• Steam recently changed the default privacy settings for all users. This may impact tracking. Ensure your profile has the correct settings by following the guide on our forums.

Need Help Buying New Hard Drive

dennis96411

Member
I currently have a 500GB 5400rpm hard drive in my laptop, and was hoping to get a hard drive with more space and faster speed. I don't really know if my storage interface is a SATA 3GB/s or not, so can someone tell me how to find out? By the way I found out it uses a SATA300 hard drive.

I was looking at this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148599
All the sizes fit, but I'm pretty sure my laptop doesn't support this.
 

MenaceInc

Staff Member
I'd say that the HDD you linked to would fit in just fine. However, storage in laptops costs a lot more than regular 3.5" HDDs and you get less storage overall. I'd suggest instead of a 2.5" drive, you get a 3.5" drive and use an enclosure for it to hook it up over USB or eSATA.

That's completely up to yourself of course.

To just answer your question, yes that would work in your laptop.
 

dennis96411

Member
I'd say that the HDD you linked to would fit in just fine. However, storage in laptops costs a lot more than regular 3.5" HDDs and you get less storage overall. I'd suggest instead of a 2.5" drive, you get a 3.5" drive and use an enclosure for it to hook it up over USB or eSATA.

That's completely up to yourself of course.

To just answer your question, yes that would work in your laptop.
Are you sure the one linked to will work? Is it compatible with SATA300? P.S. It's actually only 90 dollars, compared to a SATA 1.5Gb/s 500GB 5400rpm hard drive that costs more than 300 dollars O_O I don't really get that there...
Oh, and I want an INTERNAL hard drive, I already have a 1TB external hard drive for all my backups and stuff.
 

MenaceInc

Staff Member
Are you sure the one linked to will work? Is it compatible with SATA300? P.S. It's actually only 90 dollars, compared to a SATA 1.5Gb/s 500GB 5400rpm hard drive that costs more than 300 dollars O_O I don't really get that there...
Oh, and I want an INTERNAL hard drive, I already have a 1TB external hard drive for all my backups and stuff.

SATA 3Gb/s is SATA300. It is referred to that as it has a maximum transfer speed of 300 megabyte per second. The price for the SATA150 drive is probably that high as older equipment becomes more scarce which reduces supply and increases prices. Same thing happens with RAM, etc. DDR RAM is quite costly compared to DDR3 RAM as it isn't produced anymore.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion.
 

dennis96411

Member
SATA 3Gb/s is SATA300. It is referred to that as it has a maximum transfer speed of 300 megabyte per second. The price for the SATA150 drive is probably that high as older equipment becomes more scarce which reduces supply and increases prices. Same thing happens with RAM, etc. DDR RAM is quite costly compared to DDR3 RAM as it isn't produced anymore.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion.

So this one will work? Awesome! One question, which one is better, Seagate or Western Digital? The Seagate is cheaper.
 

MenaceInc

Staff Member
So this one will work? Awesome! One question, which one is better, Seagate or Western Digital? The Seagate is cheaper.

Western Digital used to be renowned for their vastly superior and quicker hard drives however from what I can tell, the rest of HDD makers have caught up in terms of transfer speeds while the main focus has been on SSDs.

Even looking up benchmarks of the drive you linked to, it seems that it outperforms similarly sized Western Digital drives.
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_750gb_review_st9750420as

I'd say just save your money and go for the Seagate one.
 

dennis96411

Member
Western Digital used to be renowned for their vastly superior and quicker hard drives however from what I can tell, the rest of HDD makers have caught up in terms of transfer speeds while the main focus has been on SSDs.

Even looking up benchmarks of the drive you linked to, it seems that it outperforms similarly sized Western Digital drives.
http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_momentus_750gb_review_st9750420as

I'd say just save your money and go for the Seagate one.
Okay, it's actually $89.99 with $5 off instantly, and added a $10 off coupon which will bring it to $74.99. Awesome.
 
Top