Adding a secondary onboard HDD to my laptop

[donnato]

Ok,so I was browsing the manual for my Asus laptop that now is almost a year old and found an obscure referance to a secondary hard drive bay.Curious me,I slid out the battery,waited a few minutes and cracked the back cover...sure enough, right there sits a beautiful(but empty)secondary HDD bay.Looks to be pretty much plug-n-play and straight forward. I cleaned up some dusty areas and replaced the cover and battery and began to think of what I wanted to install there and if it`s really necessary.

Anyways, here`s the main reason I came here.Is there going to be any formatting issues after I do the install? Are there any surprises I should know about before I, A.spend money, and B.fire up after install?

Thanks folks.I`ll be grateful for any insight as to manufacturers,install tips,setups,etc.

[HeyYou]

Nope, installing a new harddrive is literally plug and play. Once installed, you will have to format it. A process that will take a couple minutes if you just do a 'quick format'.

There is quite the selection of harddrives available, if battery life is more important, go with the 5400 RPM drive, if performance is what you want, then 7200 RPM is where its at. If you REALLY want performance AND battery life, SSD drives are the ticket, although, rather expensive yet, and limited in size. (an 80gb drive for 3500 bucks? Oh, I really don't think so....)

[donnato]

Nope, installing a new harddrive is literally plug and play. Once installed, you will have to format it. A process that will take a couple minutes if you just do a 'quick format'.

There is quite the selection of harddrives available, if battery life is more important, go with the 5400 RPM drive, if performance is what you want, then 7200 RPM is where its at. If you REALLY want performance AND battery life, SSD drives are the ticket, although, rather expensive yet, and limited in size. (an 80gb drive for 3500 bucks? Oh, I really don't think so....)

Heheh, yea...no. I just found that the native HDD is a seagate. I`m usually plugged in for power so battery isn`t as important as performance.I`ve been digging up info about latency and through put speeds and I don`t think there`s any earth shaking issues there.

How about compatabilities with my existing drive? Only specs I have so far is the model number: ST9320421AS, gotta do some more digging.

Thank you Hey You.

[Hanaisse]

I think the first question you need to ask yourself is why do you want to add a second HD? If it's simply for storage space there are other cheaper and easier solutions such as an external drive or even USB drives that are pretty large for the everyday average user.

A second HD is going to be a performance hit on your CPU and another drain on your battery. You could also end up running hotter and will need to make sure your fans are big enough to keep the system cool. You've also just voided any warranty you might have on your laptop.

If you decide to go this route, as HeyYou said it should be plug and play.

[donnato]

I think the first question you need to ask yourself is why do you want to add a second HD? If it's simply for storage space there are other cheaper and easier solutions such as an external drive or even USB drives that are pretty large for the everyday average user.

A second HD is going to be a performance hit on your CPU and another drain on your battery. You could also end up running hotter and will need to make sure your fans are big enough to keep the system cool. You've also just voided any warranty you might have on your laptop.

If you decide to go this route, as HeyYou said it should be plug and play.

Interesting points Han.The cpu shouldn`t have any problems keeping up,the warrenty`s expired,and last night I saw the cooling system`s pretty beefy.As to the battery I`m plugged in most all the time.

What I`m finding now is,dual disk 640, or single disc 500. There`s clearance enough,but not for the three disc 720.(11+mm height)Don`t want/need that anyway.

[Maxwell the Fool]

I think cracking the case broke the warranty, so that should be a non-issue.

[donnato]

I think cracking the case broke the warranty, so that should be a non-issue.

Warranty`s expired Max. I checked that before going in.That`s why I didn`t know abouit the empty HDD bay.

[HeyYou]

Heheh, yea...no. I just found that the native HDD is a seagate. I`m usually plugged in for power so battery isn`t as important as performance.I`ve been digging up info about latency and through put speeds and I don`t think there`s any earth shaking issues there.

How about compatabilities with my existing drive? Only specs I have so far is the model number: ST9320421AS, gotta do some more digging.

Thank you Hey You.

Shouldn't be any compatibility issues, unless they are specific to your laptop. Most of the drives are fairly universal.

Shouldn't be any performance issues either.... or at least, nothing that you would notice. If anything, if you install a faster drive than what you are currently using, and install your games to it, you should see an improvement.

[donnato]

Shouldn't be any compatibility issues, unless they are specific to your laptop. Most of the drives are fairly universal.

Shouldn't be any performance issues either.... or at least, nothing that you would notice. If anything, if you install a faster drive than what you are currently using, and install your games to it, you should see an improvement.

Yup that`s what I`m intending,thank you all.

[Arion]

Yup that`s what I`m intending,thank you all.

The main thing is to make sure it is the same type as your primary..In a number of different ways.. Seagates work good with Seagates and occasionally there's conflicts with a different manufacturer, though it isn't as common as it used to be. Next make sure what type ATA/PATA or SATA. SATA is the norm now and you can tell because its a small thin cable connected to the back of the drive. If it is a wider cable with a second connection hookup to it, then its IDE. IDE drive will need the secondary drive jumpers set for slave to run with the primary. If Its SATA, generally that is determined on the motherboard and in the bios... Als, laptop batteries are usually thinner and are labeled as such. You need to be sure you don't get a full sized drive and try to stuff it in the laptop.

If you give me the model number of the ASUS laptop I can check and give you more information.

[_echo]

Nope, installing a new harddrive is literally plug and play. Once installed, you will have to format it. A process that will take a couple minutes if you just do a 'quick format'.

There is quite the selection of harddrives available, if battery life is more important, go with the 5400 RPM drive, if performance is what you want, then 7200 RPM is where its at. If you REALLY want performance AND battery life, SSD drives are the ticket, although, rather expensive yet, and limited in size. (an 80gb drive for 3500 bucks? Oh, I really don't think so....)

Duno where you are getting your prices, but an 80GB SSD is only like $2000 and not 3500. A 512GB SSD is like $1500. More info after addressing the later comment.

I think the first question you need to ask yourself is why do you want to add a second HD? If it's simply for storage space there are other cheaper and easier solutions such as an external drive or even USB drives that are pretty large for the everyday average user.

A second HD is going to be a performance hit on your CPU and another drain on your battery. You could also end up running hotter and will need to make sure your fans are big enough to keep the system cool. You've also just voided any warranty you might have on your laptop.

If you decide to go this route, as HeyYou said it should be plug and play.

No performance hit as it is the hard drives looking for information and not the CPU. The CPU is purely processing the information it is given and sending out the results. The north-bridge is responsible for telling the information where to go.

And only a heating "issue" if both drives are on at the same time. In fact it is a performance boost to have things like the OS on one drive, and games and programs on the second.

However there are some things to note first.

1. Laptops use 2.5" drives and not the full size 3.5", so be careful.

2. As mentioned, battery life comes into play if you ever take it off its life-line. 7200RPM drives are the standard for desktop computers, and 5400RPM for laptops, though you can get 7200RPM drives, just know that they do take a lot more power, and will heat up more when at full spin for long periods, IE, playing a game. But its worth noting that the heat will still be minor compared to the heat the CPU will be producing from running a game. Most things are actually rated for much higher temps then they are listed at. CPUs for example are really rated for in excess of 500F, though obviously your CPU would probably melt out of its socket if it reached that, not to mention the plastic on the laptop.

Solid State drives just eliminate all this, offering vastly better power use and heat production, as there are no moving parts. SSDs are also impossible to crash, but don't mistake this to mean programs wont crash, as that is something totally different. Only downside is the cost. A 64GB drive I have been looking at costs around $150-$200. The cost gets to be exponentially more expensive the bigger the drive, unlike conventional disk drives which get exponentially cheaper the bigger they get (Cost per GB ration that is)

3. Internal drive transfer rates are vastly better then external drives, though external drives provide convenience, off-site storage and are less likely to crash as they are not accessed as often as the main drive in your computer. This is why if you do have a second internal drive, it is better to keep most things on that one cus it is less likely to fail then the main drive which is accessed almost all the time, save for when your computer is idling.

As for any formatting, there is none assuming the second drive is already clean. Its all plug-n-play. Don't be fooled by "hard drive drivers" as they are just pointless additional software you don't need, usually consisting of some cheap 3rd party formatting program and backup program. Totally unnecessary. By default, no matter what, the drive the OS is installed on is labeled the C drive. A and B are reserved for floppy drives (Even though they are ancient as hell).

If you REALLY want to sweeten the deal, you could get an SSD and install only your games on it. Since SSDs are on par with the 10000RPM Raptor drives in terms of access times and transfer times (Slightly slower, but close enough) your games will run almost lag free, assuming you are running them at appropriate graphics levels. (Note: 10FPS may be acceptable to some, but 30FPS or more is considered acceptable settings, as that is what standard TV is shown at).

Each side has its drawbacks, so its up to you to pick which best suits you. Ill give you a quick summary of the pros/cons of each drive type:

5400RPM drive - Slow access and transfer times but easy on the power usage. The standard laptop drive unless you have a "gaming" laptop.

7200RPM drive - Standard read/write times. Consumes more power then the 5400RPM drive, but thats what it costs for faster access times.

SSD - Fastest read/write times you are going to find for a laptop, as they do not make Raptor drives in the 2.5" form factor. Consumes almost no power, as there are no motors to be spun up. They produce limited heat, as it is just electrical currents. Downside is they are rather expensive and are not that big with storage space. A 32GB drive can cost around $200-$250, 64GB can cost around $250+, and a 128GB drive can cost around $400+.

Obviously the best answer would be to just get 2 SSDs and put them both in, but that would be rather expensive. Personally I would go with an external, as you can get 1TB drives for fairly cheap (~$120 maybe a bit less) because messing with the insides of a laptop is generally not a good idea. They are really expensive to get fixed if the hardware gets damaged. If you must have an internal drive, its up to you if its a 5400RPM or 7200RPM drive. just keep in mind, that the 7200RPM is also a bit more expensive, and 2.5" drives in general are more expensive.

And with that, my rant is over Best of luck.

[HeyYou]

Duno where you are getting your prices, but an 80GB SSD is only like $2000 and not 3500. A 512GB SSD is like $1500. More info after addressing the later comment.

~snip~

Ooops, quite right. It was the 1tb drive that was hideously expensive. 80 gig drives can be found for under 300 bucks on newegg.

[_echo]

Typo there... XDadded one too many 0s

[donnato]

Echo, thank you so much.I`ve purchased a seagate 500 GB, 7200rpm HDD. Now I just have to figure how to get the mounting hardware home.I don`t get mail there for security reasons and Asus wont ship to a P.o.box. Probably have it delivered to work and have our front office watch for it.

Your "rant" cleared up a few things for me. I`m not really able to entertain any thoughts about SSDs because of the prices although I`m quite familiar with the advantages.

[_echo]

Where did you buy from? I can understand places not wanting to ship to PO boxes cus they want a signature most of the time...

Anyhoo, glad I could help.

[donnato]

Where did you buy from? I can understand places not wanting to ship to PO boxes cus they want a signature most of the time...

Anyhoo, glad I could help.

Echo, I have to get the mounting hardware from: e store.asus.com

[donnato]

Ok I had to put this project on hold for a bit but it`s now time to resume. One question...I`ve noticed that HDDs with a higher MB Cache are more expensive. What are the advantages of,say, a 32MB Cache over an 8MB Cache? What exactly does it do? Thanks folks.

[vometia]

Theoretically it can give relatively instant access to either frequently accessed stuff or have subsequent data blocks available for reading before the computer gets around to asking for them - depending on how well it can predict what you're likely to want next. The bigger it is, the more its scope for successfully predicting what you want to access. Edit: since I missed the main point, reading/writing data to/from the cache is hugely faster than doing the same to or from the disc platters.

If you have write-caching enabled (which isn't as risky on a laptop as a desktop since a laptop effectively has its own uninterruptable power supply: I wouldn't use write-caching otherwise) it means it can instantly return control to the PC when data is written as the drive can then actually put the data on the platters at its leisure. Again, the bigger it is, the more writes can be cached before it says "you'll have to wait".

There is however some overlap between the on-disc caching and what Windows does by caching data to memory for both reads and writes, and it's hard to say exactly how much of a performance gain a bigger cache actually translates into. I suspect that higher RPM actually has more of a bearing on performance than cache size, but it's a tricky one to ascertain even with benchmarks. All I know is that when running Oblivion or FO3, it'll stutter no matter what you try to do.

Edited December 26, 2010 by vometia

[donnato]

Thank you Vom,amazingly enough I fully understood that. So figuring that 500GB,7200rpm,3GB transfer rate, are all a given and written in stone. An HDD with 16MB Cache @$65.00 would probably serve my purposes as a secondary on board drive than a 32MB Cache for $120.00.Can`t seem to see spending the extra for something that may(or may not) give me noticeable performance increase.

[vometia]

Thank you Vom,amazingly enough I fully understood that. So figuring that 500GB,7200rpm,3GB transfer rate, are all a given and written in stone. An HDD with 16MB Cache @$65.00 would probably serve my purposes as a secondary on board drive than a 32MB Cache for $120.00.Can`t seem to see spending the extra for something that may(or may not) give me noticeable performance increase.

I'd say so. The cynical part of me suggests that it's as often a marketing gimmick as something that's actually useful; but I'd wait for some other opinions in case someone has alternative experiences to offer rather than relying on mine alone!

[donnato]

Agreed Vom. I`m fighting my natural urge to run over to best buy and get it now as opposed to saving about $20 ordering from newegg.I have to wait for the mounting hardware from asus anyways and so this will allow me to get some other viewpoints. Thank you.

[vometia]

I won't give you any additional encouragement with the impulsivity: I'm quite bad enough with that particular trait myself.

[donnato]

Ok, Seagate, 500GB,7200rpm,16M cache...installed adrunning nicely. Thank you all for your input. One question though...In control panel>device manager>Drives...it shows. When I booted up it automatically found the drivers for the new hardware and my rig runs noticably faster. But...when in the start menu I hit "computer" I see my "C", "D", and "E" (removable storage drive...My optical) but that`s all. The new HDD isn`t showing. ???How am I supposed to import data to this drive if I can`t select it?

EDIT: Ok I googled initializing a new drive...took over an hour to format but directions were simple and everything`s groovy now. Lappy is faster than it ever was...snappy kinda...

THANK YOU

Edited January 27, 2011 by donnato