Thinkpads Forum

I've just installed new HDD, the 7K200. I still can't believe what a difference it makes with Vista. Booting is faster, opening big files as well. It's just great! I don't yet know what the battery life will be like, but i am willing to sacrifice 10 minutes for the speed difference.

I ordered it in EU from a reseller in Germany and paid 208 EUR.

Thanks for sharing. For comparision, which drive did this replace?

Seagate, 80 GB, 5400 rpm.

How does the MTBF of this drive compare with non-perpendicular drives?

Folks, I am using Hitachi 7k100, is it worth upgrading to 7k200 or waiting until SSD cheaper.

Please post approximate battery life (and which battery you used)

I'm interested in doing this myself.

Also, what Lenovo/Thinkvantage software did you reload onto the system (aside from the Power Manager, Trackpoint Driver, or other drivers)?

Thanks, and glad to hear about the performance increase

I got just a tad more than 2 hours from my 4C Tablet battery yesterday, doing basic office work such as word and adobe forms designer, brightness 2 down from maximum. I don't think this HDD affects battery life too much. It does however bring a noticable improvement in speed (boot up is 30% faster) and handling my big photoshop/illustrator files is faster and more responsive too.

And what's also nice is that I can have all my docs (except raw video) stored on the drive and there's still 60 GB to spare.

In custom restore i reloaded only the vital software, no A.Virus or Norton security, no lenovo offers etc., no system migration, no defragmentation diskeeper. I did reload all the Fn+XX programs such as easy eject, presentation director etc.

Btw. is there anyone who doesn't use AV software at all? I don't yet have anything installed and I am thinking of which I should use. I had Bit Defender which worked quite OK, except it crashed many times in Vista (same as Excel 2007 does etc.)

Back to the original post: I service enough machines to know that 7200-rpm makes a real difference, and I will never return to less.
... JDH

casperkid wrote:Folks, I am using Hitachi 7k100, is it worth upgrading to 7k200 or waiting until SSD cheaper.

in my T61p i went from a 100GB 7K100 to a 200GB 7K200 as my main drive and it does seem a little faster overall.   but, i'd only recommend it if you need more space.   for example, going from a 100GB 7K100 to a 100GB 7K200 would be silly unless that's what you really want to do.

about three years ago i put a 40GB E7K60 in my s30 (replacing a hitachi 20GB DJSA-220 @ 4200 rpm) and swear it's twice as fast.   boot times were easily cut in half; down to about 35 seconds.

like jdhurst, i'll only run 7200 rpm drives from here on out.

The Hitachi 7K200 is even better when you can get it for nearly 25% off like some people have discovered recently.

leaftye wrote:The Hitachi 7K200 is even better when you can get it for nearly 25% off like some people have discovered recently.

...at the trade of only having a 1-year warranty instead of 3.

I for one would love to find out how to get the 25% off, any pointers?

For the original topic... Upgrading from a 5400 rpm drive to a 7200 rpm made so much difference, I swear I will never go back to slower drives. When I first upgraded the Fujitsu 5400 rpm drive in my T42 to a 7K60 (the first gen, when it was just launched three years ago), I was totally amazed. OS loading time was cut in half and the system performed so much better.

Then again... where can I get 7K200 for 25% off? I am intending to get a ThinkPad with minimal RAM and HDD, and upgrade afterwards.

go to fatwallet.com
forums
hot deals
use the search tool for 200gb hitach
they are still avail-I got one yesterday

Thanks for the fatwallet site, unfortunately it looks like the 10% coupon expired on the 10th. Missed it by 2 days, but it is a bit cheaper than new.

Anybody able to direct me to a basic guide for best practices when swapping out an small drive for a bigger faster one?

I plan on giving my x61 tablet a new Hitachi 7200 drive.

Thanks!

I've read that the only 7K200 200GB with encryption has part number 0A53070. Is this true...I don't see mention of this on Hitachi's site? Note, Newegg and most other trustworthy vendors only carry another model.

After installing 7k200 and rebuilding machine, does fingerprint reader unlock drive's encryption? Is there anything one should do to turn on encryption?

Apparently, you can get a cheap 7k200 at best buy.

BB has external hitachi 200GB USB drives in boxes that say 5400rpm. Some folks over at notbookreview.com have purchased the units, taken the drives out and discovered that units with serial numbers starting with DTG... are actually the 7k200 7200rpm drives. The sale price last week at BB was $139.

Here's the discussion...you decide for yourself it is worth the risk.

HDTune shows the drives to be true 7k200's, the labels on the drives say so too.

Here's the catch, to get the drive out of the external enclosure, you have to remove a sticker that says "warranty void if removed". Also the whole unit only comes with a 1 year warranty.

Before buying my 7k200, I looked for the encryption models too. Couldn't find them anywhere. I settled on truecrypt software as it is cheaper and more compatible.

did the best buy thing went from 100gb 7200 hitachi drive on my x61t and it helped a little but definitely a case of diminishing return. Vista index for hard drive went from 5.0 to 5.4. Was it worth $130? still not sure as I will never use the 200gb worth of space.

jamess wrote:I've just installed new HDD, the 7K200. I still can't believe what a difference it makes with Vista. Booting is faster, opening big files as well. It's just great! I don't yet know what the battery life will be like, but i am willing to sacrifice 10 minutes for the speed difference.

I ordered it in EU from a reseller in Germany and paid 208 EUR.

How is heat compared with your old 5400 rpm drive?

I've installed a 200-gig 7K200 one week ago in my X60, as a replacement of a 2 year old 80-gig 5400 RPM Hitachi drive.
For now, I feel a little bit disappointed or at least not quite as satisfied as jamess and others who posted on the boards here.

Not sure if the fact my X60 runs XP pro instead of Vista makes the performance increase less obvious (?) In any case, boot time was reduced by 1 or 2 seconds at best. Transfers/access times in general do feel somewhat faster though, but no "woah it's so much faster!!" effect for me.
Gotta wait for those SSDs to hit mass production and affordable price ranges for the next upgrade

One excellent surprise was that the drive is extremely silent. My 5400 RPM was hardly making any noise already, but this 7K200 is virtully inaudible: I only hear the laptop's fan.
As for heat, just no noticeable difference after the upgrade from the 5400 in my experience.