Thinkpads Forum

I'm just curious... I'm getting a T42p educational model that automatically comes with an 80gb hard drive. Since this is not going to be a replacement for my desktop--school only--I'm considering changing it to a 60gb hard drive with 7200rpm. I figured I'd appreciate the faster access time more than the extra 20gigs. But in looking for them (I could only find one, the HItachi 7K60), I was wondering... why don't companies like Newegg and TigerDirect sell them?

ZipZoomFly has them, but they're $150... and out of stock. Why aren't there more 7200rpm drives? I mean, I understand they're rather new... but shouldn't there be more? Or am I missing something? On top of that, anybody know the best price I can get them for?

The Hitachi (IBM) 60G 7K60 7200 RPM HDDs have been around for over 2 years which speaks to their popularity. Do a Google Groups search on 7K60.

Hitachi has a new 100G version and maybe an 80G version of this HDD. They also have a 40G version.

Toshiba has 7200 RPM HDDs too.

How fast is the HDD on your new T42P ? You may or may not notice an increase in performance between a 5400 RPM and a 7200 RPM HDD. It depends on the amount of onboard cache. A 7200 RPM drive with 2MB of cache will not perform as well as a 5400 RPM drive with 8MB of cache.

You will definitely see a jump between a 4200 RPM HDD and one of the faster models.

Your local & friendly eBay sells them.

Well, the hard drive I'm getting is an 80gb 5400rpm. But since again, I don't really need the space, I'd rather get a 7200. Where are these Toshiba drives? Usually I just shop at Newegg and the like, so I'm not really sure where else to get them for good prices and selection. But what I meant by there not being many 7200 drives, I meant to say, by other brands, not where to get them.

Anyhow, what drive would you guys recommend? The Hitachi looks nice, but I don't know how much I'll have to spend on it. Any specific models that you've had good experiences with?

About three months ago you could still find the Hitachi 7k60 at lots of places. It seems like most are phasing out stock in anticipation of the 7k100. At least that is my guess.

Really? I had a question that as well, actually... will the 100gb use more power than the 60gb? I mean, obviously it will... but will it be a significantly higher drain or what?

Newegg used to carry them. They must have sold them out.
ZZF seems to be a good place to buy a 7k60, I got mine there because newegg was out of stock at the time. Their price was higher than ZZF anyway.

Both drives are 2-platter designs, so I seriously doubt power consumption will change. I've come to the determination that the difference between an 80GB 5400rpm drive and a 60GB 7200rpm drive really isn't all that large, since the 80GB drive has higher data density.

They should pretty much be neck & neck except for access time.

The 100GB 7200rpm drives should be real screamers though!

The only 7200RPM drive I've seen available is the Hitachi. But, other manufacturers offer them in their product line-up, but I haven't seen any others online or at brick-and-mortar stores.

Personally, I wouldn't buy another IBM TravelStar, or Hitachi TravelStar, drive unless Hitachi has made design changes to the original IBM-designed drive. I've experienced far too many failures, and many of them premature. In two of my desktops, I've had DeskStar failures almost exactly at a year and a half after installation. And, with a number of ThinkPads used by our company, and with my own families personal experience, TravelStars fail at around the same time frame (1 to 2 years). Conversely, I have another notebook with a Fujitsu drive that hasn't failed after 4 years.

Obviously, everyone's experience is different. All of the computers I use personally, and corporately, are babied and treated very well. The IBM/Hitachi hard drive failures are truly a mystery.

One of our local brick-and-mortar stores, which also has a presence on the internet, stopped carrying DeskStar and TravelStar drives due to premature failures, and an overall unhappy customer base.

With the new bios on T-series, if the harddrive is not IBM's, there will be error message when boot.

I want to upgrade my 40gb to something bigger and probably faster.
60gb 7200rpm sounds good.

I'm searching pricegrabber.com and found IBM 60gb(7k60) part number 08K0939. Is this the one from IBM and will be supported in new bios?

I cannot find anything about this part number in IBM website. The only 60gb that i could find in IBM website is 92P6550/92P6551

kanate wrote:With the new bios on T-series, if the harddrive is not IBM's, there will be error message when boot.

I want to upgrade my 40gb to something bigger and probably faster.
60gb 7200rpm sounds good.

IBM sold it's HDD division to Hitachi over a year and a half ago so there are no more newly manufactured IBM HDDs.

IBM has shipped their TPs with a number of different HDD brands. I've never seen or heard anything about a BIOS problem as long as the BIOS supports the HDD size which on your T21 should be up to 137GB.

I've installed Hitachi 60GB 7200 RPM HDDs in several TPs and they booted up and recognized the drive without any intervention or problem. What seems to be the problem you are having?

Check this thread in T-series subforum
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=11059

I've seen a few other comments about HDD problems with newer BIOS updates on other TP models. I hope they are not true.

I have an X31 that I bought last fall. I recntly updated the BIOS and installed an Hitachi 7K60 60g HDD which cut boot time in half over the original 5400 RPM 40g HDD that the X31 shipped with.