Hello folks. It's time to replace the hard drive in my Toshiba Satellite A505D-S6958 laptop and I was hoping to get some recommendations here.
I'm currently running SolydX with the latest kernel and need to hold onto Windows 7 for Skype. An SSD is not an option for me, I have to keep all data on an internal drive, and an SSD that large would be quite expensive.

My question stems from reading reviews that state Linux still suffers from problems with advanced format drives (I thought that was no longer an issue) as well as "heads parking excessively" (don't want to argue about terminology here, just quoting what I read many times in different reviews) these problems were associated with both Western Digital as well as Seagate drives.

I'm leaning towards WD black 7,200 RPM drives, but am not sure. I'm hoping to see some recommendations for drives people have been using for awhile and have been happy with.

Hoping hardware is the right place to post this, if not, I'm sorry.

Thank you for any advice you might share with me,

Zuma

That is a reasonable choice. Black drives are not advanced format, at least my 1 TB WD drives are not.

I do agree on avoiding WD advanced drives. Buying drives these days is a crap shoot. There will be lots of opinions, eventually you have to buy one, and any of them can fail. The WD blacks have a 5 year guarantee.

Hello

I personally use and like the WDxxxxBEKT (Black) model laptop drives. I've owned and used a number of them (different capacities) for several years now, and none have failed yet. Highly recommended...

Advanced fomat drives weren't really a problem, just fiddly to set up. Mostly fixed with at least some current partition software.

The current WD black 2.5'' drives can be advanced format (WD7500BPKT 750GB, WD5000BPKT 500GB) or the old format (WD3200BEKT 320GB, WD2500BEKT 250GB and WD1600BEKT 160GB).

BTW, there can be issues with SATAII HDDs on some SATAI controllers.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/.../130/p/227,194

I think the Toshiba Satellite A505D-S6958 has an ATI SATA controller, but I havent checked.

The 'heads packing' issue is WD Green drives (and similar drives from other manufactuers have had the same problem AFAIK, just far less stuff on the net about them).

Sorry for not replying sooner and changing this to solved. Thank you for the advice as well as the additional information, I went ahead and ordered a WD7500BPKT 750GB.

Thank you again,

Zuma