Thinkpads Forum

Sorry if the subject have been discussed before. I am pondering the idea to upgrade the HDD of my beloved T61. I want to get more place for my files (320 or 500GB) and probably little more speed (provided that it do not make my machine much more noisy and hot). Can you give me some advice about the brand and some specs that would be relevant for my needs. For example, is it reasonable to get a HDD with 16MB cache size (now it's 8MB)? Which brand is more reliable?

I currently have a 200Gb 7200-rpm 7K200 Hitachi drive in my T61p. I have asked my vendor for a 500Gb 7200-rpm 7K500 Hitachi drive. The current drive is quiet and smooth, so I expect the same from a new one.
... JDH

Thank you for your input. There is one more thing that I forgot to mention in my post. I would prefer if the HDD had a support for ThinkPad active protection.

My 320GB Hitachi 7K320 I recently bought for my T61 works with the Thinkvantage shock protection

I searched some shops for HDD and get confused about SATA and SATA2. Which is the HDD that works with my T61?

Your T61(p) will be a SATA drive. It was built for Vista and above, not XP. ... JDH

Eudoxus wrote:I searched some shops for HDD and get confused about SATA and SATA2. Which is the HDD that works with my T61?

Both variants work with the T61. But, as jdhurst indicates, it might be that data transfer speeds between hard disk and motherboard don't exceed first generation SATA (or SATA 1.5Gbit/s) specifications. As long as you use a mechanical (rotating) hard drive, this is not a substantial disadvantage, as the SATA 1.5 Gbit/s interface is faster than read and write speeds of 2.5" notebook hard drives.

And what do you think about Western Digital Scorpio with the same specs?

I have bought WD Black Scorpio 320GB say 1 week ago, brought it home smiled, put it onto my T60 hybrid and took it back to IT shop very quickly...horrible vibration that was just not acceptable. They tested it, tested another one same hdd (both brand new) and they were the same-huge vibration. I said no thanks ! and I it would be hard to convince me to try another Black Scorpio. Maybe I will try Blue one, but I don't think so. Toshiba has recently released new 500Gb hdd whch has benn designed to be extremally quiet. Currently I have toshiba 250Gb 5400/8 and I basically can not hear it at all...I think I will buy eather Toshiba or Hitachi.

Do a search on the Forum with "scorpio black vibration" and weep!
General consensus: NO way because of bad vibrations.

Thank you for warning.
So it seems that I am going to get a Hitachi 320GB. Unfortunately, it is not that easy to find a good deal for it here in Europe.

Wind wrote:I have bought WD Black Scorpio 320GB say 1 week ago, brought it home smiled, put it onto my T60 hybrid and took it back to IT shop very quickly...horrible vibration that was just not acceptable. They tested it, tested another one same hdd (both brand new) and they were the same-huge vibration. I said no thanks ! and I it would be hard to convince me to try another Black Scorpio. Maybe I will try Blue one, but I don't think so. Toshiba has recently released new 500Gb hdd whch has benn designed to be extremally quiet. Currently I have toshiba 250Gb 5400/8 and I basically can not hear it at all...I think I will buy eather Toshiba or Hitachi.

I thought I was the only one. Tried two different WD Scorpio Black's in my T60 like you, and both had unacceptable levels of vibration. I ended up with a Fujitsu MHZ2320BJ-G2 based on the recommendation of a couple other forum members. Been happy so far.

Regardless, of what brand you end up with, I highly reco you stick to 7200rpm, the difference in everyday use is very apparent between 5400 and 7200. WD Scorpio Blue is by far the best 5400 drive if you absolteuly want to go down that path. The Hitachi 7K500 was just released, and should definitely be worth looking into since the 7K320 already performed relatively well.

Well, I must say I am getting closer and closer to buy Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm (320 or 500) for my T60 SSD-HDD. But one need to be careful as some of them are 3 platters and 12.5mm thick-will not fit...

There's very few 3 platter drives right now. The 750GB and 1TB WD are the two I can remember. I've had good luck with Seagate drives of late in terms of running cool and quiet.

Whats the suggestion / consensus now?

640GB / 500 GB

or some upcoming new

750GB / 1 TB?

So far the Scorpio Blue seems the favorite - here & newegg? Hows the Hitachi Travelstar?

Just as an update, I could not get a Hitachi at the time, so went with the 500Gb 7200-rpm Seagate drive. It is smooth, cool and quiet. I have no issues; however, it is less than 6 months old at this point. ... JDH

The 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 is just single platter version of the 500GB. Here is some test data in the last post:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=84681
WD had announced a larger drive but not quite available yet. So the Seagate and Hitachi latest generation 500GB/250GB are still the fastest so far.

sjthinkpader wrote:The 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 is just single platter version of the 500GB. Here is some test data in the last post:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=84681
WD had announced a larger drive but not quite available yet. So the Seagate and Hitachi latest generation 500GB/250GB are still the fastest so far.

That review leans towards Seagate and Hitachi second. They dont seem to have compared / tested with WD.

Do the newer WD 500 / 640 GB have 3 or 4 platters?

Most 9.5mm notebook drives like the Seagate and the WD are two platter drives. There have been a few 9.5mm three platter drives like the Samsung 500GB, but they're the exception.

If we take a 5400rpm 500GB drive as a baseline, 7200rpm give it a 33% increase in speed. While 640GB give it a 28% increase in areal density, assuming the same 2 platter design. So a 7200rpm 500GB disk should still be faster. Designers would either pack more bits in a linear dimension or move the data past the head faster.

A 7200rpm, 250GB single platter design should give it the same performance.

So far WD had not introduced a 7200rpm drive with capacity in the 500GB/640GB space yet.