Need Advice on HD and DVD DL burner for Acer aspire 3613lci

[JoeHacker]

I am planning on ordering a new hard drive,, 100gb aprx, and a Dual Layer burner combo for my laptop.. Any preferences to Hard Drive brandsl for laptops?? Any brands to stay away from??

On the burner,, same questions.. NewEgg posts were not steller/clear on the Philips. There is a Sony listed that seems ok.

Cost isn't an issue compared to quality of component and reliability.. I don't see major price differences.

This laptop uses ATA100 for the HD. I would assume that NewEgg is a good place to buy these devices.

Next, I will be upgrading a Toshiba Satelite 1ghz that I found in a dumpster.. It too will need the same size HD and burner..

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[cattbert]

What speed hard drive were you looking to get? The spec page at the Acer web site did not say how fast the original drive was, i.e. 4,200 rpm or 5,400 rpm. I looked because without any information on how much power the notebook can provide to the drive and whether it can handle the heat, I would be leary about jumping to a 7,200 rpm drive (especially if it started out with a 4,200 rpm drive).

When I replaced mine, I was starting with a 4,200 rpm drive, so I went with a Western Digital Scorpio 120 gb drive, as it was one of the lowest power drawing 5,400 rpm notebook drives I could find. It turned out to be a good performer and very quiet ... I would have no hesitancy recommending it to you. Here is a link to the line at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=western+digital+scorpio&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all&Go.x=10&Go.y=27

(Note that the link includes a few sata models to ignore) For the model I got (WD1200VE 120GB w/ 8mb cache), $81.99 is a decent price.

As to the DVD burner, I would recommend that you provide links to the models you are referencing. I have never looked for a replacement dvd drive for a notebook, but I was wondering if you are looking because you want to upgrade your current combo drive or if your current drive is having problems? If it is just to upgrade, I would consider whether you actually need the dvd burn capability when out and about or whether you would only be doing that at home. I say this because if you only need the capability at home, you may want to also consider a regular 3.5 in DVD drive and enclosure (appx $60 for both).

 

[JoeHacker]

I guess I will have to open the box up and see if there are numbers on it.. This laptop was a first class screwing by Staples.. I don't believe that it was suppose to have been sold in the US with this config.. But,, I could be wrong. The battery pack is only good for about 55 minutes. Four cell versus 8 cell battery.. Go figure. The cd/dvd combo can write a audio cd then not be able to read it reliably a day latter.. So,, I think I am do for a replacement. The machine is two years old with less than 15 hours on the cd burner.

As far as DVD burning goes,, I do want to get it to burn while I am not home.. It is key for my needs.. Dual layer is so that I don't have to comprimise on quality. The bigger hard drive is to facilitate storage of full 8.1 gig movies.. No, I don't plan on leaving them on there forever,, just in time for me to create a reliable, and quality disc.

I will see if I can get to checking on the numbers asap. Thanks for the info..

 

[JoeHacker]

I opened up the laptop and it has a Seagate ST9402113a,40g, 4200rpm,2meg
buffer..

Are the Seagates anygood?? Computer Geeks sells them, they refurbished. Not interested in one of those,, but the numbers of refurbs has me concerned.

Mine isn't too noisey, but you hear it when it spins up. So, I wonder if I should try another brand...

The good news, I got the DVD burnt that I was trying to do. Dvd Decrypt, Dvd Shrink, and ImgBurn are the BEST.. Nero on the otherhand is beyond garbage!!! The Memorex 16x dual layer external burner, with Memorex dl+R are Great!!