Replacement of drive and of other items for T23

[davyn]

Upto last night I was thinking of upgrading my T23 to T43 but (as it happens when the budget is small and the tax season is here), I decided to postpone this and decided to upgrade the T23. I would love it if someone here can give me some advice.

To upgrade the drive, from 40GB to 60-80GB, I searched the forum and it seems that the consensus is to get the Hitachi 7K60 one. Is it still the best drive for the machine? Are there any comparable 80Gb drives out there? What would be the best place to get it? So far, the cheapest places I know are TigerDirect or NewEgg.

I have 2x256Mb stick in the machine. Does it make sense to move to the 2X512? It seems that at this moment my machine is running out of memory. I am planning to do a clean install on the machine.

I have a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card that I purchased few years ago on a trip to Singapore. It works most of the time but sometimes just stops thus killing the tranfer of files to my external disk or Ipod. Any suggestions of one that is stable?

I really appreciate your help,
Alex

[JHEM]

Chris,

Installing a 7K60 in your machine will show a marked improvement in overall system speed. Get it from www.zipzoomfly.com or www.newegg.com, the prices are similar although I prefer the former.

I would first upgrade the HD, do a clean install and then decide if you still need 1GB RAM. Without knowing what you primarily use the machine for it's difficult to offer any additional advice. The slowness you experience might be the result of sludge in your OS installation rather than a need for more memory.

I use a Belkin USB2.0 card in my older systems, wasn't cheap but it's worked reliably.

What model T23 are we discussing? Also, please update your profile with your location. Not mandatory, but it's appreciated.

Regards,

James

[davyn]

Hi James,

Thank you for the advice. I will do it. Is there a noticable performance difference between a 7K80 and 5K80 or 5K100? If I get a 7k80, I may need to get a second external drive to keep all of my mp3's that I synch with my iPod. Otherwise, one drive will suffice.

Thanks,
Alex

[Fudo]

I just bought a T23 and will be replacing the hard drive soon because it has a bunch of bad sectors. I've settled on the 5k100 because it puts out less heat, has fewer vibrations, and gets slightly better battery life than the 7k80. Of course the performance wont be as good but I believe the 5k100 is worth it for the reasons listed and the money saved. Also, both hitachi and seagate will be comming out with new 7200rpm drives soon.