Samsung Q35 - recommendation for new SATA HD ?

Hello,

I am looking for a 320 GB SATA hard disk to replace the internal 120 GB HD of my Samsung Q35.

Can I use any 2.5" SATA HD on the market?

I noticed some are labeled SATA II, others just SATA, does that matter?

And could anybody recommend one of the current models?


Cheers, Ernst.

 

Yes, any 2.5" SATA should work. SATA II is backwards compatible with SATA I although some disks have the option of setting a jumper to force it into SATA I.

I would look at some of the latest generation of HDDs since they have a welcome reduction in power consumption. Consult the Tom's Hardware charts.

John

 

Thanks!

I realized that 500GB disks are very affordable now and after some research I ordered the

Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B 500GB SATA 5400rpm 8MB
[HTS545050B9A300]

Low power consumption and ok performance it seems to have.

 

Good choice. That's what I've been using for the past few months.

John

 

Today I got the new hard disk and tried to swap it for the old one but I got stuck:

I was unable to figure out how to remove the old disk. I must admit that I am not really a hardware geek and might be missing something obvious.

After I removed the cover of the HD compartment I could not get the old drive out of it. On top of the compartment there is a piece of plastic sticking out which is in the way. This piece actually has the two screw holes for the cover of the HD compartment, see here:




Does anybody know how to proceed from here?


Cheers, Ernst.

 

Followup:

Turns out I was too fainthearted late last night, it just took a little bit of extra force to pull the old drive out, that was all.

Meanwhile the new Hitachi drive is up and running, very quiet and does not get hot.

 

I would have said lift the front left corner first.

Anyway, glad to hear that all is sorted and running smoothly. There is probably enough speed imporovement to be noticeable.

John

 

Well in the process I got rid of bloated Vista and downgraded to XP Pro.

Now the system boots in half the time and uses just 400 MB RAM when up with my favourite apps as opposed to about 1 GB under Vista. Even though I had optimized Vista for performance.

So I am a happy camper now, and I suppose most of the improvement is due to the downgrade rather than improved hard disk performance.

 

Hi Just a quick question regarding your HDD swapover. I have just purchased a SSD obviously with SATA connectors. I have opened up the HDD compartment on my Q35 and found what looks like an IDE drive? did you have a SATA drive in yours already or did you have to use a converter?

Thanks

 

Does the connector look like this (which is the SATA connector)?

If not, you may have one with a PATA HDD. Both were available as a factory options. The SATA HDDs were new and also consumed more power than the older PATA HDDs. Therefore, some models were configured with PATA HDDs in order to extend the battery run time.

John

 

Hi I am thinking about upgrading my Q35 with the bigger hard drive.
Also thinking about putting Windows 7 on it. (got XP Pro judt now)
I am just wondering how I go about putting AV station back on, will that even work If i go down the Windows 7 road

 

AV Station will most probably work under Windows 7, but you may have to persuade UAC to cooperate and/or run as Administrator.

John