Query whether hybrid drive will work in 'old' notebook computer

[GO_Phoenix]

Hi folks,

My HP Envy notebook is about 6 years old and has a 1TB HD. I recall something being said, at the time of purchase, from PC World, about them being unable to incorporate a SSD (I can't remember why!) I'm trying to ascertain whether I'd be able to fit one of the modern hybrid drives (preferably incorporating a 2TB HD. I've never been inside the machine's casing so don't know exactly what's what in there; also, whether a 2TB drive would even fit, space-wise (i.e., would its casing be physically larger than its 1TB equivalent?). Many thanks.

[mdklassen · Accepted solution]

Six years ago, SSD devices were extremely expensive, per Megabyte.

Customers would be reluctant to pay the price for a 200 GB or 320 GB or 500 GB SSD, as an alternative to a "spinning" disk-drive of the same capacity.

> I've never been inside the machine's casing so don't know exactly what's what in there;

Take a look at any stick of modern RAM -- desktop or laptop.

If it has 8 GB of RAM on the stick, you probably will see 8 "chips" mounted on the stick. Each chip holds 1 GB.

Notice that each chip is very small, and not very thick.

So, inside a hybrid SSHD disk-drive, there is no problem finding physical space for such a small chip.

> whether a 2TB drive would even fit, space-wise (i.e., would its casing be physically larger than its 1TB equivalent?).

No.  Data storage keeps evolving.  I have an "antique" 1 GB disk-drive that physically is the same size as a modern 1 TB disk-drive, despite a 1000-to-1 increase in the storage capacity.

But, for a laptop, sometimes you find "drive-bays" that are designed for disk-drives that are 9 mm thick, while some drive-bays are designed for disk-drives that are up to 11 mm thick.  So, be careful, when selecting a new disk-drive.

[iomare]

Hi,

You can install a Hybrid drive or even an SSD if you want. The series of your laptop was even available with a hybrid drive.

From service manual:

"Supports 6.35-cm (2.5-in) hard drives in 9.5-mm (.37-in) and 7.0-mm (.28-in) thicknesses (all hard drives use the same bracket)"

So it means you can choose any 2,5" hard drive and remove the old drive from bracket and replace with new drive. Naturally the Sata II interface might bottleneck the SSD a little but it still will be much fasrter than mechanical drive. I would go for one of the cheaper SSDs or as you said a hybrid drive. 

Naturally you will need to reinstall the OS by migrating an image to new drive, by using HP recovery disks or my preferred method by downloading the media creation tool from Microsoft, running and creating a bootable USB drive with Windows 10 on it. Then perform a clean install with the pendrive. Windows 10 will automatically activate once installed and connected to internet, as long as you install the same version (home or pro) which was already on the PC.

Let me know if you need further help,

David

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[GO_Phoenix]

Hi mdklassen,

Many thanks, for this - it's very helpful, indeed.

Looks like it's time for action (desperately needed having installed version after version of Windows on top of each other since Windows 7, on this machine).  I'll make sure to bear in mind the thickness of the drive bay, and so on.

Here's  looking forward to some much-needed speed (the damned thing takes about half-an-hour to fully boot up, nowadays)! The very first hard drive I bought was a 'massive' 20MB, I seem to recall, for an old Amstrad 1512, around 1988-9 (I think it cost £230 at the time and seemed like great value! I never ran out of capacity and the machine was ridiculously reliable)!

Cheers,

GO_Phoenix

[GO_Phoenix]

Hi iomare,

Thank you, so much, for your help - that's great. I had a feeling PC World wasn't quite telling me the truth at the time I purchased the machine!

What I'll do is a full, absolutely clean install, from scratch, with a new drive (the old one's been working pretty much 24/7 for all these years so it's surely destined to fail before too long). Believe it or not, I've simply upgraded from the machine's original Windows 7, to Windows 8 then 8.1, followed by the various iterations of Windows 10, without doing so, therefore, as you can probably imagine, it's all in a pretty desperate state and a wonder it's functioning at all.

Years ago I used to be much more disciplined, preferring to do a clean install, quite frequently, but because it always takes me at least a month to get everything just how I want it to be, I've simply taken the 'easy' option, with each new Windows version with this machine.

Time to get that new drive, knuckle down and get on with it, methinks!

ATVB,

GO_Phoenix