Help me pick a hard drive

Hey guys. I'm probably gonna buy a hard drive tomorrow and need some ideas on what to look for. I want 160GB or more. What do I need to look for(2.5inch,sata,pcie,etc). I was on newegg and it seems that all laptop drives are 2.5 inches. Other than that, it's all over my head. I know about 5400 and 7200 rpm's bu that doesn really matter to me. I think people prefer the western digital black scorpion or something like that. Just making sure..

 

I had several movies on my 160GB drive and felt it was starting to push the limit. I bought a Seagate 250GB SATA drive for around $60. Very easy installation and perfect for a clean Win 7 installation. If you're into movies, I would say go for the 250GB or higher drive. If you don't need the storage space, then a 160GB should do the trick.

Note: I first ordered a Western Digital black scorpion for about $90. The only problem with it was that I selected the PATA option and the Acer only uses SATA drives. I ordered the Western Digital from Amazon who "fronted" the deal from another outlet. Even though I cut the top of the sealed packaging bag, the outlet (don't remember which one it was), they offered to take it back for a full refund. I then ordered the SATA Seagate drive above and saved $30 in the process.

 

Everyone's needs are different, but if I were buying a new drive, I'd definitely try out a Solid State Drive (SSD).

If you get a quality one (Intel's models are top-rated) they are supposed to be much, much faster than traditional drives; boot time is usually cut in half or better, programs load almost instantly, etc.

You can get an Intel SSD for about $125 on Amazon. It's only 40GB, but I don't keep a lot of stuff on my laptop. I'd definitely go for speed & performance over capacity; keep all your large files at home.