Thinkpads Forum

I may shortly get a new T60, not sure which model. Newegg lists 7 different 160GB notebook hard drives. They are all quite a bit less expensive than the $209.00 model from Lenovo. Could someone please tell me which drives will work in the T60 (or, conversely, which ones will not). thank you.

cslater wrote:I may shortly get a new T60, not sure which model. Newegg lists 7 different 160GB notebook hard drives. They are all quite a bit less expensive than the $209.00 model from Lenovo. Could someone please tell me which drives will work in the T60 (or, conversely, which ones will not). thank you.

Any Sata I or II drive should work in the T60 without a problem. I have replaced harddrives in both a T60p and a Z61p with a 160GB.

Specifically I purchased this drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145113

Thank you thank you! I'm putting one on order. If I wish simply to clone from the original Lenovo-installed drive (Win XP), what's the recommended procedure, or the simplest? Image backup and restore? Extract CD's from the recovery partition? I'd like to get the hardware set up first, especially the drive, before I go to town with my own customizations.

If you can find an extra $120 then the 7200RPM Seagate rocks:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST9160823AS/
I installed one a couple of weeks ago now, it's about 25% faster than the 7K100 that came in my T60p. Think it's quieter too.

Simon

sjhwilkes - can you run HDTACH ( http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public ) on your Seagate drive and report the performance numbers?

Thanks!

sjhwilkes wrote:If you can find an extra $120 then the 7200RPM Seagate rocks:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST9160823AS/
I installed one a couple of weeks ago now, it's about 25% faster than the 7K100 that came in my T60p. Think it's quieter too.

Simon

sjhwilkes... yes, please post a HDTACH of that drive. Very nice choice...

direct link:
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/in ... est=HdTach


thanks !!

here is what you're looking for:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/23/ ... ds_deluxe/
They report that the best performer overall was the
Seagate Momentus 7200.2 - 160 GB, 7200 RPM
but it was really expensive.

It looks like the Seagate is the one to get. However, it's not widely available. My usual hardware vendors don't even list it. I would suppose that the Seagate, and other models, will become more widely available in a few months, and it may be worth waiting. Thanks for heads up.

kulivontot wrote:here is what you're looking for:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/23/ ... ds_deluxe/
They report that the best performer overall was the
Seagate Momentus 7200.2 - 160 GB, 7200 RPM
but it was really expensive.

Note that they only compare this to 5400RPM drives. I would like to see a comparison involving the Hitachi 7K100. They also say that the 7200RPM draws more power, something that isn't true of the Hitachi.

If the Seagate is vibration free, runs cool and *doesn't* take appreciably more power, I would jump in a second. The price at that link ($240) looks very reasonable, especially considering the price of the Hitachi at only 100GB.

-darren

I just placed an order for a 7200.2 drive (160GB) from the link above.

I'd still like to see HDTach numbers on this drive, running inside a T60...

PC Connection lists the Seagate 160GB/7200RPM for about $180.00. It's on backorder, with no date listed. However I suspect you'll find it's on backorder everywhere, unless you happen to find a place that has one. I have found PC Connection to be helpful and reliable.

Follow-up: Seagate 7200.2 160GB hard drive in a T60 gives these HDTach performance numbers:

Hitachi 7K60 60GB: average 30.5 MB/sec
Hitachi 7K100 100GB: average 43.3 MB/sec
Seagate 7200.2 160GB: average 47.9 MB/sec

I can't hear the Seagate drive at all. It's totally silent to me.

cslater wrote:PC Connection lists the Seagate 160GB/7200RPM for about $180.00. It's on backorder, with no date listed. However I suspect you'll find it's on backorder everywhere, unless you happen to find a place that has one. I have found PC Connection to be helpful and reliable.

PC Connection is great, I was on vacations with the family, my t41 died, I purchased a t60p and it was delivered in the next day at a Disney resort.

FWIW, i find that it's worth buying the drives from Lenovo since they're the unit that is most likely to fail on your computer. Lenovo will overnight you a new hard drive if it fails, which is very convenient and should save you money in the long-run. I find that my drive crashes every 2 years or so just from normal use, and Lenovo/IBM have been very good about replacing them.

sb37 wrote: I find that my drive crashes every 2 years or so just from normal use, and Lenovo/IBM have been very good about replacing them.

Really? What are you doing to them?

I've only had a couple of drives fail in all my many years of thinkpad use. Both drives that failed were the hitachi travelstar, the notoriously bad drives on the early t40-series thinkpads.

I agree with your point about the benefit of getting the drive installed by lenovo with your purchase, re the warranty

Just a question regarding the Seagate 7200.2s. They support SATA 300, which can be reverted to 150 via a jumper on the drive. Does the T60 support SATA 300? I'm seriously considering one of these, just like to know what to do with the jumper once I do buy the hard drive.

infrd wrote:Just a question regarding the Seagate 7200.2s. They support SATA 300, which can be reverted to 150 via a jumper on the drive. Does the T60 support SATA 300? I'm seriously considering one of these, just like to know what to do with the jumper once I do buy the hard drive.

As far as I know, the T60 supports only SATA150.

hah they were hitachi travelstars, so maybe that was the problem. I went through 3 in 4 years on my t40. I suppose I do a lot of writing to disk, as well as a lot of carrying around of the laptop. fingers crossed that the newest crop of disks in the t6x series are more durable!