Are you running out of room on that notebook's hard drive? Hitachi Global Storage Technologies have released an 'upgrade kit' that just might be the answer you're looking for. It wouldn't surprise me to see other manufacturer's offer similar kits in future.

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/bin...ts_230x160.jpg

The Notebook PC Upgrade Kit includes a Hitachi Travelstar hard drive, an upgrade CD which has the Apricorn EZ Gig OO data transfer utility on it to enable you to transfer your existing drive contents to the new drive, and a USB 2.0 external hard drive enclosure (together with necessary cables) to enable you to reuse your original hard drive as external storage. An installation guide is also included.

Should your original hard drive have 'hidden' drive partitions which include system tools, recovery data and so on these will be replicated when the drive is cloned. At default settings the software installation tool will resize partitions to retain the percentage size they occupied on the original drive, but 'Expert' settings in the software allow you to retain the original partition size.

The kit is designed to work with USB 2.0. If your notebook PC only provides USB 1.1 the kit and software will still work, but you will be restricted to the slower data transfer speed of that standard.


Well done, Hitachi. Replacement hard drives, external drive cases, drive cloning software and the like can all be purchased elsewhere separately of course, but including the lot in a 'bundle' ready to use is a great idea, and should prove attractive to anyone who is capable of following the instructions to open their notebook up and change the drive over!

They will be made available in 40, 60, 80 and 100Gb. Read more in this product brochure.

Now excuse me. My notebook hard drive is getting a bit cramped for space. I'm off to place an order!