerate the steps on my web site I'll direct you to another site; one that,in any case, you'd do well to familiarize yourself with: Ask Leo!
...Using My Favorite Method
Apricorn, in my opinion, has come up with one of the best overall data transfer solutions. The Universal EZ Hard Disk Drive Upgrade Kit For All Laptop Computers makes short work of a task that formerly took hours of intensive labor. Without going into a lot of detail here, take a look (really...take a look) at an article entitled "Easily Boost Your Laptop's Performance". After reading the article I think you'll agree that transferring data, when performing a laptop hard drive upgrade, can be done quite easily. One of the biggest advantages to using the Apricorn EZ Hard Drive Upgrade Kit
is that you can then use your old laptop hard drive, in the Apricorn Hard Drive Enclosure, as an external hard drive.
By the way, Apricorn also makes a kit for upgrading SATA drives and its known, not surprisingly, as the Apricorn EZ Upgrade Universal SATA - 480Mbps USB 2.0 - Kit.
Laptop Hard Drive - Remove & Replace
Now that you've determined which laptop hard drive your going to buy and you've chosen the method you're going to use to transfer data; it's necessary to know the method for removal and replacement of the hard drive unit. This information should be available from your laptop manufacturer or from the manual supplied with the laptop (you've still got the manual, don't you?). In any case; here's step-by-step instructions.
