Upgrading laptop drive?

[micha]

I'd go SSD as well.
I just got a Cruicial M4 128GB and I can recommend it to anyone. It's got a great reputation and is fair priced.
I remember there used to be some difficulties with the TRIM and sandforce chips, that's why I went for the M4, but don't ask me about it.
This knowledge was nowhere interessting enough to stay in my brain.

If you want to find out what your mainboard can do tools like SIW should be able to tell:

http://www.gtopala.com/

And if you buy a quality product I doubt an SSD will fail anytime soon.
They don't break up in smoke like HDDs anyway. If a part fails on an SSD, another one will step in it's place.
So the SSD is a couple of Bits smaller after that, but still working as it used to be.

But I recommend to deactivate the Windows Standby if you decide for SSD.
You can read an SSD forever but a lot of writing will lower its lifetime on the long run.
Depending on how big you RAM is, it's easily 4GB Data being written over and over on each standby, that's just not necessary.
You will see the booting process will be way faster anyway, so there's not that huge need for standby anymore.

Another huge advantage over HDDs is that your system will not slow down as easily.
We all know that a system is never as fast again as it used to be after a fresh OS-installation.
That's (also) because your data will spread all over the disc as it's read and written.
An SSD doesn't care where the data is written. The delay before reading is always the same and it's tiny.
So there's no fragmentation anymore.

Oh, and don't defragmentate an SSD btw.
It's draining lifetime as well...

But if you take care of it and don't write the shit out of it (you're better off storing your archive elsewhere and keep it OS and App exklusive) I don't see it break anytime soon.
There's nothing moving in it, there's rarely any heat in it, all the things that hurt a mashine aren't a big deal with an SSD.

They're fast, cool and silent. At least I appreciate silence.

[Newc]

Thanks to all for the info

[z1n]

I went with a Seagate Hybrid HD in my Macbook http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard...tus-xt-hybrid/
Also upgraded my Memory to 8gb. But if your running a DAW or doing any type of recording, you might want to try upgrading your ram and using an external Hard drive for storing your files. This will help allot

[Axegrinder87]

I considered going with an SSD in my latest build, but I ended up going with 2 74gb 10kRPM Velociraptors in RAID. Not quite as fast as an SSD, but for the money, close enough for me. Of course, they were used, but I'm on a budget

[Newc]

Definitely planning on an external drive for storage/data, but the ones designed for laptop use (the little slim external drives) don't always state the spindle speed on the package, and if I run across something in a store, there's really no way to tell (found 2 500GB WD USB 3 drives at WalMart for $40 each, but the place is a dead zone and I couldn't get online on my android phone to google the specs).

[micha]

RPM is just one factor when it comes to speed.
An older 7200 will most likely be just as fast as a new 5400 drive.
Most interessting would be the reading and writing speed in MB/s, but you're better off relying on tests and reviews there than on the package.
Often they just state the maximum speeds for SATA3 or USB3 or however the drive is connected. The HDD itself won't come even close to that.

I don't know what you need to store, but for music, movies, pictures and such I doubt RPM is of much importance.

Actually I'd prefer a lower rotation speed on an external drive for most purposes.
They're not as loud and usually more sturdy.

I use a 5400RMP Transcend StoreJet for office stuff.
It's fast enough to store my office files on and also does everything else it needs to do.
The question is how much speed do you really need for a data-grave?
Unless you copy huge files back and forth on a daily basis or plan on doing a full backup of you computer once a week, pretty much anything will do the job.
The StoreJet has got a Backup-knob that will synchronise my specified folders on each computer I use, that's a plus for me, and it's also really sturdy.
Your military has tested it (US MIL-STD-810F) for shock resistance (dropping it on the ground) it's quite immun against humidity and dust and can stand the vibration of a mashine gun for half an hour of consistant fire. I guess that's what got me...

But you can't go wrong with WD. I use 5 of their drives at my home-computer and they've been doing a great job for years now.


If you're going mobile, so 2,5 or 1,8 inches without power supply, keep in mind you will most likely need a second USB port on some computers.
So if you're short on USB-slots that might be interessting for you.

[Newc]

I plan on turning my laptop into a mobile recording 'puter, so the external drive will hold the wav files needed for the session, and probably the DAW installation as well, since I don't like putting anything on the system drive except the system itself.

I need the external drive to be fast so it can stream the files quickly, and the system drive to be fast so it can boot up and shut down quickly (don't want to wait around for the hibernation to dump everything). Then there's the whole issue of disc caching once the app is recording/playing back.

I've got 4 USB 2 ports, which will be plenty.

[micha]

Alright, for recording, some extra speed could come in handy...
If you want a 2,5 inches drive, I'd probably go with a Samsung S2 640GB or the Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro 750GB.
Both are among the fastest at the moment and would be a good choice.
They are USB3 drives, so you won't be able to use them to their full potential with USB2, but USB3 drives aren't really more expensive than USB2 anymore, so why not.
If you ever decide to upgrade your computer you will benefit from a USB3 drive.

[Newc]

Hopefully I can avoid a complete system upgrade, as I'd also have to spend a ton of money on software that was Win7 compliant.

[Carbuff]

As far as the external drive goes, wont the usb connection be the bottleneck and not so much the drive speed? I know Ive had some painfully slow transfers from usb sticks to my laptop.

[Newc]

Potentially, yes, but I'd imagine the drive's cache buffer size would play a role as well.

My other option would be firewire, but that's as fast as USB 2.

If I could swap out the DVDR for a HDD....

[Carbuff]

There is a cardbus (expresscard) slot in that laptop. Do they make an e-sata adapter for cardbus slots? My pc has a large external drive that had both usb and e-sata connections. When I finally got around to using the e-sata I found the drive tested much faster for transfers from my internal drive than the usb did.


Yes, they do.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&pq=expresscard&cp=13&gs_id=29&xhr=t&q=expresscard+esata&client=firefox-a&hs=es3&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=rcs&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1172&bih=608&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12376485282851003044&sa=X&ei=uXfZT822KKn16gGS4JTMAg&sqi=2&ved=0CHcQ8wIwAg

[DonP]

Just wanted to say FWIW, I've gotten my SSD drive up, loaded with Win7 64bit, all updates and drivers, and have blanked the 1TB drive. So now it's just reloading apps.

Thanks guys.

[Carbuff]

Thats cool. I had my system all set up the same and was very happy with it. Then one day windows blue screened. I was like, wow, been a while since Ive seen one of those. Restarted the computer and nada, bios saw nothing. I tried it on a different controller (sata3 add on card) with the same result. Popped it in my sons computer and it also saw nothing. I guess the controller died (sandforce). It seemed to be a common problem with this model (bad batch possibly). Im now a bit gun shy about using the replacement drive when it arrives. Luckily I had all my pics and stuff backed up on another drive so I did not lose much, just my time. Make sure you dont have any scheduled defrags set up. I think windows schedules that stuff automatically unless you change the settings. Defrag is bad for an ssd and not needed. Enjoy the speed of your ssd. It really is fast. I think the two biggest upgrades that have really made the most difference for me was the upgrade to a nice flatscreen monitor and the ssd. Other upgrades have been cool or increased speed a bit but the monitor and the ssd offer the biggest bang for the buck, IHMO.

[Newc]

I did some recording on my laptop last night with the existing 5400 RPM system drive and the external (unknown speed) WD drive. I recorded at 48kHz, but in mono (rhythm tracks), and it did great. At least, it's enough for what I intend to use it for. I won't be loading BFD2 onto it, it'll just be something I can take to work with me when I have things I just need to "dress up" or "flesh out". My desktop will remain the "recording studio".

I did copy the stereo drum mix and the bass track from my desktop (since they were already done), and recorded two rhythm tracks while those were playing, then recorded a solo track (also mono) while those 4 tracks were playing, so it looks like the system can handle the load.
Not going to try running real-time effects within thr DAW - I don't even do that on my desktop (mostly cuz I want everything finalized when it's recorded with minimal post-processing, and even then only slight EQing on a given track).

I'm using a MOTU Audio Express interface through the firewire port and a PocketPOD for tones. The POD isn't bad, for some reason