The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Laptop HD

So my laptop hd has been making more noise than usual lately and I was wondering what I'm going to have to do if and when this drive fails. Obviously (afaik) replacement parts for laptops tend to be pretty expensive, but maybe some of you have found inexpensive solutions to this type of problem. If there is no relatively inexpensive solution I'll probably just hope that it lasts long enough to save up for a new laptop. Thanks for any input you may have.

Tim the newly employed
Monday, December 15, 2003

Check out this previous thread:

http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=77751

Tim Lara
Monday, December 15, 2003

Thanks

Tim the newly employed
Monday, December 15, 2003

Instead of buying an expensive HDD from the manufacturer, I just bought one of those external disk drives (FireWire or USB) and took the drive out of it.

It worked out a lot cheaper that way and works perfectly.

Obviously, you have to get the right size drive (2.5") to fit into a laptop, but my local PC World had both sizes.

Steve Jones (UK)
Tuesday, December 16, 2003

> Instead of buying an expensive HDD from the manufacturer, I just bought one of those external disk drives (FireWire or USB) and took the drive out of it.

That's a really good idea, Steve! Which HDD did you try, and how long have you been using it?

Two possible issues spring to mind; Shock resistance (a major concern due to mobility of laptops. Presumably the external drives incorporate the protection in the enclosure) and noise levels... It does, however, make you question both the price of laptop drives and the limited storage space currently offered (60Gb at the top end compared to 250Gb+ of external drives)

SC
Tuesday, December 16, 2003

>Instead of buying an expensive HDD from the manufacturer, I just bought one of those external disk drives (FireWire or USB) and took the drive out of it.<

You could instead just buy a bare notebook hard drive and install it yourself. If you want some hand-holding, there are upgrade kits available. E.g.,

http://www.simpletech.com/notebookdrives/notebook_upgrades.php

However, if you're handy with installing hardware, you can simply buy a 2.5" notebook hard drive. E.g.,

http://www.memory4less.com/hDrive/m4l_NBDrive.asp

Depending on the model of your notebook, it should be easy to swap it for the old one.

Robert Jacobson
Tuesday, December 16, 2003

> You could instead just buy a bare notebook hard drive and install it yourself.
... but look at the price (per GB) and capacity of notebook HDD to external HDDs.

SC
Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Are there external 2.5" HD's that are cheaper than bare notebook 2.5" drives? Looking on Pricewatch.com I saw some very cheap external drives, but they generally looked like 3.5" mechanisms. Good idea if it works, though.

Robert Jacobson
Tuesday, December 16, 2003

I did this as a nice piece of lateral thinking when I needed to get my laptop back up and running quickly, as well as saving some money.

My local PC World was about 20 minutes away and it took about 10 minutes to strip the drive and install it. As always, the longest part was installing all the software onto the blank drive.

At least I could start on day one, rather than waiting for delivery of the new drive. And I think it was cheaper than buying a replacement drive from the manufacturer.

It works perfectly, as you'd expect, given that these devices are totally standard (physical size, connections, etc).

Steve Jones (UK)
Wednesday, December 17, 2003