750 GB Internal HD vs. 500 GB

[tpann]

I want to swap out my 500GB hard drive for a 750GB hard drive. I'm running Pro Tools 10 on Windows 7 64bit on a laptop. Hard drives are:

OUT: WDC WD5000BPKT-22PK4T0 500.1GB SATA300, 2.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache

IN: WDC WD7500BPKX Scorpio Black 750GB SATA 2.5" 7200 RPM 16MB cache6.0Gb/s 2.5

My simple question is, should I expect the 750GB to perform the same as the 500GB? I assume it should given they seem to have all the same specs, but I'm not an IT guy so I don't like to make assumptions. I want the bigger HD just because I have a lot of technical and creative "stuff" I keep on my computer.

Thanks!
Tim

[Darryl Ramm]

You won't notice any difference in performance.

And hopefully you are not recording audio/sessions to this boot/system drive.

If you wanted to make a significantly noticeable increase in performance then an SSD drive would have been the way to go. Samsung 840 Evo 1 TB: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electr.../dp/B00E3W1726

And more robust and reliable and uses less power.

(and for best performance you would want a SATA III (aka SATA 6 Gbps) disk interface in your laptop, which any recent laptop will have).

[tpann]

Thank you Darryll! I have not made the purchase yet so I may actually go with the SSD drive.

[Darryl Ramm]

Be sure to install the Samsung Magician Software. Download the latest version from Samsung's web site.

Use the Magician software to check the drive firmware is up to date. (Samsung are very good about providing firmware updates/fixes for any issues).

When you format the drive I would tend to overprovisioning by 20 % for maximum sustained write performance (even though as a boot/system drive you won't usually be writing a lot to it). The drives come with 7% over provisioning (unused space to use for cell wear snd performance tricks). The Magician software can set this.

And you are on Windows 7 which provides TRIM support which significantly helps these (and many other) SSD drives deliver maximum sustained write and mixed read/write performance.

The Evo drives come with Samsung data migration tool, or can use any other cloning tool you prefer. Just treat it like you would a HDD. But personally I tend to use the opportunity of getting a new boot/system drive to reinstall a clean copy of Windows and apps.

If you have a spare internal SATA port them just drop the drive in there. If not just use a USB to SATA adapter cable or dock. Samsung has "laptop kit" SKUs of these drives that come with a USB to SATA adapter cable and some mounting shim hardware (because these drives are 7mm-ish thick instead instead of the older/fatter 9mm-ish drives. which you typically don't need the shim in most laptops which side mount/locate on any 2.5" drive mounting screws just fine). But not all retailers carry that kit. Any standard USB to SATA adapter you would use for a HDD will work.