Thinkpads Forum

Any speed difference? What is a good brand I can get?

everyone here will probably tell you to get the Hitachi 7kxxx drives that were just released. They are nicely expensive right now but they are the best.

Hitachi 7k200 Drives

here's where you can buy one:

ZipZoomFly.com

I don’t know if I need that much space...will 7200 dive is a noticeable difference?

ill say that coming form a 4200 rpm drive, the 7200 is a night and day differemce. From the new 5400 perpendicular drives, I really havent noticed a such a dramatic speed difference. But, overall, you will feel the speed benefits of a 7200 hd, and that is a always a good thing!

ducky2802 wrote:ill say that coming form a 4200 rpm drive, the 7200 is a night and day differemce. From the new 5400 perpendicular drives, I really havent noticed a such a dramatic speed difference. But, overall, you will feel the speed benefits of a 7200 hd, and that is a always a good thing!

Are the 5400RPM stock drives from Lenovo perpendicular?

Dunno, but I went 7200 on my T61, and while I haven't really put it through the paces (need more RAM) it does boot faster alreay compared to my 4200 VAIO, and even when I upgraded that to 5400.

nope... I switched them all out to seagates which are the perpendicular.

ducky2802 wrote:nope... I switched them all out to seagates which are the perpendicular.

Are you saying all seagates are perpendicular? If so, you've been misinformed.

5400 vs a 7200 drive is no difference what so ever. A 5400 sustains speeds longer. A 7200 may benefit if you are going to be using your HD heavily (adding, deleting, moving content constantly,) all at the same time.

Steve_Jobs wrote:5400 vs a 7200 drive is no difference what so ever.

I really don't see how this even makes sense. The faster a platter spins, the faster the heads can get to the data it needs and access it.

A 7200 u/min drive will ALWAYS give you better access time and bandwidth then a 5400 u/min drive... slower drives just benefit more from caching...

A 5400 or a 4200 drive will usually run quieter and cooler but that also
depends on the manufacturer and the age...

I personally love the Hitachi 7ks since they run cool, fast and reliable and the performance gets closer to 3.5" HDDs...

Steve_Jobs wrote:5400 vs a 7200 drive is no difference what so ever. A 5400 sustains speeds longer. A 7200 may benefit if you are going to be using your HD heavily (adding, deleting, moving content constantly,) all at the same time.

That's a good one:lol:

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?A ... 1801032003

You guys are right!

But, who really needs a 7200rpm drive?

Steve_Jobs wrote:http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?A ... 1801032003

You guys are right!

But, who really needs a 7200rpm drive?

Oh my... That article was "Updated: 06-18-2001".

Seriously the performance after going from a standard 5400RPM drive to lets say the Hitachi 7k200 (200GB 7500.2 perpendicular technology) is very noticeable.

Who needs it? Well, for that matter who needs a Core 2 Duo processor. Why not stick with a Pentium III.

stallen wrote:

Steve_Jobs wrote:http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?A ... 1801032003

You guys are right!

But, who really needs a 7200rpm drive?

Oh my... That article was "Updated: 06-18-2001".

Seriously the performance after going from a standard 5400RPM drive to lets say the Hitachi 7k200 (200GB 7500.2 perpendicular technology) is very noticeable.

Who needs it? Well, for that matter who needs a Core 2 Duo processor. Why not stick with a Pentium III.

Pentium III rox!

hm do they build 3,5 Disk Drives for the Ultra-slim bay??

pheos wrote:hm do they build 3,5 Disk Drives for the Ultra-slim bay??

Um...there's a reason that it's called Slim. (9.5mm)

They do make 9.5mm drives, and there's a drive adapter for that. I even inquired about them here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=47555

You know, this topic comes up about every 6 months or so.

Let me save all the n00bs the time of arguing about this and just restate what EVERYONE here has already researched and discovered:

A 7200RPM drive is THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE upgrade you can make in terms of speed. PERIOD.
Going from a 5400RPM drive to a 7200RPM drive is the equivalent of about THREE CPU levels (I.E. T7600 vs T7200). This is of course assuming ALL ELSE the same, such as platter denisty, cache, etc.

Windows loads faster. Files load faster. Applications load faster. File copies move faster.

In general, your computing experience is smoother.


And for those that are going to INSIST on arguing w/ me - - save your breath:
1) the new hitachi 7k200 series is a 7200RPM Perpendicular drive (nullifies the argument of 5400 Perp vs. 7200RPM non-Perp)
2) you cannot load everything from your OS into RAM (even if you have 4GB and run Vista w/ the nice speculative prefetching) - there is ALWAYS disk access. Disk access is 100 TIMES slower than RAM, and it is the primary bottleneck of modern-day computers. No IFs, ANDs, or BUTs about it.
3) Power consuption is MINIMALLY different on these drives - the manufacturer's have had YEARS to optimize them and first-hand experience shows at MOST a 15 min loss in battery life (on a 9-cell battery).

stallen wrote:

ducky2802 wrote:nope... I switched them all out to seagates which are the perpendicular.

Are you saying all seagates are perpendicular? If so, you've been misinformed.

no not all seagates. But the ones I bought specifically are all perpendicular (any of the 5400.3 are perpendicular).

For performance gains, a 7200 will win hands down...especially the new hitachi which is both 7200 and perpendicular. But the 5400.3 come pretty close to the non perpendicular 7200 (which a majority of 7200 2.5" drives are still using), while also using less power.