Hey guys! It’s been a long time since I posted on here but I’ve always thought about this forum when I think about anything dealing with my TR.  I think it’s been two years now (!) and my TR is still kicking it!

For Christmas I wanted to give me TR a present and was eying all the threads about the new SSD’s and how they’re compatible with the Sony TRs that have Toshiba drives/connectors.

My question is what all is needed to make the conversion?  Is it just the cable or are there other parts?  The Nexttronics site for where I’ll be purchasing the parts, so any part numbers would be helpful!

I know there’s gotta be someone on here who knows

thanks

Here are some pictures… being they are always worth a thousand words

Toshiba left, Hitachi Right (images are links)

I have a Toshibia kit:- everything you need to convert from Hitachi to Toshibia or Samsung SSD PM me for more details

If you buy a samsung SSD make sure it is the 50 pin Toshibia type connector not the ZIF socket type

I compiled this for a PM but it might be useful for others:-

The Nexttronics parts required to fit Samsung SSD with Toshibia 50pin type connector, to TR series fitted with Hitachi HDD:-

412 168824511 FPC (HDD)            $55.52
413 467494002 SHEET (HDD) (T)        $4.80
414 467770301 CUSHION HDD (C) ($4.8 x 4) $19.20
416 467343002 BRACKET (HDD) (T)      $11.75

                        Total $91.27

I’ve not included the one mounting screw because you can reuse the one from the Hitachi it’s the same..

Go here for service manual pdf where exploded parts diagram is shown:-

http://www.zfz.com/pictures/vaio/files/tr3.pdf

and here for nexttronics price list:-

http://www.nexttronics.com/reference/sony/tr3/ext-TR3.htm

Other cheaper options options are eBay?....buying a damaged / faulty TR with Toshiba drive & parting out what you don’t need that’s good… Trying me I have Toshiba kits from time to time..

Thanks, Bladdrunner!  I really want to change out my Hitachi drive and subscribed to this thread to receive notification if a response was posted.  This will help me out alot. I am not a newbie; however, I am not an expert, either.  I have surfed looking for an update to the TR3A and really have not found anything that I believe is worth it.  My main laptop is a Toshiba Qosmio and have been going back and forth whether I will sell it and buy another.  It is really rather heavy and not that portable but has some cool features.

Michele

The biggest problem at the moment is the cost of SSD hdd’s 16gb iro of $200 & 32gb iro $400.

Just to make it clear for everyone, if your TR currently has a Toshiba HDD you do not need any extra hardware to fit a Samsung SSD. You must however make sure you buy a Samsung SSD HDD with the 50 pin Toshiba connector not the zif type connector.

Think I have 2 Toshiba Kits left at the moment PM me for details..

See this Topic for more about SSD, and how it improves TR

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/forum/viewthread/7301/P0/

and this Topic for details of how to get the palm rest off to swap out the HDD

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/forum/viewthread/7371/

And this free app gives you full details of your system spec & components

Everest 2.20

Sounds like a project.  Bladerunner, do you have any Toshiba HDD conversion kits available?

KSparky

Okay, so here’s the issue. After finding functioning used TRs to use for parts, I now have…

Two fully functioning TR3APs, and a TR2A with a damaged lcd (juggled parts around).

Here’s the issue, I’m thinking of selling the TR2 for parts and am wondering if I should change the hard drive prior to doing so. Both my TR3s have the Hitachi HD (all of the 3 HDs are 40GB) and the TR2 has the Toshiba.

I am thinking it would be worth swapping the Toshiba for one of the Hitachis so I have the brackets when I convert to SSD - any thoughts on that?

At first I thought it might be good to keep all three computers in case I need parts (I’m not sure what the computer is worth with the cracked LCD, everything else except the camera works fine) - has anyone bought or sold one in that condition?

Thanks in advance.

It’s a loaded question beacuse it depends on so many things… where you are… how much demaned there is for damaged TR. cracked screen TR’s go on eBay Uk for anything from £85 to £225 region.. some of it depends on condition but there is often no reason why one sells for near twice the amount of another..

If you plan on keeping TR then the Toshibia swap would be prudent, and it’s not hard. see my detail in this topic..

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/forum/viewthread/7363

Hey guys, just wanted to wrap up the post with some comments now that I’ve gone through the transformation.  Lots of thanks goes out to BladeRunner for hooking me up with the parts and guiding me a long the way.  After getting the parts needed to switch over to a Toshiba hd, I purchased a 32Gb Samsung drive from NewEgg ( they had an open box one for $100 less! ).

Following the ‘Replacing hard disk - step by step with pictures’ thread, I had my laptop open in minutes and the switch was fast and simple.

The drive is running beautifully!  The boot time has decreased noticeably as well as doing anything else on the machine.  nice and zippy.  now the loudest thing in my machine is my cd drive

also something that was interesting was that the whole time before I got the SSD, my machine made these noises that I thought were the fan.  I thought when laptop got too hot the fan was kicking into this overdrive sort of mode and would start making a lot of noise.  I would hit the bottom the laptop (eep.) which would quiet it down for a while before the noise started up again.  After taking the old drive out I’ve realized that was the hard-drive that was making that sound…

all in all a great mod for the laptop.  All I need now is to fix the camera with either the same or if possible, a better chip.

Another thanks to bladerunner for the Toshiba HDD conversion info. My upgrade to a 60GB Hitachi lasted only a year before experienceing lots of bad sectors and noisy read/writes. Now I have a speedy (relative term) Toshiba MK6006GAH and am installing WXPP SP3. All for <$200!

BTW, I had no luck finding a replacement Hitachi 60 GB for les than $400.

When 64/132 GB SSDs come down to sanity pricing I’ll upgrade again and extend the life of my TR3!

Toshibia is generally the better drive imo and the fact is isolation mounted (full retention hardware has four rubber caps) helps it be quieter in operation.

I think looking at the current trend 50 pin 1.8” might not get the larger capacities. it seems the newer ssd chips are being used in making larger capacity / faster Sata II drives.

I think 64gb was announced but I’ve yet to see any to buy in our format. 32gb comes up now and then at a significant premium, but 16gb can now be had for a little over ($160 aus) eBay item # 300235736132.

I’m quite happy with 16gb gets all the programs I need in WXPP with around 4gb to 5gb left and all my larger files pics etc are on a 1.8” Hitachi USB drive.