Thinkpads Forum

I'm planning on getting a 250-320GB drive to replace the stock 7K160 currently in my T400 and wondered if anyone has any recommendations. The only issues I'm worried about are getting a new drive that is not going to consume more power and not going to generate too much extra heat.

Of the three contenders, which in your opinion/experience offers the best balance of performance with low heat/vibration/power consumption?

Hitachi 7K320
WD Scorpio Black
Seagate Momentus 7200.4

Or would I be better of getting one of the new generation 250GB single-platter 5400 rpm drives?

pipspeak wrote:I'm planning on getting a 250-320GB drive to replace the stock 7K160 currently in my T400 and wondered if anyone has any recommendations. The only issues I'm worried about are getting a new drive that is not going to consume more power and not going to generate too much extra heat.

Of the three contenders, which in your opinion/experience offers the best balance of performance with low heat/vibration/power consumption?

Hitachi 7K320
WD Scorpio Black
Seagate Momentus 7200.4

Or would I be better of getting one of the new generation 250GB single-platter 5400 rpm drives?

I just purchased a brand new 320gb, 7200rpm Hitachi travelstar from CDW - it was only around $80 shipped. I purchased it to do a clean windows 7 install, and the results have been wonderful. Hardware Install was easy as could be, it accepted my image with no problems, and I was able to partition the drive for a recovery sector with no problems. When operating, it is very quiet generates no heat. My only complaint is that when it spins down in periods of inactivity, you can hear a very small "whine" (only about 1 sec worth), but this is only when it is spinning down - not during normal use.

I ended up purchasing the hitachi travelstar after talking to a rep from CDW for a while. I was asking him about all the bad reviews I read for seagate, and western digital drives - and he confirmed they get about 20% of those sold back as returns for either failure or performance issue. He said he could not remember the last time he had someone return a hitachi.

good to know... what was your previous drive, and have you noticed any heat or power consumption changes with the 7K320?

My 7K160 is whisper quiet and doesn't get at all hot (although it does have a very slight vibration). Since the 320 is two 160GB platters I imagine it must use more power and generate more heat.

pipspeak wrote:good to know... what was your previous drive, and have you noticed any heat or power consumption changes with the 7K320?

My 7K160 is whisper quiet and doesn't get at all hot (although it does have a very slight vibration). Since the 320 is two 160GB platters I imagine it must use more power and generate more heat.

I have noticed not power consumption difference. My understanding of was that a bigger hard drive only used more power when you were consistently accessing the extra space. I have nearly 150g sitting unused right now, and have not noticed ANY additional power strain. My old drives was the travelstar 160g - 7200rpm - (OEM Drive). Since both are 7200 rpm they are pulling the same from as far as I can tell.

As far as noise it is silent. No vibrations at all, as I said before the only time I ever hear it is when it winds down (1-2 seconds of whir down) after it has been rolling. Strange that I don't here anything while it is intensely working, and only when it slows down, but that has been my experience computing with it every single day of the last two weeks.

Hope this helps!