I have a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 2515 laptop which I bought in Jan 2008. Around mid 2009 after regular heavy usage of the machine I began to get strange delays when running Windows Media Center. I got Ashampoo HDD Control, which is a program that reports hard disk performance statistics. It told me that the disk had reallocated a lot of sectors, something disks do when they find that sectors have gone bad. I did not realise that this would get rapidly worse, but it did.
Eventually even Vista told me I was in trouble and needed to do an urgent backup. Fortunately I had my personal data backed up elsewhere. But my laptop had become unusable. I was lucky it would even still boot. So using another machine I looked up the disk details with a view to getting a replacement.
The original was 160 GB but as I looked around for the same type (Western Digital Scorpio) I realised I could get a 320 GB disk for very little difference in price, so I did. I installed it the day it arrived, with no problems, other than the ridiculously large number of screws that had to be removed from the bottom panel of the laptop. (Don't forget to completely unplug the machine, and remove the battery, if you do this!)
As I was switching to Windows 7 anyway, and had a Release Candidate version on DVD, I installed that, and have never looked back. The disk works fine. No sectors reallocated. Good performance statistics. Except for one, and that is not the disk's fault. It is that the disk runs a bit over 40 C, typically up to 43 C depending on the indoor climate, and the Ashampoo software warns me about it. But that is really a fault in the design of the laptop, in not allowing good air-flow. And yes, that could have an impact on the life of the disk.
The only problem I had before ordering the disk was deciding what kind of interface the laptop used, ie PATA or SATA. I guessed it was SATA, and confirmed this by looking for web sites describing the connector. I suppose I need not have worried, but I just like to play safe. Most if not all of the Scorpio variants on offer are SATA these days.
I did not know how much freedom I had to choose other brands of disk. However the Scorpio disks seem to be popular and cheap. The new disk does what a disk does. What more can one say?
| Brand | Western Digital |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 10.01 x 6.99 x 0.94 cm; 120 g |
| Item model number | WD2500BEVT |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital OEM |
| Series | WD2500BEVT |
| Colour | Blue |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch |
| Hard Drive Size | 250, 250 |
| Hard Disk Description | Mechanical Hard Disk |
| Hard Drive Interface | Serial ATA |
| Hard Disk Rotational Speed | 5.4E+3 RPM |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 120 g |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
