Acer 5920G - Upgrading HDD?

Hey guys.

I know it's possible to upgrade the hard drive in my Acer 5920G, but I've got no idea what type of hard drive to look for, and which will be compatible etc.

Could anyone clarify this for me?

 

Hey, I also have a 5920g, you have a hard drive with a serial ata 150 transfer mode. When I asked the same question as you people recommended hard drives like this one.

http://www.redcoon.be/index.php/cmd...stern_Digital_WD3200BEKT_Scorpio_Black_320GB/

They also adviced me this hitachi:

http://www.freestyle-it.nl/winkel/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=31020

The sites are in dutch, but they'll give you an idea about the stuff you need, I hope

 

Welcome to the forums, Thor's Left Thigh! (where's the rest of him? )

Acer's website actually lacks this information - the 5920G uses a 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive.
Most of the faster hard drives available are Serial ATA, so feel free to go crazy.

EDIT: Acer's service manual actually said the 5920G uses PATA, not SATA. Corrected post.

 

Quick question, I don't need full details... how do you transfer files to a new HDD in a laptop? It's quite obviously not pop out/in, you need to tranfer all the data first right? So just a mirror image and then swap?

EDIT: nevermind. It's actually A LOT simpler than I thought at first. Doh.

I'm also interesting in upgrade the HDD. This Hitachi seems like a great choice but it's a 3.5", the 5920G uses 2.5".

 

Try using System information for windows to see what hard drive you are using atm, thesuigi said the 5920g uses PATA, while my 5920g laptop uses SATA 150...
Good thing Pott pointed out that the hitachi is 3.5 inch, I want to buy a new HDD aswell and might have overlooked it.

 

Agree, for a standard upgrade

1) use device manager to get the exact part number of the current drive. Suffix letters and numbers can be critical
2) Go to manufacturer website and find datasheet. Is is SATA or PATA, how big is it, how high, what power draw.
3) Now for simplicity look for the latest model on that site that is the same type and size and has a bigger capacity or better performance.
More complicated version of 3 . .
You do need to get the SATA or PATA bit right. If your current drive is SATA 150 say you can use SATA150 or SATA 2 or 300 etc quite happily
If the power draw is slightly more don't worry too much. Installing a 7200 rpm drive may draw substantially more power at start up so check this. It may also vibrate more. not usual on 2.5" drives though .
If the new drive is going to be HIGHER (as many larger drives now are you need to open the laptop to assess if it would fit : Also check the biggest option available on your model at time of sale.

Free tools like Paragon's Backup and Restore make easy work of taking a snapshot of your whole drive and scaling it onto a new unformatted one before the first boot. Just make sure you are 100% sure what you copy to where !!

This might nevertheless be a good moment for a re-install though if that sounds like fun.

When doing the swap take care to not lose screws, displace plastic insulators or spacers and be very careful to identify and remove/replace any connection adapters/spacers. Generally drives are supplied with any jumpers etc set to idiot proof mode but read the data sheet first !.

 

Hi,

I upgraded my 5920g HDD last year. I ended up getting a 500GB fujitsu (Drive Model: FUJITSU MJA2500BH G2) because it was the cheapest in the store

If I was to make that purchase again, I'd have probably gone for the WD 500GB 2.5 drive.

You'll have no problem finding the right type of drive - you'll need an serial ATA 2.5 ". On HWINFO32 it provides disk function analysis comparison. I have posted the results from my 5920g for you - see which model's performance you prefer!

 

Wow, thanks for the responses guys. This is all really helpful.

I just checked, my current hard drive is a Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00 2.5" SATA 160GB. I'll be using the hard drive upgrade as an opportunity to also upgrade to Windows 7 which I plan to buy at the same time. So I'm searching for a good 500GB HDD, starting with Rotter's suggestions.

@TehSuigi - His left thigh is the source of all his power, clearly.

 

Or 640GB - Western Digital and Seagate both have those now.
And that is strange how the 5920G's service manual has the wrong information for hard drive interface. I'm gonna chalk it up to random dumbth on Acer's part.

 

Thor, was in the same position as you, but I decide to just get an external USB hard drive in the mean time, while prices drop and storage size inceases for SSD drives.

A mehcanical hdd upgrade will not get you much extra speed, you may as well format if its speed gains you are after and save your money. If its extra capacity you are after, just get an external USB drive, unless you find it too combersome. Some are so smal you can practically stick then to you laptop and lug them around as part of it


If you are going for an increase in internal capacity as a MUST right now, then a new mechanical hdd is the best option, the there are very decent ones for you to upgrade to right now. But again, if you can, get an extrenal usb drive if its just space you needn, especially if you use the pc mainly at home. It also has added beenfts of being able to tranfer files around from place to place, and not worring about formatting your windows when you get a new drive. Hurray. Just install your games and apps on your internal HDD, and jus store everything on the external.

I can almost gurantee you in a years time SSD drives will be easily double to triple capacity for the same price, which would make them suitable main drive replacements.

 

"I can almost gurantee you in a years time SSD drives will be easily double to triple capacity for the same price"

I can almost guarantee anything in the computing sector follows this rule. The premium price point stays the same while the technology evolves: CPUs Graphics cards, RAM etc.

I no longer give in to the masochistic urge to look at faded receipts found in old boxes for 128MB ram sticks, Pentium II processors and most of all Rage 3D graphics cards. Let alone recall my first wonderful 10 MB hard drive . . .

Learned wisdom: Buy it now if you need it now . . otherwise . . don't

 

Not really. I woldn't agree with this.

SSD drives are maknig their FIRST ever entrance to the mass market.
I can guarantee you now CPUS and graphics cards won't offer double to triple the value in a years time...
Its not the same for every compoment, it depends on a lot of factors, and timing matters.

Its like buying a DVD burner/blue ray burner etc on the day it comes out and paying 5-10x more for it than one a year later when the prices offer reasonable value, becasue one year after that yet again prices wont wall 10x again, in fact sometimes they dont budge at all or even GO UP in certain cases such has been the case for ram and a lot of peripherals.
If money if of no concern offcourse buy whatever you want when you "need" it. But then this is pretty useless advice since thats a no brainer.

Market trends dip and fall with products offering peak value and poorest value differ immensly. Its not just a constant stream of buy X now and it will be equally obsolete in y time from now no matter what time period you look at.
Heck a 9800gx2 is still over $450 and it was like $600 new 2-3 years ago what was it. Other times, other product, 2-3 years later the product will be less than 1/10 of the price...