T43 2686 and Seagate STA910021A experience

[nmuntz]

I thought I'd try my luck out and see if I could replace the 7K60 that came with my T43 with a bigger drive.

This is the drive:

Momentus 7200.1 100GB
Model: STA910021A
PN: 9S3004-500
FW: 3.04
Date: 06475

The bad:
- 2010 error (as expected)
- IBM update CD wouldn't update the firmware (as expected)
- Causes the system to run 2 degrees warmer
- Extra heat causes the fan to constantly spin at ~4100 RPM (normal for my machine is ~3200 or off)
- Hard drive LED seems to come on when there is no disk activity at all.

The good:

- As quiet as a 7K60
- The drive seems to work fine. I installed an new OS and copied about 40GB of data on to it without any problems. But because of the extra heat and mysterious HDD LED, i'm not going to use it.

[hiyel]

That is very interesting...
I have a t43 2686, and I got a STA910021A couple months ago. I didn't have any problem with it:

-no 2010 error (I thought you get that only with the Hitachi drives)
-I didn't notice any temp difference (it's hot as hell as it was always, fan never stops even on idle)
-HD led does seem to light when no activity, but if you listen very carefully from its ventilation grid you can notice some motion.

[Lazarus]

I had nothing but BAD experiences with Segate drives.
I bought two brand new ATA 160GB drives and one SATA 160GB disk from them.
All three(!) failed within a matter of weeks with surface errors, and only my backups prevented a total disaster for me.

They are overpriced, slower than the Hitachi drives and a disaster waiting to happen.

[draco2527]

I had nothing but BAD experiences with Segate drives.
I bought two brand new ATA 160GB drives and one SATA 160GB disk from them.
All three(!) failed within a matter of weeks with surface errors, and only my backups prevented a total disaster for me.

They are overpriced, slower than the Hitachi drives and a disaster waiting to happen.

Must be that cheap chinese knock-off

Overall I have had LESS failures with Seagate then Maxtor (now owned by Seagate) or WD combined... I currently have one 120GB WD that passes ALL TEST, you can format it NP (low level) but when transfering data you can "SEE IT moving" to the drive...it is THERE...you reboot and the data is gone (installed on several machines, all experience the same problem) the drive is "healthy" properly "seen" by the OS...yet it will NOT retain DATA!! I also have a Maxtor 250GB's with SMART reporting that passes ALL tests but sometimes will give me random errors when trying to pull data from it....yet my two 160GB seagates purr along without any problems. I have had WORSE experiences with Fujitsu drives then any other brand......but Maxtor was probably number 2 on the list...

[GomJabbar]

The Fujitsu that shipped with my T42 is going on 2 years with nary a problem. The IBM Travelstar (Hitachi) in my daughter's 600E is going on 3-1/2 years and still working fine. I went through 3 Maxtor SATA drives in a desktop PC with less than a year on each one before they failed. No more Maxtor's for me. The Samsungs that I bought to replace the Maxtors are still working fine at about a year and a half old (Raid 1). Seagates and Toshibas in desktop PC's have worked fine for me in the past.

[Lazarus]

The Fujitsu that shipped with my T42 is going on 2 years with nary a problem. The IBM Travelstar (Hitachi) in my daughter's 600E is going on 3-1/2 years and still working fine. I went through 3 Maxtor SATA drives in a desktop PC with less than a year on each one before they failed. No more Maxtor's for me. The Samsungs that I bought to replace the Maxtors are still working fine at about a year and a half old (Raid 1). Seagates and Toshibas in desktop PC's have worked fine for me in the past.

From many, many years of experience I can only say that the Hitachi Travelstar 2.5" disks only gave me problems when there had been a mechanical failure first (like overheating, physical impact/shock or faulty connection).
W/o such, they just kept working, working, working.

But with Seagate (and Fujitsu) I had unexplainable errors many, many times.
And yes, I also noticed that Seagate purchased Maxtor and wept.

[lsandini]

Replying to the top post:

Funny that you mention that. I replaced my HDD in a T43p with exactly the same HDD as you, same FW, and I get the 2010 but I bypass it and the laptop works just fine.

Or does it ? I was starting to investigate the fan spinning all the time at almost constant speed, and maybe shorter battery life too.

Apparently the 7200 rpm drive does increase the power drain on the battery and produce more heat than desired. People seem to recommend Hitachi drives? Well let me try my luck then.

80-100GB are needed, 5400 is good enough, I don't have any HDD intensive applications anyway. Silence is a plus, so what are my candidates (except Lenovo drives of course) ?

Lorenzo