HP Pavilion dv6000 Hard Drive Upgrade Question [ Edited ]

[Booker2020]

Hello all, and thank you in advance for your advice.

I own an HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop.  It came with a Western Digital Scorpio WD800BEVS (80GB 5400rpm 8MB 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s) hard drive installed.  This drive finally failed after making funny noises for about 14 months, and I'm looking to replace/upgrade as the computer itself is still in good condition.  Thankfully I back everything up on an external, so nothing was lost.

I understand that a faster drive (7200rpm) will run a bit warmer, and draw power more quickly.  Power is not a concern, I rarely run the laptop without AC attached.  Anybody have an idea how much warmer a 7200rpm drive would run?  Would this be an issue on an older computer where the fans may not be as efficient as they were when new?  I do keep the vents clear and clean, so air flow should not be impeded.

What I want:

1) I'd like to upgade to more volume.

2) I'd like to upgrade for speed as I frequently use the computer for photo editing (up to 18MB images using PhotoMechanic, Photoshop, Lightroom, Bridge, Noise Ninja).  I'm thinking 16MB cache and 3.0Gb/s internal would help with this.  Any downsides or compatibility issues with those upgrades on the dv6000?

3) I intend to re-install the Windows XP Home OS that came with the machine, do the updates, and strip out all the HP/Windows extras.  Not about to purchase a new OS.

4) Haven't checked prices yet, but I'm fairly certain it only has 1GB of RAM at the moment.  Will likely max that out to 2GB.

A quick search on Newegg brought up dozens of drives that appear to work with the dv6000.

Right now I'm between this Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BEKT 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s

$75 with 5-year warranty

And this Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s

$65 with 3-year warranty

Will the dv6000 accept a SATA-II drive without issues?

The original part is $45 on Amazon with comparable prices elsewhere.

Any advice on which drive to go with (especially if you've used them personally) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!!

***edit***

Additional information:

Looking at the label, my laptop is an HP Pavilion dv6500, CNF74143HW, AMD Turion 64 X2 and nVidia graphics.

Also, I was mistaken, it came with Windows Vista Home Premium, not XP, so I will be reinstalling with Vista HP.

The RAM is HP 449929-001, it has 2x 1GB sticks already installed, not sure if this is the max or if it can take 3 or 4 GB and actually use it.

[Knute]

Western Digital.  Should run fine, the fan location is typically in the upper left side of the laptop while the HD is in the lower right, so the fan doesn't do anything for the heat of the HD anyways.

[Huffer]

You don't give us the exact model of the dv6000 series you have but if it is an AMD processor and the model number is equal to or lower than dv6499 I would be concerned about any extra heat. If you have the Intel version I would be less concerned. The fact of the matter is that the newest SATA-II laptop hard drives draw less power and put out no more heat than before so a current 7200 rpm model would not be any hotter or draw any more power than the 80 gig you have now. However, that model series of laptops has been plagued with unexplained issues with all 7200 rpm drives and all 500 gig drives. I have been telling people here for quite some time that the optimum, low risk upgrade is to a 320 gig 5400 rpm drive.

You want more speed. A SATA-II drive will work fine but obviously will adjust down to a SATA-I connection. You do not lose much because the difference is only in max burst speed which is rarely attained anyway. I have personally installed 7200 rpm drives in dv6000 laptops and have not had a problem. I have not installed a 500 gig drive. My advice to you is to find a 320 gig 7200 rpm drive and look for one with a 16 or 32 meg cache rather than an 8 meg cache.I have also not tried one in a dv6000 but you might want to consider a 320 gig SATA hybrid drive. They cost a bit more but will be the fastest non-SSD drive you can buy:

hybrid drive

not hybrid

Good luck. There is a small risk of issues with a 7200 rpm drive but I think you will be OK. Keep in mind installing XP takes some special steps, all covered here on this Forum in the XP downgrade guide.

[Knute]

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Huffer wrote:

You don't give us the exact model of the dv6000 series you have but if it is an AMD processor and the model number is equal to or lower than dv6499 I would be concerned about any extra heat. If you have the Intel version I would be less concerned. The fact of the matter is that the newest SATA-II laptop hard drives draw less power and put out no more heat than before so a current 7200 rpm model would not be any hotter or draw any more power than the 80 gig you have now. However, that model series of laptops has been plagued with unexplained issues with all 7200 rpm drives and all 500 gig drives. I have been telling people here for quite some time that the optimum, low risk upgrade is to a 320 gig 5400 rpm drive.

You want more speed. A SATA-II drive will work fine but obviously will adjust down to a SATA-I connection. You do not lose much because the difference is only in max burst speed which is rarely attained anyway. I have personally installed 7200 rpm drives in dv6000 laptops and have not had a problem. I have not installed a 500 gig drive. My advice to you is to find a 320 gig 7200 rpm drive and look for one with a 16 or 32 meg cache rather than an 8 meg cache.I have also not tried one in a dv6000 but you might want to consider a 320 gig SATA hybrid drive. They cost a bit more but will be the fastest non-SSD drive you can buy:

hybrid drive

not hybrid

Good luck. There is a small risk of issues with a 7200 rpm drive but I think you will be OK. Keep in mind installing XP takes some special steps, all covered here on this Forum in the XP downgrade guide.

---

Kudos!

[Booker2020]

Apologies for not including all the details required at first.

Looking at the label, my laptop is an HP Pavilion dv6500, CNF74143HW, AMD Turion 64 X2 and nVidia graphics.

Also, I was mistaken, it came with Windows Vista Home Premium, not XP, so I will be reinstalling with Vista HP.

The RAM is HP 449929-001, it has 2x 1GB sticks already installed, not sure if this is the max or if it can take 3 or 4 GB and actually use it.

So now I'm between two 320GB 7200rpm 16MB cache SATA 3.0Gb/s drives.

WD Scorpio Black and Seagate Momentus.

Any final recommendations?

Going to pick up 4GB of G.Skill DDR2 800 as well.

[Huffer]

Those are both good drives so go on price. And since yours is dv6500 or higher it uses a SATA-II interface, and the problems I mentioned with 500 gig drives do not apply.

[newport]

I also have a pavilion dv 6000 with a bad hard drive, a seagate ST9160821AS, but the connector on the end is slotted pins and in the computer the long pins fit into these slots. I have looked at the photos of the suggested hard drives on this page and I don't see any way they will fit. again it's a seagate momenius 5400.3 ST9160821AS, HP P/N 438485-001. Thanks!

[azuser54]

I have a pre-6500 series DV6000 with a bad 80GB drive.  So I'm looking at the Seagate Momentus XT series - my old HDD has a current spec on the drive of 700mA, while the Seagate drives lists a maximum of 1A startup inrush current.  Will my motherboard support that?  If the exact model # matters, I'll get that when I get home tonight.  Also, would the 500GB version of these drives have the same issues you referenced earlier in the thread?

Thanks in advance.

[Booker2020]

There's a frame that holds the hard drive, and an adapter that goes over the hard drive pins to make them interface with the connector in the notebook computer.

I got the 320GB Western Digital and it has been a huge improvement.  After installing everything I think I had about 290GB free space.

[Ivacanrod]

I want to upgrade my hard drive following the comments in this conversation.

My Nootebook is;

Model #: dv 6000

Product #: RG365UA#ABA

Product Name: Pavilion dv 6000

I wonder if I can use the same hard drive than "Booker2020" was thinking on? That will be:

Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BEKT 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal

Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136692

I also running several programs, and my computer is always too slow. That's why I want to

upgrade it.

Eventually, I will upgrade the memory RAM to see if that help. I saw other comments about it in

these forum, so I will check with crucial website.

Any help will be great.

Thank you!