Thinkpads Forum

my x61 ordered two months ago has a 100g 7200rpm hdd, the vista hdd score is 5.0, model number hts 721010..... my x61 tablet ordered a month later has the same 100g 7200rpm hdd, but a different model number (don't have it right now), but vista score 5.5 Are they using totally different 7200rpm hdd for x61 and x61t?

Different cache size, perhaps?

i'd bet that the first drive is a hitachi 7K100 or seagate 7200.1 and the second drive is a hitachi 7K200 or seagate 7200.2.   the new drives are hitting 5.4~5.5 windows experience index numbers because of both cache size and newer architecture.

Yeah, i think x61 has the hitachi 7k100, x61t has the 7k200. Why did they give me an older model 7k100 to my x61 then? The two laptops were ordered only one month apart. When do they start to offer 7k200 anyway? Can I complain?

you get whatever is in stock at the time and there's no way to specify vendor of display panel, hard drive, keyboard, etc.   so, there would be little room for complaint in lenovo's eyes unless you have an issue with the hardware itself.   the fact that you got a hitachi both times is lucky in itself.   both my T61p and X61 originally came with seagate drives.

in real-world use, you'll probably never notice the difference between your 7K100 and 7K200 anyway.   personally, i wouldn't worry about it whatsoever.

How does one check this on the drive, and which one is better?

device manager will tell you.   start > run > devmgmt.msc -- look under the 'Disk drives' node.

in my experience hitachi is better than seagate but this subject will be debated into eternity.

From the device manager,

If the model number is HTS7220xxxxxx, it's newer 7K200.

If the model number is HTS7210xxxxxx, it's 7K100.

The better drive is the one that will last longer