Toshiba Satellite Internal Hard Drive Questions

CraigK

Hello all,

I was gifted a Toshiba Satellite laptop model C55-C5270. While working on it I discovered the reason it was a gift was that it had no hard drive, nothing. I have been researching and as far as I can tell for a replacement I could get any 2.5" ATA or SATA hard drive. I don't need a big one, only enough to throw a version of Linux on it. I have seen some as low as $20 but I have some questions:

Is it ok/better to buy a SSD drive than the standard? From what I see if I buy the standard I also have to buy the drive enclosure whereas with a SSD drive I would not. If anyone could recommend any particular model I would really appreciate it.

Also after looking at YouTube it looks like all you do is line it up, slide it in, and screw it down. Some posts, however, also mentioned connecting cables, which I don't see. Could anyone confirm installing does not involve cables?

Finally if I buy a hard drive, start up the computer which will start up an old version of Ubuntu on CD, which asks to install Ubuntu(which I want), do I have to somehow format the hard drive beforehand? I can't obviously do it on this computer. Will this work?

Really appreciate any help. Thanks.

Craig

asianse

Hey @CraigK

It is better to get an SSD drive for your laptop. They are very fast up to 3-4 times fast than classical hard drives at sequential read/write speeds. You laptop should already have a bay for 2.5" where the drive should fit snuggly, therefore no need for a caddy. The cables are also not needed, laptops come with a SATA connection where you just insert it. The boot disk/usb with ubuntu will guide you through the installation process and you won't need to know anything about formatting (it will do it for you). If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

CraigK

Hey asianse,

Thank you! I just wanted to be sure. If I have any problems during installation of the drive or Linux I will be sure to let you know. Thanks again.

Craig