T60P Questions & Observations

[steveg47]

Opinions wanted.
I've supported thinkpads (along with other things) at work for years starting with the 560 model and I've always prefered them to other laptops with the exception of some of the older toshiba porteges which I also liked. In the past I've always managed to get a used thinkpad or portege (2/3 years old) gratis, my latest being an x23 with ultrabase which I upgraded to an hitachi 60gb 7200rpm and max'd the memory at 640mb. Now I've actually decided to purchase a new T60P. Since I do a lot of experimenting and testing and am a heavy user of VMware (love it) I figure that a 7200rpm 100gb would be best. This is what I plan to do:

Purchase a T60P with the core 2 duo t6600, 14.1, V5250, 2gb memory and the $20 upgrade to the 100gb 5400rpm drive.
I plan to remove the 5400rpm drive and replace it with a 7200rpm hitachi or maybe a seagate which I will purchase from Newegg or Zipzoom and then use the 5400rpm in an external housing. I figure an extra 100gb drive for $20 ain't bad.

I am also planning to purchase a Sata expresscard and an sata external housing for the 5400rpm drive since I expect the Sata to perform far better then USB2.

My questions are: will there be any issues buying an hitachi 7200rpm not from Lenovo and installing it myself. I had absolutely no probs doing this on the x23 and the performance improvement was spectacular. Will I lose some functionality/reliability and have firmware issues like the t43 fiasco?
I also plan to save some $$$ and purchase the xp home version and then install the xp professional corporate version from work. (no licensing issue here as the laptop will be used at work and will be covered on the corporate license). Do you see an other issues with doing this? Will I be loosing the a free Vista upgrade?
I would also like opinions on my external sata expresscard idea. I have been so far unable to find an external enclosure with a sata interface though I guess I could fabricate one from a usb2 enclosure but I'd rather not have to.

Any other comments, ideas and constructive criticism would be welcome and I apologize in advance for this rather long winded post.

[jdhurst]

<snip>
My questions are: will there be any issues buying an hitachi 7200rpm not from Lenovo and installing it myself. I had absolutely no probs doing this on the x23 and the performance improvement was spectacular. Will I lose some functionality/reliability and have firmware issues like the t43 fiasco?
<snip>

Probably not. I purchased an early 7200 rpm drive myself, and it had to be replaced (air bag issue three years ago). Hitachi took their sweet time to replace (months) and I purchased another 7200 rpm drive from my regular vendor (much more expensive than the first purchase). Moral: For a work machine, purchase the drive from someone who is able to replace it under warranty (for any reason) next day. The silver lining for me is that I have two fast drives and use them both.

Installing it yourself is no big deal, but I get the recovery CD's from IBM first, and ensure they work immediately on receipt.
... JD Hurst

[steveg47]

Thanks for the reply jdhurst. I will of course get the recovery CDs but my usual approach with a new pc is to use a bootable ghost CD and image each partition separately and then image the whole drive to a usb drive. I do this at the first powerup before allowing any auto installations. I then allow the OS to autoinstall and when completed I do the imaging all over again. I prefer this method as it allows me to return the pc to an "as delivered" state very quickly if I need to. As I stated I love to experiment and quite often things get so fubar'd that a restore from the original ghost images is necessary.
I've never had to RMA anything to Hitachi so far. Based on your experiences with them maybe a Seagate Momentus would be a better choice. What do you think?

[tomh009]

I am also planning to purchase a Sata expresscard and an sata external housing for the 5400rpm drive since I expect the Sata to perform far better then USB2.

Indeed SATA will be faster than the hard disk, so you will not lose any performance. On the other hand, USB2 can do 320 Mb/s in practice, whereas 5400 rpm disks typically can read 450-500 Mb/s (media transfer rate, not interface transfer rate!) so you will lose 30-35% performance with USB2.

I personally have stayed with USB2 for now for simplicity -- and because my external drives do not get very heavy usage. But if you will be using the drive heavily and don't mind the extra card and cable, SATA is the way to go.

[carguy]

I'm planning on replacing the hard drive on the T60 I ordered. Would I be able to burn the Rescue and Recovery discs myself, or must they be ordered from IBM/Lenovo?

[trisberg]

I'd get an UltraBay adapter for the SATA HD - http://tinyurl.com/yge62p

[steveg47]

The Sata enclosures I have found also support USB2 unfortunately they also have AC power supplies which kinda negates the idea of portability. I would really like to find a sata enclosure that is powered by a usb port if one exists.

The ultrabay adapter is an interesting idea which I will seriously consider...Thanks for that suggestion
I wonder, can you boot directly to an OS from a harddrive in the ultrabay? and does lenovo also make one that supports pata drives.

[steveg47]

I'm planning on replacing the hard drive on the T60 I ordered. Would I be able to burn the Rescue and Recovery discs myself, or must they be ordered from IBM/Lenovo?

I did it a number of months ago at work on an x40 tablet and did not order anything from Lenovo so I guess the answer is yes. I forget exactly what I did(really bad memory) but I do recall downloading some updates for R&R. Considering how new the t60 is it probably has the latest R&R version but I would check and update the software first if necessary.
Check this url:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4M7HWZ

[brianl]

The Sata enclosures I have found also support USB2 unfortunately they also have AC power supplies which kinda negates the idea of portability. I would really like to find a sata enclosure that is powered by a usb port if one exists.

The ultrabay adapter is an interesting idea which I will seriously consider...Thanks for that suggestion
I wonder, can you boot directly to an OS from a harddrive in the ultrabay?

Yes

[jdhurst]

<snip> Based on your experiences with them maybe a Seagate Momentus would be a better choice. What do you think?

I like Hitachi myself. I was just saying to source whatever you buy from someone local to you who can replace quickly if there is an issue. It may cost more, but businesses are usually willing to trade cost for fast service. ... JD Hurst

[steveg47]

Well I've done it. Ordered a t60p today using a sales rep since the website order entry system was having problems. Good thing it was. Talked to a very pleasant young woman in Toronto who took my order and gave me a price almost $190 cheaper then the web price. No price negociations were necessary. She also volunteered to expedite the order and felt she could get it shipped in 2 weeks. If I were 20 years younger and single I'd go to Toronto and take her out to dinner I checked the order status and it had 11/20 as a ship date (3 weeks) which is no problem, I'm a patient guy. If the rest of my experiences with the t60p go as well as the ordering experience I'll be one pleased pup. And thank you all for your input.