Laptops and Hardware

Most of the internal components in a notebook are soldered or glued together and cannot be replaced by the user. The components that are (usually) replaceable for improved performance, however, are RAM memory modules and hard drive. One of the reasons to upgrade your hard drive is getting more storage space, but switching to a faster hard drive or SSD may also have a significant impact on the overall performance of a laptop. Laptop Logic tests and compares hard drives and sorts out what kind of benefits you can achieve from upgrading.

On the test bed today we bring you the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 160GB 2.5' USB hard drive upgrade kit. This is Hitachi's first perpendicular magnetic recording retail kit. Seeking to fill your portable storage needs with a drive whose footprint is about the same size as an iPod, Hitachi seems to have a winner on their hands. We'll see if that's the case by showing the drive's performance through a series of synthetic and real world tests. Afterwards, you can be the judge if this drive is worth your hard earned cash. Sound good? Ok, let's get going then.