Laptop Internal HD
 

Looking to upgrade my internal hard drive. Anyone with any knowledge of this:

Seagate 1TB Barracuda @7200 RPM

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm looking for 7200 rpm, 1 tb or higher, though 750 gb if absolutely necessary. Budget is preferably under $200, but if something in that range is a good idea, I'm game for that as well.

Do you actually need the storage? If you could live with ~128GBs of storage, you could get an SSD for your budget. Given you're concerned about having a 7200RPM drive, performance might matter to you?

I'd love a SSD, but would really require 512, as 256 would be a major compromise. 128 is not nearly enough. The 7200 is the "compromise" between standard 5400 (why is that still the standard?!) and SSD.

You should make sure you get something similar (power-wise, assuming you matched the form factor) than what you have in there now.

-David

Are you sure that drive will fit? I think that is a 3 1/2 inch drive.

If your laptop only takes a 2 1/2 inch drive I don't think you will get it in there.

My knowledge of that drive is that it's a 3.5" drive for desktops. You need a 2.5" drive for your notebook. Western Digital Scorpio Black (7200rpm) is highly regarded - I have a 500GB version and love it in my ThinkPad T500. Max capacity of this drive is 750GB:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136835

For speed, a hybrid drive might be best. However, the Seagate Momentus XT maxes at 500GB:

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Moment...3983877&sr=1-1

If you want 1TB, it looks like you're stuck with 5400rpm for now.

CNET showed it to be 2.5 inches.

I did see Seagate's on their site which I think I may go for. The only one I was able to buy though was the 500 GB one though, and I currently have 640 GB (5400 rpm).

Note that I edited my earlier post - I had the Seagate wrong - 500GB is the largest size in that hybrid drive.

Right. I had wanted the hybrid, but that was the issue. I wonder if they'll come out with larger hybrid. In the meantime, I may go for that 750 GB one.

Will it for sure fit my Toshiba Portege? Is it a good one?

And finally, one think I do NOT understand is the cache. However, I see this one has a smaller cache (16 MB) versus the other ones I've seen, which have been 32 or as much as 64 MB.

Go with Western Digital, I got the 500gb 7200rpm for my macbook and I'm happy with it.

Why would I go from 640 gb to 500 gb?

I bought a 1tb Toshiba external drive for about $100. Opened the case, removed the drive and installed it in my laptop. Simple.

I don't want an external hard drive. I want internal

I didn't ask you to buy the 500gb, they have the 750gb, same models.

Seagate's is cheaper. Ideally, I'd like their hybrid, but, as been mentioned before, is only available in 500 GB. Where do you see the Western Digital at 750 GB? I saw on Amazon, but I want to see it on their site so I can see more info, but I only find 320 and 500