t42 hdd

[scusyxx]

Hi
I hope you will help me to decide which T42 i should buy. These two models' hdd are different and i wasn't able to choose one.

2373M1U -> 80GB 5400rpm 1935$ 4.1h battery life
2373M3U -> 60GB 7200rpm 1895$ 4.0h battery life
The rest specs are same for both.
Which one is better, Is rpm important issue for laptop?

[Nathan]

I'm admittedly no expert but I think it depends on planned usage. If you have a large amount of data to store but don't need it all the time or that frequently, go with the faster 7200 RPM drive and pick up some cheap large volume external hard drive like a 250GB Maxtor or the like. On the other hand, if you want your data all the time and access speed isn't that important, go with the slightly slower but larger 80GB drive. I'd go with the 7200 RPM speedster because I've got 440GB of storage on my home PC.

[lzy_tek]

I had a FVU before and have a M3U now.

M3U has a 60G 7200 RPM hard drive and FVU had a 40G 5400 RPM.

I notice that 5400 RPM hard drive is much more quieter than the 7200 RPM one. I could not hear any hard drive activities in FVU before, now I can hear the audiable clicks.

It reminds me of the old scsi drive I had before. Actually the sound doesn't bother me too much.

[rhema83]

I upgraded the HDD in my FVU with a 7K60 and there used to be clicking. However it went away after a while, which leads me to think that the clicking is inherent to new drives.

Anyway, the 7200rpm drive is quite a bit faster than the 5400rpm drive, especially when disk-intensive applications are used. You won't regret getting the one with the 7K60 hard disk. If you need more space, you can always get an external drive, which also serves as an excellent backup medium.

[josephwaller]

i just got the UK model UC2F7UK with an 80GB hard disk. I can't work out what speed the disk is but i'm guessing it's 5400 as all the 80s seem to be that speed.

I can change it (or return it) this weekend and am considering getting the smaller hard disk.

Anybody got any advice? How can i check the speed? And how much difference will faster really make to windows, photoshop, programming, games?

thanks in advance

[Leon]

Welcome to our Forum Joseph! Check your other post for the answer. In the future, please don't double post.

Good luck with your new Thinkpad! Please update your profile with location and any other pertinent information. We'll look for you in the forums.