Seagate and Hitachi are pretty much the only game in town, if you want
a high-performance drive. The best speed is 7200 RPM; the highest
capacity is 160GB @ 5400 RPM or 100 GB @ 7200 RPM (they've announced a
160GB 7200 RPM drive but it won't be available until 2007). I would
stay away from 4200 RPM drives at all costs. There are both ATA and
SATA drives available; the I8100 takes an ATA drive.
Personally, I'd get a 7200 RPM drive unless you urgently need the
160GB storage (but I tend to do software development on my laptop, so
the speed makes a difference to me). At that speed the Seagate line
is the Momentus 7200.1, and the Hitachi line is the 7K100 (there's
also the E7K100 which is rated for 24x7 operation and more intended
for blade servers). We used the previous-generation Hitachi 60GB/7200
RPM drives in I8100s with no problems.
Note when you replace the drive -- your laptop has a drive caddy (the
frame that the drive is screwed into) and an ATA-to-Dell adapter stuck
on the end. You'll have to transfer both onto the new drive. It's
often difficult to get the ATA adapter off straight (without bending
the pins on the drive to the side), so take care with it unless you
plan to junk the 30GB drive anyway (even so, if anything goes wrong
with the new drive, you'll likely want to transfer the adapter back to
the old one). Putting it on the new drive is straightforward, though.
Thanks,
Aaron
P.S. I think dropping your laptop is the real hard drive killer.
On 8/3/06, gyoza@comcast.net <gyoza@comcast.net> wrote:
OT: I know enough about PC drives, but it isn't that often that I
replace a notebook drive. What should I look for when upgrading a
notebook hard drive? I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 currently with a 30GB
drive. What brands and specs are desirable?
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group --
http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements -
http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion --
http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug