Notebook Hard Drives

When buying or upgrading your notebook computer hard drive there are a few options: replace the internal hard drive, a USB 2.0 or Firewire external hard drive, and a PCMCIA slot hard drive.

Internal Notebook Hard Drive

Upgrading the internal hard drive is a good option if you want to make your notebook more responsive or hold more data without carrying extra things around. Notebooks use smaller 2.5 inch hard drives rather than the standard 3.5 inch drive used on desktops, the inch size refers to the size of the circular platters inside the housing but is now used mostly to differentiate the drives on a shopping list. (who actually looks at the physical dimensions while buying a drive online?) For reference: new 2.5 inch drives are around 9mm to 9.5mm thick.

Maximum capacity for this type of drive is currently around 80 gigabytes, 7200 RPM is also available from Hitachi but most other notebook hard drives spin at 4200 RPM or 5400 RPM to save power.

External Hard Drives

With available capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes and speeds up to 7200 RPM, an external hard drive is great for backing up or storing large amounts of data . These types of drives are a hassle free way of adding a lot of storage that can be shared between any computer that has a USB 2.0 or Firewire port.

PCMCIA Slot Hard Drive

PCMCIA hard drives are very compact and portable but also have limited capacity compared to other drives due to physical size. A regular external hard drive would be a better option if you're just looking for more storage since you can get 10x more gigabytes for the same price, if you're looking for a floppy drive type replacement and don't need more than a couple hundred megabytes then those USB pen drives would also be cheaper. (not to mention CDRW and DVD±RW)

Otherwise a good option if your notebook only has PCMCIA for external devices.