Upgrading T40p Hard Drive to Perpendicular Hard Drive?

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gkumar · #1 Post by **gkumar** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:59 am

Is it even possible to upgrade my existing T40p 2373G5U 7200 rpm 60 gig hard drive to a perpendicular hard drive (> 160 gb)?

And furthermore, are there any significant advantages of a perpendicular laptop hard drive over the normal one 7200 rpm that I have other than HD space (like battery life, heat, performance, etc.)? I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of upgrading the internal laptop HD against a USB external HD.

I'm asking this after I read an article on digg and searched for "perpendicular hard drive", which yielded no results.

Digg Article: http://digg.com/hardware/Western_Digita ... GB_Scorpio

cmarti · #2 Post by **cmarti** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:21 am

Pros: a more lightweigh computer, maybe more battery life.

Cons: You will have to carry around with more stuff that just the lappy in a sleeve.

I would try it just to see the difference myself.

Thinkpaddict · #3 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:13 am

cmarti wrote:Cons: You will have to carry around with more stuff that just the lappy in a sleeve.

Perpendicular drive doesn't mean in this case an external drive that sits perpendicular next to the computer. It is just a new HD technology.

gkumar · #4 Post by **gkumar** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:36 am

Right, perpendicular hard drives are supposed to be more dense and hence, contain more data. That's the layman definition.

So has anyone upgraded to a perpendicular drive before in a T4x series? Can that someone give a mini-review or explain pros/cons?

dsigma6 · #5 Post by **dsigma6** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:15 am

sorry for posting with nothing to add to the thread, i just thought it was funny you're from the tri state area...vagueness anybody?

gkumar · #6 Post by **gkumar** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:20 am

Sorry! I'm an out of state student so I've no fixed location year-round - hence the vagueness. So yeah, don't mean to push people, but bump on the thread about the perpendicular drives?

gkumar · #7 Post by **gkumar** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:28 am

Sorry! I'm an out of state student so I've no fixed location year-round - hence the vagueness. So yeah, don't mean to push people, but bump on the thread about the perpendicular drives?

dsigma6 · #8 Post by **dsigma6** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 4:00 pm

my tri state area is PA, NJ, DE

Thinkpaddict · #9 Post by **Thinkpaddict** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 4:26 pm

I reside in the tri-nation area of CA, US, MX. How's that for vague?

I can't wait until someone comes with something more vague.
Tri-galaxy quadrant of...

John Kua · #10 Post by **John Kua** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 4:28 pm

I've recently upgraded my T42 to a Seagate 5400.3, which is a 160GB, 5400rpm drive using perpendicular recording. I'm happy with it - I wish it was 7200rpm, but oh well...

There shouldn't be any issues with going with a 160+GB drive in your T40. Just make sure you get a PATA drive intead of SATA (Parallel/Serial).

As far as battery life goes - my battery's pretty much toast so I operated plugged in, so I really can't comment on that. But comparing the datasheets of perpendicular and non-perpendicular drives, it looks like they consume about the same amount of power. In general, I believe there are no significant differences in performance, aside from the usual gains from increased density.

w0qj · #11 Post by **w0qj** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 9:16 pm

John Kua wrote:I've recently upgraded my T42 to a Seagate 5400.3, which is a 160GB, 5400rpm drive using perpendicular recording. I'm happy with it - I wish it was 7200rpm, but oh well...
...

Just out of curiosity, what was your previous HDD?

I'm wondering if there's any difference between my Hitachi 7K100 and your Seagate 5400.3 HDD (5400 RPM & 160 GB), which has even higher data density but lower RPM speed.

John Kua · #12 Post by **John Kua** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 10:40 pm

w0qj wrote:Just out of curiosity, what was your previous HDD?

I'm wondering if there's any difference between my Hitachi 7K100 and your Seagate 5400.3 HDD (5400 RPM & 160 GB), which has even higher data density but lower RPM speed.

I had a Hitachi HTS548080M9AT00 - 80GB, 5400 RPM - that was the drive that came with my laptop. I haven't really noticed any performance changes, but on the other hand, I haven't really benchmarked the thing either.

w0qj · #13 Post by **w0qj** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 11:38 pm

Congrads!

You've jumped 2 generations in terns of data density from your Hitachi 5K80 to your 5K160 !

Generation#1 in terms of data density:
5K80, 7K60, etc.

Generation#2 in terms of data density:
5K100, 7K100

Generation#3 in terms of data density (1st perpendicular recording)
5K160
(wish the 7K160 comes out soon...)

gkumar · #14 Post by **gkumar** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:19 am

Good to hear that you've upgraded successfully. How much did you get it for and did you have a manual/website of some sorts to help you with the installation?

John Kua · #15 Post by **John Kua** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:30 am

I picked it up in July for $210 - it's now $180 on Newegg. And for the physical installation I just figured that out on my own, but if you want, there are instructions from IBM in textand in movie form.

As for migrating from one drive to another, there's a FAQ/Howto on drive cloning here.

Upgrading T40p Hard Drive to Perpendicular Hard Drive?

Upgrading T40p Hard Drive to Perpendicular Hard Drive?

Perpendicular Drives are not perpendicular to laptop!

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