Seagate stopping production of 7,200rpm laptop hard drives...

[Fantail]

Another era is about to come to an end. . .as does all things good or bad. . .

Oh how I'd love to quote you on that in the 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8 thread.

 

[Britton30]

Having an SSD in my desktop makes it exteeeemly tempting to get one for the laptop. And I'm seeing 240's pricing looking good. Also the crew at ssdfreaks have pointed out how to clone HDD to SDD with windows 7 tools.

The built-in w7 backup is not always good and one never knows what it's doing/done. If you want to make an image or clone I recommend Macrium Reflect Free. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html#post648001
As a caveat it would be best to start with a new fresh install with the SSD properly aligned.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html#post16008

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

 

[alphanumeric]

My new ASUS K75DE laptop can handle two drives so a 128 gig drive should be more than enough fro me. I'll just move the spinner that's in it over as a storage drive. Crucial has some M4 drives that come with the cloning kit. You get the drive, a SATA to USB adapter cable and a disk with cloning software. At Newegg the drive with the coning kit is only slightly more expensive than the drive by itself. Newegg.ca - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit
Hopefully they have them back in stock when I'm ready to buy.

 

[4wd]

XT > SSHD Solid State and Hybrid Drives | Seagate

 

[Pentaxian]

I'll still stick with my W.D. 10,000 rpm drives I'm running 3 and 2 1tb drives. Time to get another for my photography backups.

 

[alphanumeric]

I'll still stick with my W.D. 10,000 rpm drives I'm running 3 and 2 1tb drives. Time to get another for my photography backups.

You don't have much of a choice if you want lots of storage and lots of speed. Not unless you are Bill Gates with lots of money to burn. I hope you have lots of cooling as I bet those babies get hot.

 

[indianacarnie]

My new ASUS K75DE laptop can handle two drives so a 128 gig drive should be more than enough fro me. I'll just move the spinner that's in it over as a storage drive. Crucial has some M4 drives that come with the cloning kit. You get the drive, a SATA to USB adapter cable and a disk with cloning software. At Newegg the drive with the coning kit is only slightly more expensive than the drive by itself. Newegg.ca - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit
Hopefully they have them back in stock when I'm ready to buy.

I got my M4 without the transfer kit, followed the tutorials we have and got everything perfect the first time. Loving it too.

 

[alphanumeric]

My new ASUS K75DE laptop can handle two drives so a 128 gig drive should be more than enough fro me. I'll just move the spinner that's in it over as a storage drive. Crucial has some M4 drives that come with the cloning kit. You get the drive, a SATA to USB adapter cable and a disk with cloning software. At Newegg the drive with the coning kit is only slightly more expensive than the drive by itself. Newegg.ca - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit
Hopefully they have them back in stock when I'm ready to buy.

I got my M4 without the transfer kit, followed the tutorials we have and got everything perfect the first time. Loving it too.

I likely won't use the kit as I plan on doing a clean install anyway. Still for the little bit extra in cost it would be something I wouldn't mind having just in case I need it latter on. I do PC work on the side so that could save me some time on a hard drive replacement and or upgrade. If its still out of stock when I'm ready to buy I'll just get the drive by itself.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
decent cheap(ish) SSD drives are available now with affordable prices for the 256GB models. 512 GB Models are available (but still relatively expensive).

The day of the spinner for home use is rapidly coming to an end -- for commercial servers etc high end SCSI disks will still be available for a long time yet - but expect to see the writing on the wall for small 2.5 inch laptop spinners -- BTW with a SATA==>USB adapter these old laptop disks make very good "Backup devices" or things like Music / Photo / video backups and you will soon be able to pickup 320 GBP one's for around 20- 30 USD !!!. 500GB and even 1 TB disks of this size and format are available as well cheaply.

I'm using a 320GB old laptop disk split into two partitions -- small one for an OS and a 2nd one for two Virtual Machines. I run (I know it's a W7 Forum but it's a USEFUL TOOL) a Windows 8 to Go system on the disk plus I have two virtual machines.

I plug the Disk with the SATA==>USB cable into a USB3 port on the laptop --even though the cable is a USB 2 one the disk performs better on the USB 3 port. I'll swap the USB cable for a SATA==>USB3 cable which will improve performance more - even when you plug a USB 3 device into a USB 2 port.

The Windows to go is a fully functioning WINDOWS 8 system that runs directly from the HDD even if there's no functioning disk in the computer it's being booted from. It's NOT an INSTALL or RECOVERY system. You can with a bit of work make a similar W7 system but it's not for the faint hearted.

The other way people made portable OS'es was to create a VHD and mount and boot the VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) but this generally needed at least a Boot drive on the computer. The Windows to Go type of system doesn't require this - and if hardware drivers are needed then at boot it just finds and downloads from the web --very useful tool too.

The SSD's I'm using are the SAMSUNG 830's --excellent SSD's all round.

On Acer Aspire V105 11 inch laptop with the i3 processor (so not the most powerful processor) the WEI for the SSD is 8.9 (it's running W8 and on W8 the WEI scale is 1.0 to 9.9) so a VERY creditable score for that laptop.

That same SSD would yield well over 9.0 if fitted on to some more top end gear.

Processor and memory probably slow down the WEI a little --you can never test things in isolation -- but I'm VERY happy with the performance gain the laptop has by swapping the slowish spinner for an SSD.


Cheers
jimbo

 

[Pentaxian]

So which brand can you trust? That is the main reason I'm still using 10,000 rpms

 

[Pentaxian]

I'll still stick with my W.D. 10,000 rpm drives I'm running 3 and 2 1tb drives. Time to get another for my photography backups.

You don't have much of a choice if you want lots of storage and lots of speed. Not unless you are Bill Gates with lots of money to burn. I hope you have lots of cooling as I bet those babies get hot.

I'm running this case and it warms my room quit well..lol

 

[alphanumeric]

Hi there
decent cheap(ish) SSD drives are available now with affordable prices for the 256GB models. 512 GB Models are available (but still relatively expensive).

The day of the spinner for home use is rapidly coming to an end -- for commercial servers etc high end SCSI disks will still be available for a long time yet - but expect to see the writing on the wall for small 2.5 inch laptop spinners -- BTW with a SATA==>USB adapter these old laptop disks make very good "Backup devices" or things like Music / Photo / video backups and you will soon be able to pickup 320 GBP one's for around 20- 30 USD !!!. 500GB and even 1 TB disks of this size and format are available as well cheaply.

I'm using a 320GB old laptop disk split into two partitions -- small one for an OS and a 2nd one for two Virtual Machines. I run (I know it's a W7 Forum but it's a USEFUL TOOL) a Windows 8 to Go system on the disk plus I have two virtual machines.

I plug the Disk with the SATA==>USB cable into a USB3 port on the laptop --even though the cable is a USB 2 one the disk performs better on the USB 3 port. I'll swap the USB cable for a SATA==>USB3 cable which will improve performance more - even when you plug a USB 3 device into a USB 2 port.

The Windows to go is a fully functioning WINDOWS 8 system that runs directly from the HDD even if there's no functioning disk in the computer it's being booted from. It's NOT an INSTALL or RECOVERY system. You can with a bit of work make a similar W7 system but it's not for the faint hearted.

The other way people made portable OS'es was to create a VHD and mount and boot the VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) but this generally needed at least a Boot drive on the computer. The Windows to Go type of system doesn't require this - and if hardware drivers are needed then at boot it just finds and downloads from the web --very useful tool too.

The SSD's I'm using are the SAMSUNG 830's --excellent SSD's all round.

On Acer Aspire V105 11 inch laptop with the i3 processor (so not the most powerful processor) the WEI for the SSD is 8.9 (it's running W8 and on W8 the WEI scale is 1.0 to 9.9) so a VERY creditable score for that laptop.

That same SSD would yield well over 9.0 if fitted on to some more top end gear.

Processor and memory probably slow down the WEI a little --you can never test things in isolation -- but I'm VERY happy with the performance gain the laptop has by swapping the slowish spinner for an SSD.


Cheers
jimbo

I'm going with a 128 gig because that is all I need for my OS drive. The plan is to eventually also get a 256 SSD as a second drive for DATA. That's all I personally need for storage on my laptop. I'll then put the 750 GB spinner that's in it in an external enclosure. Having my DATA on a second drive makes it easy to do reinstalls without worrying about loosing it. If my laptop only had the one bay I would have just gotten a bigger SSD and then partition it.

 

[indianacarnie]

What I did. Was/am lucky enough to have two drive bays in my Lappy. And you're right about the kit I guess, always nice to have that usb to sata adapter ! Use the one I have only occasionally but when I DO need it....... woohoo is it handy!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...with a SATA==>USB adapter these old laptop disks make very good "Backup devices"...

That's almost exactly what I'm going to do with a couple of 160GB WD Blues I salvaged from a couple of dead netbooks (plus one more I bought). I'm going to use them to backup the boot drive (128 GB Samsung 840 Pro) in the machine I'm building. The case has a built in 2.5" hot swap bay.

 

[alphanumeric]

What I did. Was/am lucky enough to have two drive bays in my Lappy. And you're right about the kit I guess, always nice to have that usb to sata adapter ! Use the one I have only occasionally but when I DO need it....... woohoo is it handy!

I bought one of these to recover some files off of an IDE laptop drive.
Newegg.ca - Rosewill RCW-608 USB2.0 Adapter For IDE/SATA Device (Include Protection case)
I'm sure it will come in handy again for rescuing files from a dead PC or laptop.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

What I did. Was/am lucky enough to have two drive bays in my Lappy. And you're right about the kit I guess, always nice to have that usb to sata adapter ! Use the one I have only occasionally but when I DO need it....... woohoo is it handy!

I bought one of these to recover some files off of an IDE laptop drive.
Newegg.ca - Rosewill RCW-608 USB2.0 Adapter For IDE/SATA Device (Include Protection case)
I'm sure it will come in handy again for rescuing files from a dead PC or laptop.

I have two of these cute little docks for my notebook. I keep one in my desk drawer and the other in the notebook bag.

I also got one of these to use until I can get the swap bays in my new machine up and running.

 

[indianacarnie]

Have heard good things about those but haven't used either personally. But then...... my lappy is my only machine. I used a Coolmax HD-250BK-U3 Hard Drive Enclosure - 2.5 SATA to USB 3.0, Up to 5Gbps, USB Powered, Aluminum, Black at TigerDirect.com
and its working beautifully.

I DO do a lot of traveling.....

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Have heard good things about those but haven't used either personally. But then...... my lappy is my only machine. I used a Coolmax HD-250BK-U3 Hard Drive Enclosure - 2.5 SATA to USB 3.0, Up to 5Gbps, USB Powered, Aluminum, Black at TigerDirect.com
and its working beautifully.

I DO do a lot of traveling.....

I used to but I've slowed down a bit. I carry a 2.5" 500GB WD black HDD in one of these

in my notebook bag to use for backups when on the road. I dump photos from the camera card to the notebook, then use the little dock I showed earlier to back up the notebook (I also temporarily back up the photos to a free cloud account). I transfer the photos to my desktop when I get home and that gets backed up to the teeth.

The transporter case is well padded. The vendor has a video showing one with a 3.5" HDD being dropped 12' then run over by a full sized pickup truck. I'm not about to try any of that, or even deliberately dropping it from a standing height, but I'm reasonably confident the case will protect the drive from the normal shocks received when traveling, including being dropped, better than an external drive would be.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
the 2TB self powered pocket sized black Passbort USB3 disks are great -- HUGE capacity very portable and FAST on a USB3 port -- not too bad even on a conventional USB2 port either.

Ideal for travelling -- also have a lot of DVD films copied to .ISO via AnyDVD. Windows 8 allows Native Virtual mounting of .ISO files but for W7 there's a lot of "Virtual drive" type software around too.

So I just "Mount" the virtual DVD iso and play with VLC -- behaves 100% to a REAL DVD and a lot less bulky.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Britton30]

I have one of these with, coincidently, a 2.5" Seagate drive in it. I store system images and old User files.
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