Laptop Drives

[jhale]

after my HD crashed in my laptop I replaced the drive with a FUJITSU 120GB which is just temporary. I'm trying to figure out which drive to get now.

I spoke with some data recovery people after the crash. One of them told me the Hitachi travelstar 160GB drive I had was known to have problems. So I'm a crossing Hitachi off the list of applicants.

That leaves, Seagate, Toshibia, and Western Digital.
I want to get one of the higher capacity drives, WD and Toshiba both make 320GB drives.

Any thoughts or is all just a crap shoot?

One interesting thing I found out when speaking to the data recovery person, he told me the drive could have failed due to pressure change in the plane cabin. He said they are not sealed and have a tiny hole in them to allow air in and out.
The change in pressure mis-aligns the platers in the drive and then your screwed. Since my drive crashed about an hour after I landed this sounded logical to me. Just an FYI in case you fly and use your laptop, make sure everything is backed up! I'm going to carry an extra drive with me on trips now, just in case.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

On notebooks I have always had either Western digital or toshiba with no problems. Seagate is a good drive company as well.

 

[jhale]

thanks chief

 

[rgun2515]

The only drives I will install in my servers are Seagate. I have had the best luck with them... Knock on wood.
20 years, working in the technology field, I have never heard or seen a drive fail due to cabin pressure... If this were true, laptops used on planes would fail every day. Plus, I am sure planes have hard drives built into their systems...
Normally, laptop drives go because of the heat. People (inadvertently) cover the fans.
Backup, backup, backup... USB memory keys today are so cheep... MUCH cheaper than paying a company to pull data of a fried drive...

 

[wxl14]

Any drive has the tendancy to crasy I would get any drive that is cheap. Buy a backup drive made for laptops thats bootable. And clone your laptop hard drive that way if your laptop HD crashes just pop out the hd for from the backup case a plug it into your computer. You will be up and running in 5 to 10 minutes.

 

[vanceny]

I second the seagate. Although damage can happen to any drive. Most laptop drives are 5400 rpm, if your going to upgrade get something that is at least 7200 rpm. You should see a good boost in performance.

 

[suntzu]

Jon,

I would either go with WD or Seagate. You can't really go wrong with either one. Like Vanceny stated, take a look at the rpm. I would look to get with with 7200 RPM and 16MB buffer (or at least 8MB).

 

[jhale]

the new 320GB drives are all 5400. the most storage they make at 7200 is 200GB.

I have a Core 2 Duo 2GHz macbook with 4GB of ram, how much performance will I see between the 5400 & 7200 drives. I'm apt to choose the storage space over a small speed increase.

 

[jhale]

there is a seagate 200GB with 16mb cache @ 7200, or a WD 320GB with 8mb cache @ 5200 :scratchch

 

[wxl14]

you will not see any performance difference between 5400 and 7200 on a desktop you might but I have done some time trials on laptops and they are all about the same nothing humanly noticable. go for the storage. you have 4 gigs of ram that is more then enough to run large photo editing programs. I would go for storage over speed.

 

[jhale]

cool thanks for the info, that's good to know

 

[masterswimmer]

Jon, airplane cabins are pressurized. I don't see how that would affect your HD.

 

[jhale]

Russ, I know, I agree, but that's what the data recovery guy told me

maybe when the pressure changes slightly in the cabin that's enough to do it?
all I can say is my drive was working while on the plane for a five hour flight.
when I got to the hotel and used it that's when it crashed.

 

[vanceny]

Its more about pulling the data off the drive faster. If you've ever noticed when opening a file seems a bit slow then this could be the cause. If you haven't then go with the 5200.

 

[Josh]

Should be no difference between the 5400 and the 7200 in those drives. That will only make a difference in high end desktop externals or medium to high internals. IDE/SATA controllers in small portable USB drives are very slow. Go for size.

And buy two of them!

 

[Davidl919]

Anything except fujitsu... I can't believe they told you the travelstar was having issues. I liked them when it was IBM and I used them to replace bad drives on creative zen mp3 players. I agree with the seagate they are good at all levels.

 

[jhale]

they said the 160GB travelstar was having a lot of problems, at the time I bought it, it was highly rated.

 

[reefman]

i like samsung

but as wlx says, any hd can crash on u (especially ibm aka hitachi). always backup n image.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Jon I agree with buying 2 drives, but I will say this get a usb hard drive. I have 2. I back up all my files to them on a regular basis so in the event of a crash I have a lesser of a rick for data loss. For my pictures are the bulk of it, and those pics are mostly of my family so those are irreplaceable. Either way, I like WD the best, Seagate and toshiba get great reviews I won't say anything bad about them. As far as RPM, most users don't notice the difference.