Probably a dumb question about HDD's not Ubuntu specific

**Christie_k22** · December 2nd, 2010

I have searched everywhere on both the forums and the net in general yet I can't seem to even find something similar to what I am wanting to know.

I am wanting to upgrade my tiny little netbook (Acer AOA150) with a much much larger HDD. It came with a 160gb hdd. I found a 1tb 5200 rpm hdd that I know is the proper size (physically) to fit in this little thing. I am wondering if there is any reason that it wouldn't work? Is there any way to find out? Are there any risks involved with such a big upgrade? Money is kinda tight right now but I found a good deal on the hdd but I don't want to take a chance on wasting the money or something happening to my laptop. Only thing I know for sure is the higher the rpm's the shorter the battery life is.

**zipteye** · December 2nd, 2010

Originally Posted by Christie_k22

I have searched everywhere on both the forums and the net in general yet I can't seem to even find something similar to what I am wanting to know.

I am wanting to upgrade my tiny little netbook (Acer AOA150) with a much much larger HDD. It came with a 160gb hdd. I found a 1tb 5200 rpm hdd that I know is the proper size (physically) to fit in this little thing. I am wondering if there is any reason that it wouldn't work? Is there any way to find out? Are there any risks involved with such a big upgrade? Money is kinda tight right now but I found a good deal on the hdd but I don't want to take a chance on wasting the money or something happening to my laptop. Only thing I know for sure is the higher the rpm's the shorter the battery life is.

I guess the first question would be... "Why would you need that much space on a netbook?"
160gb isn't sufficient?
Seems most likely that Acer would be able to answer the question.
Have you tried looking at their web site and looking for support options?

**Zookalicious** · December 2nd, 2010

Try contacting the vendor, or looking up the specific netbook online. They usually will tell you the maximum supported HDD size. It doesn't mean that you can't go higher, but that's just the highest that they officially support.

**chamira** · December 2nd, 2010

Are sure that this HDD fit? I only asked because these vary in their thickness and it is something people overlook and with a netbook depth might be an issue.

I don't see a reason to have such a massive drive on a netbook either, I would go for a smaller faster O/S drive and have a bigger external drive as a back-up/data store. Just out of interest what are the physical specs for both drives?

Anyway, there shouldn't be any reason why this wouldn't work, but seek-time might become an issue when this drive fills up?

**Christie_k22** · December 9th, 2010

To answer some questions. . . The main reason I am looking into such a large upgrade is bc I have a lot of music that I would like to hold on the laptop without sacrificing space for other things. I usually hook my laptop into my car stereo stick it on random and listen to music that way. As is with a 160gb hdd I cant fit all my music on it. The main reason I was looking into going as high as 1tb was bc I found one that was cheap. I can no longer get that one so i'm thinking maybe a 500ish gb hdd. It would be enough for what I need though not enough to keep it synced to my desktop with all of what I have. I'm a bit of a file hoarder. I have homework files from over 10 years ago lol. Anyways thanks for the help!

**oldfred** · December 9th, 2010

Portable PC and particularly the little one's do not have much in the way of power supplies. What is the watts or volts & milliamps power requirements of old drive & new drive. If new drive is a lot newer it may be more efficient and be ok. But if you overload power supply you can have real issues.