Is HITACHI Travelstar 7K320 320GB HDD the biggest for t60?

[propellen]

Hi,

I'd like to get a 7200rpm hard disk for my T60.
Is 320gb the biggest disk available at the moment?


Thanks!

Best regards,
propellen

[RonS]

Samsung has a 500GB 2.5" drive out (5400RPM) Model HM500LI

Hitachi also has one, but it's 12.5mm tall and you need a 9.5mm drive.

Check this out article over at Tom's Hardware

[propellen]

Hi,

Thank you for responding.

Yes, I know about the Samsung disk, but I'm wondering if there is disks >= 7200rpm disks and >= 320gb.


propellen

[RonS]

The biggest 7200 2.5" drive I've seen is 320GB.

[propellen]

I just placed an order for one HITACHI Travelstar 7K320 320GB HDD! My precious. I love the thought of having >300gb with MOBILE storage, no strings attached.

I'd like to run some tests and check how much faster it is than my Hitachi 5K160 80GB Travelstar. Could somebody please recommend me software for harddisk tests like that?

I'd like to test:
- Access time
- Impact on battery life, due to increase in rpms.

[Marie-Anne]

I'd like to run some tests and check how much faster it is than my Hitachi 5K160 80GB Travelstar. Could somebody please recommend me software for harddisk tests like that?

http://www.hdtune.com/

[propellen]

I just installed my Travelstar 320GB 2.5" 16MB 7200rpm.
The system is faster, no doubt.

BUT,
the palm rest gets quite much hotter. Has any of you other 7200rpm at T60 users experienced the same?

[stephenaron]

I am about to order the 320gb drive to upgrade my t60p. Can i use a drive with the 3.0 Gb/s in my T60p? It already ran hot sometimes aroud the palm rest. i hear the Seagate drive runs cooler....who knows.
I think i want :
Seagate Momentus 7200.3 ST9320421AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Retail

[propellen]

I'm actually on the fence here guys. The palm rest gets WAY too hot for my preferance. I guess i could tolerate it if i was really happy with the extra speed the additional 2200 rpms gave me, but i'm not. The overall system speed increased, but i dont _need_ that extra peak. A cool and quiet system is more important for me than speed.

Hehe, this must be the worst investment i've done in a while. I thought i did a careful research before doing the purchase. I dont like buying things that are not fully compatible =)

EDIT:
I switched back to the original 5400rpm disk. I noticed that the palm rest still was quite warm, but i guess that is due to heat generate when having the other disk installed.

THEN i uninstalled Windows SP3, and installed TPFancontrol along with NHC with proper ACPI settings (se my signature). I was quite amazed. Machine is now varying _fanless_ (on battery) in temperature area 55-58 degrees celcius(!!!) Its been like this for 1 hour now. The heat is migrating silent out from the fan vents, but without the fan running. It reminds me of heat control done on a macbook

The tpfancontrol is set to go off on fan speed 1 on 60 degrees celcius, while the NHC is set to go off on fan speed 1 on 58 degrees.

The heat from the palm rest is gone. And the machine is running smoother* now than ever.
*smooth as in responsive yet silet.

My thoughts are:
- Since the 7200rpm only generate a few more degrees than the 54000rpm disk, maybe those extra degrees are crucial and the thinkpad heating system is operating under such tight margins that it "tipped the iceberg"/resonance temp.
-- I doubt it, since the machine is so well engineered.
- SP3, the latest major Windows XP update. Its said to improve the system performance. Maybe this made the palm rest temperature increase as well as the overall system temperature.
-- When i think of it, i felt the machine went a little bit hotter when i initial installed the SP3 on my 5400rpm disk. I made a fresh WinXP install on the 7200rpm disk, thus installing the SP3 from the beginning.

The next step is to remove the SP3 on the 7200rpm disk and check how the overall system temperature behavior.

Have you guys experienced any heat increase due to the installation of the new SP3 in XP?

[Pascal_TTH]

I never read about more hard disk activity/heat using SP3. There is any relation between ACPI and plamrest heat from the hard disk (except if NHC set AMS to silent).

Hitachi 320GB 7200rpm is the worst. Poor data transfert, [censored] long access time (18 ms !!! more than 5400 rpm drives) and much heat. Seagate is the coolest and the second better performer. WD Scorpio Black is the faster but a bit noisy.

[propellen]

Well, i learned something from this experience; i don't want to sacrifice a quite/cool laptop for speed/performance.

Thus, the 320gb 7200 rpm harddisk will be sold asap.

EDIT:
Looks like a Macbook Pro user has the same issue with his 7K320 disk, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=297567

[propellen]

Update; like the Macbook user in the link above, i too was a little bit fast to draw conclusions
It turns out that the new 7k320 disk actually overall cools down the system. The disk works around 36-41 degrees Celsius.
The battery life _seems_ to benefit from the new disk as well.

1 cpu 52°C (0x78)
2 aps 40°C (0x79)
3 crd 42°C (0x7a)
4 gpu 53°C (0x7b)
5 no5 37°C (0x7c)
7 bat 34°C (0x7e)
9 bus 40°C (0xc0)
10 pci 48°C (0xc1)
11 pwr 53°C (0xc2)

The quotation above displays the average TPfancontrol temperatures for my T60 doing regular tasks _on battery_.

EDIT:
Palmrest still getting, in my opinion, uncomfortably hot.

[MaxRoy77]

Thanks for all the links and infos about your upgrade.

I am planning on doing the same with my T60 and wonder 1 thing, does the ACTIVE DISK PROTECTION work with other disk than LENOVO branded one ?

Since LENOVO is now working with SEAGATE, I was planning on saving $ a bit and go with the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 #ST9320421ASG 320GB 7200RPM at 86$ instead of a LENOVO branded #43N3411 ThinkPad 320GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Hard Drive at 150$ .

?

Thanks

[diaz1023]

I found a 500GB seagate on tigerdirect.com, i have that loaded with vista and the original 160 loaded with xp pro

[ZaZ]

I am planning on doing the same with my T60 and wonder 1 thing, does the ACTIVE DISK PROTECTION work with other disk than LENOVO branded one ?

Since LENOVO is now working with SEAGATE, I was planning on saving $ a bit and go with the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 #ST9320421ASG 320GB 7200RPM at 86$ instead of a LENOVO branded #43N3411 ThinkPad 320GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Hard Drive at 150$ .

The hard drive protection is on the motherboard. It'll work regardless of the drive.

Any off the shelf drive should work. There's nothing special about the Lenovo drives. If you're going to spend $150, get the 500GB Seagate 7200.4. It's the fastest mechanical drive right now.

[archer6]

I've spent a fair amount of time testing new drives this year. The brands I've installed in my T60 are the Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital. In the end the two fastest, coolest, and most silent are the WD Scorpio Black 320 @ 7200, and WD Scorpio Blue 500 @ 5400. Benchmark numbers aside there is so little speed difference between them that I find the Scorpio Blue my favorite. With one in the mainbay and one in the ultrabay you have a whopping One TB of storage. And the speed is very impressive. This drive runs cooler than any others of any size or speed that I have used and is silent as well. I highly endorse either if these new WD drives.
.
Cheers...
posted via BlackBerry Bold

[MaxRoy77]

Thanks for the info about the ACTIVE DISK PROTECTION FredGarvin !

Also thanks for sharing your experience testing new drives Archer6!

I will go with the WD Black since I want to increase my speed to 7200 RPM and i've read at Tom's and barefeats.com it's the best in it's class for the small random and write operations, fits best with my type of computing.

I'll let know when the new drive arrive.

Max

[bodeg]

archer6,
Thanks for the valuable information.

Until I replace my T60 with a brand new W700, I do plan to upgrade my loaded original 120 @ 5400, and WD Scorpio is my main candidate.

I still not sure if it will be the Black (320 @ 7200) or the Blue (320 @ 5400). Price is not an issue.

I use my T60 mostly for software development - Microsoft Visual Studio (6.0 and 2008)
Blue or Black? any tips?

Best Regards, alon

[ZaZ]

If you get a Seagate drive, you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate's website. DiscWizard is a limited version of True Image. I use it in place of Rescue and Recovery, which is a little bloated if you ask me. You can do a clean install, then make an image of the drive, which you can put back at any time. It takes about five minutes in XP and 20 minutes in Vista, which has much larger image files. You can put all your data on a separate partition, which isn't touched during the recovery or re-installation of the OS. The real world performance difference between all the 7200RPM drives is very small if any. That's been my experience anyway.

[archer6]

<snip>
Until I replace my T60 with a brand new W700, I do plan to upgrade my loaded original 120 @ 5400, and WD Scorpio is my main candidate.

I bought a second Scorpio Black to pair with the one I purchased for testing. I have them installed in my T60p which is my development (work) machine. These 320GB/7200rpm drives have been most impressive. When pushed hard with Maya and other resource intensive apps, they have impressed me with how fast, silent, and cool they run. For your use I believe they would impress, and satisfy you.
.
Cheers...
posted via BlackBerry Bold

[agarza]

I've also a WD Black, although by my standards is not quiet at all, it makes the wooshing sound that most HDD make and also makes the click noise, it's speedier indeed, but I couldn't bear with it while using my machine, it's just to load to just be sitting there idling. I'm hoping to get a 250GB single platter drive soon.

[archer6]

I've also a WD Black, although by my standards is not quiet at all, it makes the wooshing sound that most HDD make and also makes the click noise

Your drive would not meet my standards either as I'm super picky.

Don't forget you have a warranty and it sounds like using it would be a good idea.

I do a lot of work late at night in my super quiet home office. I now have four WD Black drives and they are all silent, no clicking, no wooshing. However you don't mention what size you have, it really should not make any difference, I'm just curious. Prior to this new line of WD drives, I would only use Travelstars. But I find the WD Black 320GB@7200rpm drives simply stellar. As you can see I have a lot of ThinkPads and thus a lot to compare to. Going forward I plan to mount WD Black Drives in each of my new ThinkPads.

Cheers...

[EricRC]

I'm using a Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM HDD on my T60p, it's running without any imperfection

[bodeg]

I just installed WD Black 320GB@7200 on my T60, replacing the original 120GB@5400
I used True Image Home to clone the original HDD.

AND found - the new HDD fast, quiet and not getting warm at all.

I am HAPPY!
Thanks for your help and tips. alon

[archer6]

I just installed WD Black 320GB@7200 on my T60, replacing the original 120GB@5400
I used True Image Home to clone the original HDD.

AND found - the new HDD fast, quiet and not getting warm at all.

I am HAPPY!
Thanks for your help and tips. alon

It's great to hear that you are happy with your new Scorpio.
.
I've been so happy with how quiet, cool & fast mine is, that I've installed one in each of my 60 series ThinkPads.
.
Cheers,
sent via BlackBerry

[hausman]

Reviews I've seen conclude all three drives are about the same with only marginal differences in performance, noise and heat. Here in Canada Hitachi 7K320 drives sell for as little as CA$50 (after $20 mail in rebate.) I'm happy with the one I've installed in my X61s. The drive is fast, quiet and no warmer than the 80GB/5400 drive it replaced. I don't have the equivalent Seagate and WD models to compare with, but for the price I really don't really care.

[Delmarco]

I just installed my Travelstar 320GB 2.5" 16MB 7200rpm.
The system is faster, no doubt.

BUT,
the palm rest gets quite much hotter. Has any of you other 7200rpm at T60 users experienced the same?

Just got my 320GB7200rpm Travelstar yesterday!!!!
Great investment!

To answer about the drive being hotter and louder?
Nope it is not hot or loud. Not anymore warmer than my old 100GB. In fact my entire system at CoreDuo2.0ghz has been generally cool and quiet. You do feel the vibrations of the 320GB drive when it is working hard, but it is only a tickle.

Also not dissappoint the OP. After you clone and partition it up for a Thinkpad T60 you only get 289GB available and not 320GB. Nvertheless, a 30GB loss is no biggie considering it is on a drive that is over ten times larger.

[pae77]

I think the real world difference between the various 320 gb 7200 rpm drives are also not that big of a deal. I've been happy with Travelstars for years. It's not just about speed. Reliablity and power management are areas where they are very good.

But the main thing is that they are so cheap these days, they're irresistible bargains.

I also recently picked up a 1.5 TB 7200 rpm Seagate Freeagent external USB drive at Costco on a special coupon deal for $116 OTD. Now that's some major storage, although it is a little sluggish until it gets fully spun up. These drives had a firmware bug that caused a lot of bad reviews, but that supposedly that has been fixed. Mine has been working fine for about a month so far. Anyway, if it screws up, I can always return it to Costco. They are pretty good about returns and they told me the 90 day limit didn't apply to this item.