My new (used) T60

[kneedeep]

I just bought a used T60 and have a few questions about upgrading the hard disk.

Reading customer reviews leaves me wondering what the best choice would be for a replacement.
I've had good luck with Seagates in my desktops - and bought them mainly for the 5 year warranty - but the Seagate Momentus (7200.2) seems to have a lot of problems.

I suppose the 7200 speed disks wear the battery more quickly, as opposed to a 5400.
Can I expect the performance of a 7200 RPM disk to be noticeably faster? Does it greatly reduce battery life? Do they also produce added heat that might cause problems?
Will the machine (1953 DAU) accept any size disk or is there some BIOS or other limitation I should be aware of?
Is there a particular brand/model/size that would be best suited to my new machine?

(edit)I see Newegg is offering a 320GB WD Scorpio Blue for $49 - a Caviar Green 640GB for $54.99 - or a Samsung EcoGreen F2 HD 15UI 1.5 TB for $89.99 and free shipping. I'd love to go for the big one -

While I'm at it, what about batteries? A used battery is included but it probably won't last a lot longer. So far I've found quite a wide range of prices - around $40 for a nine cell with a three year warranty, from an ebay seller in China, up to the $90 - $100 range with a one or two year warranty.
Is a $179 battery from Lenovo worth the cost?
I'll mostly be using the machine where I can use the AC adapter so usage time is not a huge factor.
Can anyone recommend sellers to purchase from or any to avoid?

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

[Harryc]

Product: ThinkPad T60 1953-DAU [change]
Operating system: All [change]

Original description: T2300E(1.66GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB 5400rpm HD, 15in 1024x768 LCD, Intel 950, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/batteries.html
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ba ... j0468.html
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ba ... j0467.html

[kneedeep]

Product: ThinkPad T60 1953-DAU [change]
Operating system: All [change]

http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/batteries.html
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ba ... j0468.html
http://outlet.lenovo.com/accessories/ba ... j0467.html

Thanks Harryc

Can I take this to mean that a refurbished battery w/90 day warranty from Lenovo is preferable to a new battery with a one - two or three warranty at 2 to 3 time the price?
If a laptop battery is going to fail is it likely to do so within a few months?

Sorry for all the questions. My experience with laptops is very limited - all I know is I loved my (deceased) Thinkpad.

[Harryc]

My experience has been that the batteries from the Lenovo Outlet function like a new batrtery. Your choice on the cost aspects if it ...
Batteries generally last a year or more depending on use and heat.

[ajkula66]

BTW, those hard drives that you were inquiring about are desktop drives...

Take a look here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductList3.jsp

[Utwig]

HDDs consume 1-3W, while for example T4x notebook can be power managed to consume less than 15W on battery. An HDD that consumes less power will add about 5 minutes to an hour of battery life in best case. Generally: If you need performance get SSD, if you need space get 500GB 5400 RPM drive. If you need both, get optical drive HDD adapter and put 500GB drive there. The 7200 RPM drives such as WD 320GB are better but not by a great margin. For instance 100GB 7200 Hitachi drive is comparable to 320GB 5400 drive performance-wise. There were some issues with 7200 RPM 500GB Seagate drives.

Note that X60 and T60 series are limited to SATA 1 speeds (150MB/s) though chipset can do 300MB/s because of compatibility with older Ultrabay Slim PATA drives. If you get SSD it will be a bit limited in maximum transfer rate, but the biggest advantage of SSD is with seek times (scenario where you read lots of small or fragmented files) and in that scenario the interface is not the limiting factor.

I get ~1h (25Wh out of 72Wh) on 5 year old original 9-cell T42p battery, so 1 year battery life is conservative. Non-original batteries are lottery, since it depends what quality the internal circuitry and the cells are.

[kneedeep]

BTW, those hard drives that you were inquiring about are desktop drives...

Take a look here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductList3.jsp

Yes, I figured that out a bit later.
Thanks

[kneedeep]

HDDs consume 1-3W, while for example T4x notebook can be power managed to consume less than 15W on battery.

Thanks for the HD info.