Upgrading x100e 5400 rpm hard drive to 7200 rpm hard drive
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:20 pm
Two months ago I bought an x100e, with four gigabytes of memory, and the AMD L625 dual processor. I installed Windows XP Professional to dual boot with Windows 7 and removed most of the 'custom' software. With screen brightness turned down just a bit, I was getting about six hours of time on one charge doing basic word processing and some web browsing and email. The keyboard has been superlative, as many people say.
I was comfortable enough with the performance, but over a period of two months found that the delays at times in opening applications, in saving files, and so forth to be disappointing. Others who had the x100e proclaimed the wonders of the SSD drive, but the prices for SSD drives are astronomical. Eventually I settled on the same brand Western Digital hard drive, the WD3200BEKT 320gb 7200 rpm drive, SATA 3.0Gb/s to replace the original WD250 BEVT 5400 rpm drive. Research online provided bits and pieces about compatiblity, power usage and heat, but nothing definitive, so it was a risk. At only $55 for the drive, it was worth a try.
I posted the hard drive upgrade, step by step, with comments and photographs to my Facebook page, and to my blog on my web site. Hopefully this might be of use to someone else who wants to tweak the performance of their x100e while on a tight budget - the most bang for the buck.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?create ... 0527420759
Blog: http://bluerockphotography.com/blog/brpblog.php#
Added note if there is a problem accessing the Facebook page or my blog. I tested the links myself from several different machines and browsers and they worked for me, but that doesn't help someone who is not having success doing so. Below are a few time differences, such as boot time, but the main thing is that this is the drive that really should have been in the x100e in the first place.
The upgrade worked and improved the snapiness of the x100e laptop so there is no longer a noticeable delay in saving or opening files. It's the drive that should have been there in the first place. There is no additional heat, so the laptop just feels warm on the underside, same as before. Battery life with word processing actually increased from about 6 hours to about 6 1/2 hours, pretty remarkable considering the boost in performance. Boot times for Windows 7 went from 29 seconds to 20 seconds, and for Windows XP from 35 seconds to 27 seconds. The times are measured from when I hit enter at the boot up screen to select the operating system to when the desktop appears and you can start working, though either version of Windows still has some software to load. This time is without any anti virus or firewall software loaded, which adds time depending on the company being used. Shutdown stayed at four to five seconds for either operating system.
Mike Bailey
I was comfortable enough with the performance, but over a period of two months found that the delays at times in opening applications, in saving files, and so forth to be disappointing. Others who had the x100e proclaimed the wonders of the SSD drive, but the prices for SSD drives are astronomical. Eventually I settled on the same brand Western Digital hard drive, the WD3200BEKT 320gb 7200 rpm drive, SATA 3.0Gb/s to replace the original WD250 BEVT 5400 rpm drive. Research online provided bits and pieces about compatiblity, power usage and heat, but nothing definitive, so it was a risk. At only $55 for the drive, it was worth a try.
I posted the hard drive upgrade, step by step, with comments and photographs to my Facebook page, and to my blog on my web site. Hopefully this might be of use to someone else who wants to tweak the performance of their x100e while on a tight budget - the most bang for the buck.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?create ... 0527420759
Blog: http://bluerockphotography.com/blog/brpblog.php#
Added note if there is a problem accessing the Facebook page or my blog. I tested the links myself from several different machines and browsers and they worked for me, but that doesn't help someone who is not having success doing so. Below are a few time differences, such as boot time, but the main thing is that this is the drive that really should have been in the x100e in the first place.
The upgrade worked and improved the snapiness of the x100e laptop so there is no longer a noticeable delay in saving or opening files. It's the drive that should have been there in the first place. There is no additional heat, so the laptop just feels warm on the underside, same as before. Battery life with word processing actually increased from about 6 hours to about 6 1/2 hours, pretty remarkable considering the boost in performance. Boot times for Windows 7 went from 29 seconds to 20 seconds, and for Windows XP from 35 seconds to 27 seconds. The times are measured from when I hit enter at the boot up screen to select the operating system to when the desktop appears and you can start working, though either version of Windows still has some software to load. This time is without any anti virus or firewall software loaded, which adds time depending on the company being used. Shutdown stayed at four to five seconds for either operating system.
Mike Bailey
