Well, finally I have replaced the original hard disk on my laptop with a larger, faster and quieter one - Samsung SpinPoint M5 160GB 5400RPM 8MB 2.5" (HM160HC). I will just add few pictures that illustrate the simple procedure.
There is only one screw (marked with a red circle on the first picture) that secures the hard disk bay. Unscrew it and carefully pull out the module from the computer. The rest is self-explanatory.
Of course, now the computer boots and runs faster, although, I haven't done any performance tests for comparison. The old disk was very quiet but one could still hear the heads positioning during I/O, despite the noisy fans, while the new one is completely silent in this respect.
Cloning the Windows XP OS to the new disk might be slightly out of the topic of this post but I will suggest anyway this article: Beginners Guides: Cloning WindowsXP. After the cloning (I have the original OEM Windows XP Home version that comes with the model) everything went smooth and I was not even asked to reactivate the Windows.
2008.02.14: Just to add some numbers for statistics purposes.
Although the clicking noise from the parking heads of the new hard drive is not noticeable at all, I have decided to turn off the HDD APM with hdparm -B 254 /dev/hda. As result the disk gets a little bit hotter in comparison to the case with the default APM settings:
clicking hard disk II
clicking hard disk
Of course, now the computer boots and runs faster, although, I haven't done any performance tests for comparison. The old disk was very quiet but one could still hear the heads positioning during I/O, despite the noisy fans, while the new one is completely silent in this respect.
Cloning the Windows XP OS to the new disk might be slightly out of the topic of this post but I will suggest anyway this article: Beginners Guides: Cloning WindowsXP. After the cloning (I have the original OEM Windows XP Home version that comes with the model) everything went smooth and I was not even asked to reactivate the Windows.
2008.02.14: Just to add some numbers for statistics purposes.
Although the clicking noise from the parking heads of the new hard drive is not noticeable at all, I have decided to turn off the HDD APM with hdparm -B 254 /dev/hda. As result the disk gets a little bit hotter in comparison to the case with the default APM settings:
- default settings: 35° - 38° C.
- APM turned off: 38° - 41° C.
clicking hard disk II
clicking hard disk
