Hard Drive Replacement - Lenovo or other model?

[MattFromBeyond]

Hi,

Just purchased an X200 and keen to upgrade the hard drive.

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I did check the FAQs - but is the hard drive protection something that is provided by the x200, or by the hard drive itself? And if so... should I be buying a Lenovo brand or any other decent brand of drive?

Cheers

[Marin85]

Welcome to our forum!

HDs from Lenovo are in general overpriced for no apparent technical reason. One can use Active Protection with most non-Lenovo-branded HDs, Lenovo itself uses HDs from Hitachi, Toshiba, Seagate etc. Lenovo-branded HDs don´t have built-in shock protection, because all Thinkpads come with a built-in accelerometer which detect "dangerous situations" and sends to corresponding signals to the HD for parking its heads. Regarding non-Lenovo-branded HDs, there are also such HDs that have built-in shock protection, so they can be used in any laptop.

Some time ago there was a very interesting thread on some compatibility questions concerning non-Lenovo HDs and Active Protection. I´ll try to dig it out...

Cheers,

Marin

[Marin85]

Update: I found that link -> Hitachi HD & Active Protection. In that thread you may find some useful information as to which HDs can utilize Lenovo Active Protection System (APS) (and which probably cannot).

Hope this helps,

Marin

[Nubulin]

I just had my hard drive die on my T60p a few months ago. It was replaced under warrently, but they told me if I did not send the dead one back I would be charged the replacement cost of $231 (for a refurb no less). The EXACT same Hitachi harddrive with matching part numbers was $49.99 from Newegg. I would rather use a better brand like Western Digital or Seagate. IMO Hitachi is junk.

[Marin85]

I have to disagree loudly My 7K200 proved to be a rock-solid drive with rock-solid performance. Believe it or not, but everything (except raw file transfers) runs on it faster than on my Seagate 7200.3 despite the fact that the 7200.3 has much higher throughputs... Not to mention the very questionable health of the Seagate drive and some interesting side effects of the built-in G-shock protection...