Buying HDD for Laptop

My laptop's HDD decided to be an pimento yesterday and die. Now, I've been having problems without for almost a year, getting the "dude, I'm about to die" message every time I started my computer. So, I backed-up all of my crap and haven't been storing stuff in it, I've been keeping it either online (Google Docs, Dropbox, etc) or backing it up on my other HDD.

Anyway, it's finally dead. And I've never bought any kind of hardware for a computer before, so I'm not exactly sure what to look for. The HDD that died is Toshiba MK8032GSX. If you guys needed any additional information, I'll gladly cough it up.

I'm not looking for anything extravagant capacity-wise (satisfied with 160 GB or 250 GB at the moment, but the higher, the better) and my budget is around $40 - $70 USD, just anyone that fits, works and is above 80 GB is fine with me. I'm able to buy online and have it shipped to the US.

Any ideas?

PS. I hate these stupid school computers, the keyboard is in Spanish. : (

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...%20$75

Pick any of them.

Speaking of laptop HDD's

Fiel, do you think i should get like...a... 80gb SSD for my current laptop (Has an empty space for one) and just throw my OS on it?

Being frank here, but how should I know what you should get in that situation?

Monitor your disk usage and find out what size SSD is the best fit for you. For me, I needed 120gb. Use WinDirStat and figure out what you can live without.

Being frank here, but how should I know what you should get in that situation?

Monitor your disk usage and find out what size SSD is the best fit for you. For me, I needed 120gb. Use WinDirStat and figure out what you can live without.

@_@ just wanted another persons opinion on using a SSD for an OS. If it is worth it or not.

@_@ just wanted another persons opinion on using a SSD for an OS. If it is worth it or not.

To use an SSD or an HDD, that is the question...

SSD	HDD
Low to moderate capacity per drive	Moderate to very high capacity per drive
High cost per GB	Very low cost per GB
Access latency almost non-existent	Roughly 15-20 ms access latency
Quality questionable after multiple rewrites	Failure possible from usage (like everything else)
Partial failure from physical damage	Catastrophic failure from physical damage (HD crash)
High I/O performance per watt	Meh to low I/O performance per watt

And since I don't know your preferences... I can't help you.

SSDs are great for important data such as the OS. However, if budget is what you're going for, forget the SSDs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...%20$75

Pick any of them.

Okay, thank you very much! I'm considering getting the $59.99 one.

By the way, what exactly am I looking for when choosing an internal hard drive? I know that connection type and size is necesary, but what else?

Okay, thank you very much! I'm considering getting the $59.99 one.

By the way, what exactly am I looking for when choosing an internal hard drive? I know that connection type and size is necesary, but what else?

Capacity and RPM

High RPM = less battery life, if you don't use your laptop on battery power then go for it. More performance. That's the main difference between the Scorpio Black and Blue. Also Black has twice the cache.

@_@ just wanted another persons opinion on using a SSD for an OS. If it is worth it or not.

Ask yourself why you want it.

Thanks for that info, man.

What I really want to know is what do I need to know or look for so that the HDD I buy is fully compatible with my system?

Thanks for that info, man.

What I really want to know is what do I need to know or look for so that the HDD I buy is fully compatible with my system?

Um.... As long as it uses the same connection cables (knows nothing about laptop cables) it should work. It says its ATA-7, am i right in guessing that the hard drive you need to buy should be ATA-7 also? Or will ATA-6's work also? (Question is aimed at Fiel/XL/someone else)

ATA 7 is backward compatible with ATA 6. He can pick any of those drives he wants.

ATA 7 is backward compatible with ATA 6. He can pick any of those drives he wants.

Any drive then Loose! ^^

Okay, guys. Thank you so much for all the info.

I did some more investigation and found my laptop's user manual thing and specifications: http://www.superwarehouse.com/Sony_VAIO_...ps/1491680

I found out that the Storage Controller type is Serial ATA, specifically Serial ATA-150. So, if my assumptions are correct, this jolly guy will fit perfectly, right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822136221

Dammit, lol. I thought his was IDE. How could I screw that up?

Yeah, that will work just fine.

Thanks everyone that helped me with this. I'm back online and, boy, did I miss it!