All about how to upgrade notebook/laptop hard drive

laptop hard driveLaptop hard drives are normally 2.5" and 9.5 mm thick (some new Sony/Toshiba ultra portables have 1.8" hard drives fitted, while some old Notebook hard drive might be 12.5 mm thick). All the drives listed here are 9.5 mm slim type which means they fit in 99% of the laptops. But some very old laptops (such as Pentium 100 MHz or earlier) might not support big capacity drive, in that case you can try to upgrade the BIOS from manufacturer's website.

From 2005, some new laptops have SATA (S-ATA, Serial ATA, SATA-II) hard drive fitted. S-ATA is different from IDE/ATA (Parallel-ATA, P-ATA, ATA-2,3,4,5,6,7). Unless specially pointed out, laptop hard drives are normally IDE/ATA hard drives. Allcam also stock Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 series SATA hard drives.

Laptop hard drives are easily upgradable with other drives. You do not need to match the brand of the hard drive to the brand of laptop, actually it is quite common that you may find an IBM hard drive in a Dell laptop or a Toshiba hard drive in a Sony laptop. If your old hard drive is 12.5 mm thicker, there is no problem to fit these slimmer 9.5 mm drives (& make it fully working).

All the 2.5" hard drives in the market has similar specifications except cache size (data buffer, 2-8 MB) and rotational speed (4200, 5400, and 7200 rpm). In theory the faster rotational speed, the faster your laptop can work.

Fujitsu MHT Series Laptop Hard Drives

Storage capacity from 40GB, 60GB, to 80GB, featuring Fluid Dynamic Bearing Motors and high shock tolerance (900G, 1 ms, non-operating; 225G, 2 ms operating) for lasting performance

  • Average Seek Time 12 ms
  • Data Transfer Rate up to 100MB/sec
  • IDE / ATA-6 interface
  • Data Buffer 8MB
  • Rotational Speed 4200/5400rpm
  • Weight 3.35 oz (94 g)
  • 40GB Fujitsu MHT2040AH £35.73 (£41.98 inc VAT)
  • 80GB Fujitsu MHT2080AT £42.54 (£49.98 inc VAT

Fujitsu MHV Series Laptop Hard Drives

9.5mm 2.5" hard drive offers storage capacity from 100 GB to 120 GB, featuring Fluid Dynamic Bearing Motors, high shock tolerance, and RoHS-compliant.

Hitachi 7200rpm high speed Laptop Hard Drives

Hitachi E7K60 and 7K100 2.5" hard drive series are the first two 7200rpm high speed laptop hard drive in the market.

Seagate Momentus 5400.3 series laptop hard drives

Seagate Momentus 5400.3 series laptop hard drives are the first Seagate product to utilize perpendicular recording technology. This innovative technology enables Seagate to deliver the industry's highest capacity of 160GB in a single, 2.5" hard drive without sacrificing best-in-class features.

Western Digital Scorpio 5400rpm 2.5" Hard Drives

WD Scorpio series of laptop hard drives features 5400rpm rotational speed, Western Digital's exclusive WhisperDrive technology with SoftSeek algorithms to deliver the quietest 2.5 inch hard drive on the market. WD Scorpio provides ShockGuard to protect the drive mechanics and delicate platter surface from shocks, both when it's in use and when it's not.

 
Hitachi 5400rpm Laptop Hard Drives

Hitachi 5K100 2.5" hard drive series offer storage capacity from 40GB to 100GB.

  • Average Seek Time 12 ms
  • Data Transfer up to 100MB/sec
  • IDE / ATA-6 interface
  • Data Buffer 8 MB
  • Rotational Speed 5,400 rpm
  • Weight 3.35 oz (94 g)
  • 100GB Hitachi HTS541010G9AT00 £76.58 (£89.98 inc VAT)

 

Hitachi 5K100 SATA Laptop Hard Drives

Hitachi 5K100 2.5" SATA hard drive series offer storage capacity from 40GB to 100GB. Please note only a few laptops come with SATA interface (which will work with this SATA laptop hard drive), most of the laptops come with ATA (P-ATA) interface.

  • Average Seek Time 12 ms
  • Data Transfer up to 100MB/sec
  • SATA 1.5Gbps interface
  • Data Buffer 8 MB
  • Rotational Speed 5,400 rpm
  • Weight 3.35 oz (94 g)
  • 80GB Hitachi HTS541080G9SA00 £59.56 (£69.98 inc VAT)

IBM/Hitachi Travelstar 80GN Series Laptop Hard Drives

Travelstar 80GN 2.5" hard drives are IBM legacy models offering storage capacity from 20 GB to 80GB

  • Average Seek Time 12 ms
  • Data Transfer Rate up to 100MB/sec
  • Data Buffer 8 MB
  • Rotational Speed 4,200 rpm
  • Weight 3.35 oz (94 g)
  • Clik Hitachi TravelStar 80GN for more info
20GB Hitachi IC25N020ATMR04 out of stock
30GB Hitachi IC25N030ATMR04 out of stock
60GB Hitachi IC25N060ATMR04 out of stock
80GB Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04 out of stock

Laptop hard drive is also called as laptop hard disk drive, laptop HDD, notebook hard drive, 2.5" hard drive, IDE hard drive, ATA hard drive.

Differences between 2.5" ATA (PATA) and SATA Hard Drives

Although both drives have similar physical dimensions (2.76"x3.94" or 7cmx10cm), there are major differences between the interfaces of the two drives. The traditional ATA (ATA-4, ATA-5, ATA-6, ATA-7 ...) hard drives have 44 sharp pins (excluding the 4 jumper pins), while the new SATA hard drives has two blocks of male connectors (see image below, which is actually the same interface of 3.5" SATA hard drives)

sata interface

Read here if you are upgrading laptop hard drive

Upgrade laptop hard drive is actually quite easy. If you are not confident enough, we can do it for you for a little extra: £25 for Sony laptops, and £10 for all other laptops.

Do you know you can covert your old laptop hard drive into a pocket hard drive? Just buy our USB/Firewire laptop hard drive enclosures, and insert the hard drive inside, it can not be easier!

Warranty /Support

All laptop hard drives sold here are new and comes with 12 months warranty, return to base ( Nottingham, UK), extend to 2 year for £5 only. Refurbished drives are no longer available from Allcam.

Free technical support is exclusively to our customers only. If you purchase same products from other dealer, technical support is available but at your cost.

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