Hard Drive Upgrade

[Mushmush]

Hi,

In august I bought a Vaio PCG-K115Z. I decided for this type and model because it was recommended as very suitable for video-editing purposes.
And indeed, with it's Pentium IV 3.06 GHz, 512 MB memory and the ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 and the very good LCD-display it's a very nice notebook for video-work.

So, what surprised me was that there's only a 4.200 rpm hard drive in this laptop, which really isn't up to this kind of use; it's just too slow for video-editing! It's beyond me why Sony would do a thing like that. Such a nice and fast notebook being held back by this slow HD; it's a shame.

So I borrowed a 5.400 rpm drive to see how that worked with this Vaio, and it is definitely an improvement.
But what I'd really like to do is to get a 7.200 rpm drive and turn my Vaio into a real, fast video-editing machine.
Both Hitachi and Seagate make 7.200 rpm drives and they are quite expensive.

So i wonder if there is anyone out there who has tried this and who can tell me if it's worth the trouble and the expense of ordering such a HD.

Thanks!
Mushmush

[William]

If the 7200rpm drives are the same physical dimensions needed to fit, then I am sure you will notice a marked improvement.during use.

IMHO it is probably the best upgrade you can perform to increase speed.

[carthorian]

I agree that this is the best upgrade in your case. I believe Sony doesn't use these faster hard disk because they will consume more energy, and then people will post here that their laptop only runs on batterymode for less then 2 hours. Everything has its downside, and Sony can't please all.

[kee-lo_]

I believe Hitatchi do some great 7200RPM drives which use a reasonable amount of energy

[sr1312]

Did you try this mushmush ?

Was it worth it ?

I'm looking at changing to the Hitachi 7200rpm Travelstar myself.

Cheers

[Mushmush]

Hi sr1312,

No, I haven't tried it yet. I had hoped to reach a Vaio-user through this forum who had, but so far no luck.
I guess I just have to take a chance and order one and give it a spin myself.

If I do I will post my findings on this forum.

Regards,
Mushmush

[tonybeard]

Don't forget you will void your warranty if Sony Link detect you have installed without them. I bought a 250 GIG external Freecom HD for £90 they have gone up now. Look here I carry to back up my Dad's 'ol HP windows 98 while we cheer on the Tri Nations Lions this Saturday. Man I tell you he hasn't formatted for 7 years and it's amazing it still boots up at all. He has never had a firewall in his dial up connection and I picked up 9 viruses and 1280 spywares

[tonybeard]

By the way I have PCGK215Z and it does have a 5200 rpm HD and I edit using Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus with no frames dropped and perfect reproductions compressing using Xilisoft Mpeg4. As this is an AVID product I would imagine your using a more professional package like AVID itself which really requires a desktop with 2 gig of RAM Grab a copy of Pinnacle studio 10 has all the bells and whistles