Laptop or USB Hard Disk?

Cycophant

I've got a friend with a 2-yr-old Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, with a 30gig hard drive in it. He's finding himself constantly running out of space, and wants a little more. He's not very computer-saavy, so I told him I'd help him out. Problem is, all my knowledge is with desktops, and I've got minimal experience with laptops.

The thing is, he's not looking for a huge amount of extra space. If he could just double it to 60gigs or so, it sounds like he'd be happy. Another reason for this is that he's not interested in spending a lot on it either.

I've done a bit of research and from what I can tell, he has two options. One would be to pick up a new 2.5in hard drive in the size he wants plus an enclosure and use it as an external hard drive (or alternatively, buy the largest drive he can afford, throw that in the laptop, and use his existing hard drive as the external one). The other is to just purchase a small USB hard drive and use it. Problem is, I can't seem to find many USB hard drives. Just regular drives, plus enclosures.

Can anyone offer any advice? Or have any ideas for something I've missed that would work better?

Corvus

If you're searching for USB Drives, you're probably turning up a bunch of flash drives.

What you want is an external hard drive:
USB Hard Drives @ Futureshop

same thing at Bestbuy.Ca

Though, to be honest, I think buying a new hard drive to replace the one currently in the laptop would probably give better overall performance.

matthias00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154611

??

Corvus

Look at his location. Newegg doesn't ship to Canada.

blanknogo

It really depends whether or not he wants the storage to be portable.

If he's okay with it being not portable/slightly less portable, he could always pick up a 3.5" hard drive (I'd probably go for a 320gig at 100 Canadian just for the extra leg room) and a nice enclosure (Vantec is a good brand). That way you get the OEM warranty on the drive (5 years). Alternatively, Dell Canada is going to have a 250gig hard drive + enclosure for their Dell Deal tomorrow at 90 dollars.

If he wants it to be portable, then he'd need to go with a 2.5" drive + enclosure of some sort, or a prepackaged deal. These drives are smaller (obviously) and most can be powered by USB (in comparison a 3.5" needs to be plugged into the wall and most have big power bricks too). Honestly though I'd recommend that if you go this route to simply purchase one. I've heard good things about the WD Passbook (or was it Passport?) is a good product and fairly reasonably priced at a number of places (Costco is a good place).

Hope that helps.

stigweard

If the laptop is out of warranty, you could get a 120 2.5 for about 100$ and swap it out. Depending on the model, it can be one screw to change it. The easiest thing to do, if he has the recovery cds is to swap and start fresh. Alternatively, you can get a couple of 2.5->3.5 converters for dirt cheap and mirror the contents of the old drive onto the new one and pop it back into the laptop.

Hard drive space is one of those things where the more you have, the more you seem to need. People tend to leave more software installed, and keep their media on the drive longer before burning it off to cd / dvd. If that is the case, I'd recommend an external backpack instead. 2.5 USB externals don't have the best performance, worse than an internal of the same speed.

Feral

stigweard wrote: »

If the laptop is out of warranty, you could get a 120 2.5 for about 100$ and swap it out. Depending on the model, it can be one screw to change it. The easiest thing to do, if he has the recovery cds is to swap and start fresh. Alternatively, you can get a couple of 2.5->3.5 converters for dirt cheap and mirror the contents of the old drive onto the new one and pop it back into the laptop.

Hard drive space is one of those things where the more you have, the more you seem to need. People tend to leave more software installed, and keep their media on the drive longer before burning it off to cd / dvd. If that is the case, I'd recommend an external backpack instead. 2.5 USB externals don't have the best performance, worse than an internal of the same speed.

How about the best of both worlds?

Buy a new 120GB 2.5" hard drive. Swap it in, format it, start fresh. At the same time, buy a $20 USB external enclosure for a 2.5" HD and put the old 30G HD in that.

Voila, now he has an easy way to transfer his old files to the new hard drive, and once he's done that, he can format the old hard drive and use it for portable storage.

Cycophant

Thanks for the help, everyone.

I didn't actually think of using a standard 3.5" drive, but I guess if I'm using it as an external drive, it doesn't really matter. Now blanknogo, you were mentioning that the 2.5" drives can be powered USB only, but the 3.5" ones need a seperate power cord? That might be an issue, I think. Portability doesn't seem like a huge deal for him, but I think having to plug in the external drive into the wall might be a dealbreaker. Which is too bad, because I could get a decent-sized 3.5" drive plus enclosure for well within his budget.

And now that you mentioned it stigweard, the laptop is still under warranty. I've built all my computers for the past few years, so I completely forgot that you can't open up computers under warranty anymore. That gets rid of any ideas I had for installing a new hard disk into his laptop, then. So I'm stuck with strictly an external drive now.

I think the biggest issue is going to be cost and size, at this point. He's only looking to spend $50 to $75 CDN, and probably wouldn't bother with anything higher-priced than that. But I'm beginning to wonder if there's a solution out there for that cheap.

Feral

Cycophant wrote: »

Now blanknogo, you were mentioning that the 2.5" drives can be powered USB only, but the 3.5" ones need a seperate power cord? That might be an issue, I think.

You may have issues powering even a 2.5" drive straight from the USB. I have a Dell Latitude, and certain drives that claim to be USB-powered only work if I run them through a powered USB hub.

dotcomse

Cycophant wrote: »

And now that you mentioned it stigweard, the laptop is still under warranty. I've built all my computers for the past few years, so I completely forgot that you can't open up computers under warranty anymore. That gets rid of any ideas I had for installing a new hard disk into his laptop, then. So I'm stuck with strictly an external drive now.

Don't quote me on this, but I'd be willing to bet you can swap the hard drive on a laptop and not void the warranty. On my new Inspiron, there are just two screws holding the hard drive on, and I assume when you take those out the hard drive just drops out. That seems simple enough and superficial enough that I would think that normally (certainly with a Dell drive, if nothing else) they would give the all-clear for hard drive replacement. Think of it this way; really, by unscrewing the drive and sliding in another one that is designed for that computer, you're not doing anything more complicated or delicate than installing more RAM (arguably a MORE delicate process), but I don't think that would void the warranty either.

But, like I said, don't quote me. I got the 4-year idiot proof plan so that I wouldn't even have to worry about something like voided warranties.

stigweard

External 2.5s sometimes use two usb slots for power instead of a powered hub. The problem with that is it uses two usb ports when most laptops only have 2 or 3 anyway. Some companies are pickier about the warranty than others and I only mention it because some people pay 2-300$ more to extend their warranty. At any rate, he isn't going to get anything useful done for 75$. He's looking more into the range of 120$ or more and owing you a favor (or cash) for taking the time and effort to get him all setup, no matter which way you end up doing it.

redimpulse

HDDs in Dell laptop units are considered user-serviceable. Upgrading your drive should not void what's left of the warranty.

Other than that, you can order a larger drive from Dell; have a tech come out and install it for you if he's that worried about warranty.