100gig Hard disk recommendations please

[thinkpad_uk]

I'm flying to the US next week and plan to take advantage of the lower prices (than the UK) to pick up a new hard disk. Ideally I would like at least 100gig, but for me the noise is the most important factor. I had a Toshiba laptop where the disk continiously clicked (head parking) and it drove me mad. So can anyone recommend a good HD with excellent accoustic properties.

Cheers

[ZaZ]

120GB is the largest laptop drive at the moment. The Hitachi 7k100 is the speed champ, but the Seagate 7200.1 runs cooler and quieter. They did a performance test over on Tom's Hardware a while back if you want to check it out. There are known issues with putting in non-ThinkPad drives. You may want to search for that. Good Luck.

[GomJabbar]

AFAIK, the problem with non-ThinkPad drives only affects the T43 model. This is because of the SATA to PATA converter and the BIOS firmware.

I have a T42 with a 40 gig Fujitsu drive. It is quiet as a mouse. I am unsure if Fujitsu makes 100 gig drives.

I had a 600E with a Hitachi drive. It was definitely noisy.

Of course the above experiences may not apply to current 100 gig drives, but it's possible that the noise problem follows certain manufacturers.

[thinkpad_uk]

AFAIK, the problem with non-ThinkPad drives only affects the T43 model. This is because of the SATA to PATA converter and the BIOS firmware.

I have a T42 with a 40 gig Fujitsu drive. It is quiet as a mouse. I am unsure if Fujitsu makes 100 gig drives.

I had a 600E with a Hitachi drive. It was definitely noisy.

Of course the above experiences may not apply to current 100 gig drives, but it's possible that the noise problem follows certain manufacturers.

I have a T41 so the SATA/PATA thing hopefully shouldn't be an issue.

Cheers

[simms]

I would 2nd the seagates.

[smugiri]

I picked up the 80gb 4200 rpm drive about 2 weeks ago ( 08k0635 that I think is sometime branded as an Travelstar IC25N080ATMR04-0 08K0635 which is supposed to be the IBM ).

It was slow slow slow. Which brings me to my point, no matter what you get, do not get 4200 rpm for a primary drive. On external USB, performance will be acceptable but as a primary drive, you want something faster.

I went back and traded this drive for the 5400rpm Toshiba 100gb with 16MB of cache and I love the performance. I do not have the best of hearing so acoustics were not a big deal for me. I do know that it is much more silent that the original IBM 4200rpm 40gb drive and that I do no/t have the clicking that I had with an IBM drive that I had a while back that bothered me a lot too. This was a 20gb Travelstar though, not one of the newer drives. It would go click brrrrrrrrr click click brrrrrrrrrrrrrr click click click brrrrrr ad nauseam ..... Quite a pleasure.

A suggestion if I may, if you have your Thinkpad with you, some US stores will allow you to buy a drive and exchange it if you have a problem with it no questions asked within a certain period - maybe 7 days. Bring your laptop with you and try a couple of the drives based on recommendations. If you try one and it is too noisy, bring it back, get another one and try it ... ad nauseam

my point? no matter the drive or the brand, look for more cache and more rpm ... with a 100gb drive though, the best performance comes from the 7200rpm but the price premium on that is quite high. To give you an idea about price difference, I think that the 5400rpm costs about half the price of the 7200rpm

[thinkpad_uk]

I went back and traded this drive for the 5400rpm Toshiba 100gb with 16MB of cache and I love the performance. I do not have the best of hearing so acoustics were not a big deal for me. I do know that it is much more silent that the original IBM 4200rpm 40gb drive and that I do no/t have the clicking that I had with an IBM drive that I had a while back that bothered me a lot too. This was a 20gb Travelstar though, not one of the newer drives. It would go click brrrrrrrrr click click brrrrrrrrrrrrrr click click click brrrrrr ad nauseam ..... Quite a pleasure.

Thanks for that, I'm only going to in the US for a couple of days and ideally want to buy the drive online and have it delivered to our Boston office. So based on that I think I might try and get the drive you suggested.. really the only thing that concerns me is that brr click click that you so eloquently described , so as long as the 5400rpm Tosh is free from that affliction I will probably go ahead and order it today. Do you have a model number??

Many thanks
T_UK

[qux]

but for me the noise is the most important factor

This review focuses on the 7200.1's sound and says "subjective noise quality was excellent". Unfortunately they haven't reviewed the 7k100 yet. From the posts I've read, if you want to be safest on getting a quiet drive, get the Seagate. While in the specs they're at about the same decibel level, the Seagate has lower pitched sounds and is therefore harder to hear. The only problem is if the drive is hot enough to make your fan run more...

The Hitachi 7k100 is the speed champ, but the Seagate 7200.1 runs cooler and quieter.

On the heat issue it looked like the Seagate might be hotter according to the specs:

Power usage in watts for seek/read-write/idle/standby
Seagate 7200.1: 2.6/2.4/.95/.28
Hitachi 7k100: 2.3/2.0/(1.1 active/.85 low power)/.2

The only place where the Seagate uses less power is in idle vs. the Hitachi's "active idle". Anyone know if it spends much time in this state during normal use?

I saw one review where they pointed a temperature sensor at both drives and they were the same but I can't find the link right now. The Tom's Hardware review you mentioned shows the Hitachi drive as using less power.

So basically I'm wondering why you think the Seagate is cooler?

[smugiri]

The drive is the Toshiba MK1032GAX: this has the 16MB buffer.

You can also get the MK1031GAS but this is the 100gb with only the 8MB buffer. Price difference is about $10 to $15 which I think makes it a better deal to go with the 16mb buffer.

Absolutely no sound from this. I do not know about thermal performance but I have a T40p not a T43 which means I do not have many of the problems other members of this forum with T43's describe due to the machine running hot.

All the best and let us know how it turns out.