[jto18]

Recently my Dell Inspiron 600m's HDD began clicking - imminent doom, or so I'm told. I'd like to replace it with a faster model, but I'm not sure about compatibility. The current HDD specs are:

2.5" x 1/8H
40 GB
ATA-100
100 MBps (external)
5400 rpm
1 x ATA-100 - 44 pin IDC
For more details see Dell Product ID# 340-8284

My question is would a SATA drive be compatible, for example the Hitachi Travelstar 5K160? I'd like to get the faster speed, but would it truly be 1500 mbps given that I've currently only got ATA?

Finally, is it true that Dell makes their memory incompatible with other manufacturers? Is it a large risk to purchase a non-Dell memory upgrade? Thanks for your help,

Jared

[jto18]

STFI netted me my answers - I am looking at a Seagate 5400rpm ATA-6 hdd and 1gb of transcend pc2100 ram.

I just use office and surf the net - will the added 1gb be overkill? Will my 3 year old, 1.5ghz processor be the bottleneck?