Thinkpads Forum

Hi

I'm looking to up my hard drive. What's my options, are there any size or speed limits, or anything special I have to look out for?

I think I'm looking for a IDE up to around a 100gb and as fast as possible. Is that right?


Cheers

You can use any PATA IDE hard drive in the 600x Serial ATA (SATA) drives will not work. I know that with the 600E you had to update the BIOS the the latest version to recognize drives over 12 GB, but since the 600x uses the Phoenix BIOS instead of the old IBM BIOS, that should not be a problem.

Thanks. I'm watching a few on ebay. See what the markets like.

Are they easy to swap?

ixwood wrote:Are they easy to swap?

Physically, yes - just remove the retaining screw and pull the drive cover off - then there is usually a blue tab on the caddy - pull that firmly, but not too hard, to remove the drive - then undo the 4 screws to release the drive from the caddy. Replace with the new drive - replace 4 screws - reinsert into laptop - replace drive cover and then retaining screw - now reload your OS and applications.

I have a 2nd drive caddy for the wifes T23, so I use that with partition magic 8 to copy partitions across from old drives to new drives - saves a lot of mucking about reloading apps and drivers etc.

Thanks. Doesn't sound too beyond even me.

IN terms of the what drives to get, will 5400rpm 40gb's do? Linux is quite lightweight and I don't have vast amounts of data, it's just the improvemnt gain I'm after really, without spending a fortune.

I'm assuming the most speed will come from the extra drive speed, but what difference does size make? Does linux use it as virtual memory like windows? I.e will a 80gb drive, be noticably quicker than a 40gb?

As for copying partions and stuff, sounds fun, but I think I'll let that pass me be for now!!

Get yourself the fastest HD you can find. The difference will astonish you.

I'm using a 100G Hitachi TravelStar 7K100. It's a 7200RPM drive with an 8MB data buffer. When you look at the spec, it screams SPEED. It's the most powerful upgrade I've ever made next to my 850MHz processor.

If you want to see the difference a fast HD makes, boot up your laptop, then start Microsoft Word - it will load from your HD. Now, close Word, and start iyt up again - it will start up faster because it is now buffered.

The difference in the two startup speeds is the latency of your hard drive.

On my 850MHz Windows 2000 laptop with a TravelStar 7K100, Word 2002 starts up from the HD in exactly 2 SECONDS. Now, that startup time would be almost the same if I was running a 500MHz processor - it's the fast hard drive that makes all the difference.

Ok, I'm convinced. Sounds good!

I'll check prices out and see what I can afford..

Is ATA-6 OK? My guess is yes, but the 6 bit is confusing me.

I'm eyeing up 7200 drives now...

ATA-anything is O.K.

The hard drive will adapt to the highest speed that the laptop drive circuitry allows. So, if you buy an ATA-6 drive, but the fastest your laptop can handle is an ATA-5, then the drive will operate at ATA-5.

Just remember - and this is important - you must format your new drive in the HD bay of the computer you will be using it in!!! The drive must be formatted using the same electronics that will be it's daily use.

That means that you insert your new HD in the working hard drive caddy in your thinkpad, and boot from a floppy disk that has your drive formatting/checking/etc utilities in it, and then format the new HD in it's working slot.

Many a new install has horribly crashed because the drive was formatted in another unit, or in (even worse) an external USB drive.

BTW, if you are copying your OS and programs from the original drive into your new drive, your old drive should be in the external drive, or USB drive, with your new drive in the working slot. Before copying to your new drive, it's a good idea to completely uninstall any disk utilities you have like 3rd party defraggers or disk doctors - including an hidden files these utilities may have. You can reinstall on your new drive.

3rd party disk utilities usually store drive and sector-specific information that never apply to the new drive. I ran Norton Speedisk (ugh!) on a drive that had been transfered over - trashed disk.

Thanks.

2 40gb 7200 drives just brought. I know 40gb isn't huge, but more than enough for me, it's the speed increase I'm after really.

Now someone will tell me a 120gb 5600 would be quicker. lol.

Ok, thanks for the warning. So I swap hard drives, and then just boot from the dvd as normal?

Luckily enough, I only started recently, so nothing worth saving on them. I'll just start with a clean install on my new drive.

Will the old ones be worth keeping? For an ultrabay maybe?

With 8MB data buffer. I don't know what it is, but I wanted it anyway! Bills fault. lol.

Will the same drive work ok in my x21? I forgot to check. i hope so. I've got 2 on there way.

And 3 256mb memory sticks.

I'm hoping I'll have 2 fast laptops in a months time. Touch wood.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-5-40GB-Hitachi- ... dZViewItem

Theres my drives. There's one left if anyone is interested. Seemed like a reasonable deal to me (I await correction! lol).

Will this work?

After replacing the old hard drive with this, can I just directly boot to a Windows XP install cd and then format and install the operating system?

The BIOS and other system stuff is separate from the hard drive, right?

Thanks.