Where's the best place online to shop for a hard drive?

May 28, 2008 9:43 AM

I need a new hard drive for my laptop. Best place to shop?

In this thread - http://ask.metafilter.com/91894/Something-is-killing-my-FTP - I discussed my computer woes. After taking off to nuke from orbit, it's clear that either my restore CDs are corrupted, or my hard drive is hosed. I'm ordering a new recovery CD from Gateway, but I'm also going to get myself a new hard drive. But it's a jungle out there -- what's the best place to score a new drive? My machine is a Gateway 7330 GZ laptop, with an 80-gig drive running 4200 RPM. Do I do Tiger Direct? Or what? Thanks in advance!

posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit to computers & internet (20 comments total)

newegg.com is my go-to site.
posted by tachikaze at 9:44 AM on May 28

Newegg's a pretty common suggestion from nerds building their own machines, and when I don't feel like saving a couple of bucks by really shopping around, I tend to just go there and be done with it. (Incidentally, if you're buying a new drive, make sure you get a 5400 RPM model.)
posted by Tomorrowful at 9:46 AM on May 28

Definitely newegg.
posted by o0dano0o at 9:46 AM on May 28

Newegg is good. I like Other World Computing a lot too, because I have had many good experiences there over many years... but they're more Mac-centric. That said, a drive's a drive.
posted by rokusan at 9:50 AM on May 28

Nthing Newegg, I've had random problems with other sites but I've never had any issues with Newegg. Plus they almost always have the best price anyway.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:51 AM on May 28

I just bought a new hard drive for my busted laptop from newegg, and I have no complaints. Just don't make the same mistake I did by accidentally buying the wrong one, leaving it in its box by your desk at work, and coming back the next day to find that housekeeping has helpfully taken all the clutter on your floor to the trash compactor.
posted by granted at 10:01 AM on May 28

Tomorrowful, why would I need a 5400 RPM model? Given my machine's age and so forth, wouldn't I be smarter to stick with 4200? I never play games; I use the thing for netsurfing, writing, web design, Photoshop, Flash, occasionally watching a DVD or playing music while I work.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:02 AM on May 28

Your machine's age has nothing to do with it - unless it's so old that your everyday work becomes CPU-bound or memory-bound, you'll benefit from the speed increase, and that's just not the case - your machine's plenty new enough to benefit. In fact, almost everything you do - especially photoshop, DVD playback, and music - is going to involve plenty of disk access, and if you have multiple apps open at once, Windows will be swapping memory out all the time - which is limited by the hard drive's speed.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:20 AM on May 28

Newegg, newegg, newegg. And get the 5400 RPM HD.
posted by porn in the woods at 10:27 AM on May 28

Ok, ok! Sheesh! :-) Now, next dumbass question (I am not a hardware person at all) -- will any laptop hard drive do (newegg has lots listed), and can I safely extract the old one and put in the new one myself? I've never done this.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:37 AM on May 28

Newegg.
posted by Silvertree at 11:39 AM on May 28

Did anyone mention newegg? ;)

As far as what to buy, make sure you get the proper interface (it's probably SATA but a google search or a peek at the manual would be advised).
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 11:50 AM on May 28

Check Techdeals, which posts daily on where to find hot deals. Seems like they've got a different external hard drive deal every day.
posted by MaverickX at 1:07 PM on May 28

I don't know which Gateway laptop you have, but most laptop hard drives are held in with a single screw. You unscrew the drive, slide it out, mount the new drive (sometimes involves a few more screws) and slide it back in. Gateway support site probably has instructions. This is generally really, really easy.

Also - Newegg and 5400 RPM drive. You'll also need to make sure you get the right size drive - it's probably a 2.5" but you should check Gateway's specs to be sure.
posted by cnc at 1:29 PM on May 28

Clarifying the above - the drive is sometimes installed in a drive tray that you slide out of the laptop. You'd mount the new drive in the tray.
posted by cnc at 1:30 PM on May 28

For people who live on the west coast there is a store called Electronic Fry's that sells computer parts at reasonably low prices. (www.frys.com). For me Fry's would be my first website I check and then newegg. About your question on hard drive compatability the best way of finding out is check the make and model of your old hard drive and go with that. It's hard to explain the difference between SATA, ATA, OEM without having to explain each one, but like I said before to make things simple just get the specs from the old HDD and or just get the same one.
posted by Plug1 at 1:35 PM on May 28

I look at Pricegrabber.com for stuff like this -- it mines through hundreds of retail sites and shows you the best deals. Newegg is frequently Pricegrabber's best deal for computer componets, but by no means always.
posted by gum at 1:43 PM on May 28

I just noticed you mentioned Tiger Direct in your question. They're fine too. I've had a dozen good experiences with them and no stinkers yet.
posted by rokusan at 4:07 PM on May 28

I want to thank all of you for your help. My drive does indeed slide out on a small tray -- it took me about ten minutes to figure this out last night while I was looking at my machine. The little bastard is labled ATA, as opposed to SATA, so I guess that's the way to go.

I am not 100% certain that the drive is fried, but something sure as hell is wrong, and my recovery disks are not able to successfully reformat the drive. So I'm ordering a new one. They're not expensive, lord knows.

This is such a pain in my ass.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 6:46 AM on May 29

Okay, I think I am gonna go with this WD drive from newegg.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 7:14 AM on May 29