Better hard drive for laptop?

[JimL]

I was looking at Hitachi drives (like what came in my ThinkPad).

A 120GB drive at 5400 rpm costs twice as much ($120 - $63) as a 120GB with
virtually the exact same specs except in 4200 rpm. I see a better
throughput when used internally as opposed to externally. Is that what
makes it worth the difference?

 

[Larry]

I was looking at Hitachi drives (like what came in my ThinkPad).

A 120GB drive at 5400 rpm costs twice as much ($120 - $63) as a 120GB with
virtually the exact same specs except in 4200 rpm.  I see a better
throughput when used internally as  opposed to externally.  Is that what
makes it worth the difference?

Do you have to have Hitachi? Tigerdirect has: Western Digital
WD1600AAJB Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 160GB, 7200rpm, 8MB, ATA-100 EIDE,
OEM for only $49.99 and segate Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drive -
160GB, 7200 rpm, 8MB, ATA-100, EIDE, OEM for the the same.

Larry

 

[JimL]

I was looking at Hitachi drives (like what came in my ThinkPad).

A 120GB drive at 5400 rpm costs twice as much ($120 - $63) as a 120GB with
virtually the exact same specs except in 4200 rpm. I see a better
throughput when used internally as opposed to externally. Is that what
makes it worth the difference?

Do you have to have Hitachi?

Larry

Probably not, but ThinkPads came with IBM/Hitachi drives in them and were a
long lived combination. I'm guessing they made some effort to sort of
"match" them.

Thanks

 

[Larry]

There shouldn't be any need to stick with Hitachi. Do so if you are
comfortable, but provided you stick with the same interface drives from any
manufacturer should work.


Can't comment on costs, although Larry has pointed out what look to be
cheaper drives.

The faster the disk spins the faster data can be read from it or written to
it. So a 5400rpm drive will be approximatly 30% faster than a 4200rpm drive.
In my experience the performance bottleneck on laptops is often down to the
speed of the drive, so (cost issues aside) its always worth going for a
faster disk.

Your question asked about throughput when used internaly as opposed to
externally. By an externally I assume you mean connected via USB? I suspect

Hi Brian...

IDE or SATA is a good question....I "extrapolated" from the size of
his harddrive (120 gigs) that it is likely IDE. From the TigerDirect
website it appears that most (most underlined) of the SATA drives are
larger compacity, tho there is an 80 gig SATA on the TigerDirect
website. I didnt find any SATA 120 gig harddrive listed there, as the
next size appears to be 160 gigs.

Larry

 

[JimL]

I know nothing about the ThinkPad, but before buying a replacement drive
it is worth checking whether the existing drive is IDE or SATA. Most
modern drives are SATA, and they tend to be cheaper and have a higher
capacity than the older IDE drives, but if the laptop only supports IDE
then you can only replace it with an IDE one.

ThinkPads were long lived corporate work horses. Mine (T42) runs IDE, so no
massive drives for pennies.

Thanks

 

[JimL]

There shouldn't be any need to stick with Hitachi. Do so if you are
comfortable, but provided you stick with the same interface drives from
any manufacturer should work.


Can't comment on costs, although Larry has pointed out what look to be
cheaper drives.

The faster the disk spins the faster data can be read from it or written
to it. So a 5400rpm drive will be approximatly 30% faster than a 4200rpm
drive. In my experience the performance bottleneck on laptops is often
down to the speed of the drive, so (cost issues aside) its always worth
going for a faster disk.

Your question asked about throughput when used internaly as opposed to
externally. By an externally I assume you mean connected via USB? I
suspect that if you had the same drive internally and the same drive
mounted externally via USB that the internal one would marginally out
perform the one connected via USB but I wouldn't have thought there would
be much in it as I wouldn't have thought that USB would slow things down
much if at all, but I've never been in a position to benchmark it.

Just done a google looking for USB vs SATA (don't know whether you have a
SATA interface), and according to
http://www.rt.db.erau.edu/655s08/655webUSBSAT/Griffis_655proj_USBvSATA_vfinal.pdf,
SATA is noticably faster than USB, but I get the impression that there are
a number of factors which come into play.

HTH.

No SATA here. Staying behind the technology curve is the only way I can
afford computers. My next one will obviously be SATA.

The place where I saw the specs didn't specify connections. They just
listed two different values - one under internal and one under external. I
was surprised at the difference, but don't remember what it was. My brain
is on overload from too much time on the web looking for problem cures and I
have all the externals I need so didn't really care. I suppose USB would be
the logical conclusion.

 

[JimL]

IDE or SATA is a good question....I "extrapolated" from the size of
his harddrive (120 gigs) that it is likely IDE. From the TigerDirect
website it appears that most (most underlined) of the SATA drives are
larger compacity, tho there is an 80 gig SATA on the TigerDirect
website. I didnt find any SATA 120 gig harddrive listed there, as the
next size appears to be 160 gigs.

Larry

Yes, it is IDE, and I read somewhere last night that something about my
setup means I have a 137 GB limit. Can't vouch for that as I'm only
marginally literate in this stuff.

Anyway I need "newness" more than I need capacity. (I run a minimal system
and have 640 GB of storage on USB.) Event Viewer is showing disk errors,
altho the SMART says all is well. (Do I trust SMART?)

 

[David W. Hodgins]

Yes, it is IDE, and I read somewhere last night that something about my
setup means I have a 137 GB limit. Can't vouch for that as I'm only

That indicates the bios/hard drive controller is using LBA (28 bit)
rather then LBA48 (48 bit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

Anyway I need "newness" more than I need capacity. (I run a minimal system
and have 640 GB of storage on USB.) Event Viewer is showing disk errors,
altho the SMART says all is well. (Do I trust SMART?)

Assuming smart has been enabled on the drive, the errors in the
windows event viewer indicate filesystem errors, that would be
found, and possibly fixed by chkdsk. These errors can be caused
by software crashes, or incorrect shutdown (power loss, or forced
shutdown due to overheating).

If smart is enabled, and it doesn't show any errors, then the errors
were not caused by a failing hard drive, in my opinion.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

 

[JimL]

If smart is enabled, and it doesn't show any errors, then the errors
were not caused by a failing hard drive, in my opinion.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

Works for me. This laptop had been on my desk and I've never dropped it. I
wonder if the IBM software gismo to clear the head very fast in case of a
fall really does any good.

For two years or more I have noticed the drive accessing continually - from
once every half second to once every 3 or 4 seconds. I have to wonder if
that is all that good for it. I've discovered that ZoneAlarm and my
anti-virus both cause constant drive accessing.

Thanks

 

[JimL]

Do you have to have Hitachi? Tigerdirect has: Western Digital
WD1600AAJB Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 160GB, 7200rpm, 8MB, ATA-100 EIDE,
OEM for only $49.99 and segate Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drive -
160GB, 7200 rpm, 8MB, ATA-100, EIDE, OEM for the the same.

Larry

What's up with TigerDirect? I'm looking at a drive there but it doesn't say
whether it's new, used or refurb.

 

[Larry]

They are all new...never have seen refurbished drives there....

Also compare prices at newegg.com for comparison.....TigerDirect is
usually cheaper...and they really ship fast...Larry

 

[~misfit~]

Do you have to have Hitachi? Tigerdirect has: Western Digital
WD1600AAJB Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 160GB, 7200rpm, 8MB, ATA-100 EIDE,
OEM for only $49.99 and segate Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drive -
160GB, 7200 rpm, 8MB, ATA-100, EIDE, OEM for the the same.

Both of which are 3.5" 'desktop' HDDs and won't fit in a laptop.......

 

[~misfit~]

Works for me. This laptop had been on my desk and I've never dropped
it. I wonder if the IBM software gismo to clear the head very fast in
case of a fall really does any good.

For two years or more I have noticed the drive accessing continually
- from once every half second to once every 3 or 4 seconds. I have
to wonder if that is all that good for it. I've discovered that
ZoneAlarm and my anti-virus both cause constant drive accessing.

How much RAM do you have in that T42 Jim? I found that maxing the RAM in my
old R51 to 2GB (and turning of swapfile) stopped a lot of HDD activity.

 

[~misfit~]

I was looking at Hitachi drives (like what came in my ThinkPad).

A 120GB drive at 5400 rpm costs twice as much ($120 - $63) as a 120GB
with virtually the exact same specs except in 4200 rpm. I see a
better throughput when used internally as opposed to externally. Is
that what makes it worth the difference?

Hi Jim. I've replaced my ThinkPad IDE drives with Seagate 5400.4 series
drives with good results.

Cheers,

 

[~misfit~]

IDE or SATA is a good question....I "extrapolated" from the size of
his harddrive (120 gigs) that it is likely IDE. From the TigerDirect
website it appears that most (most underlined) of the SATA drives are
larger compacity, tho there is an 80 gig SATA on the TigerDirect
website. I didnt find any SATA 120 gig harddrive listed there, as the
next size appears to be 160 gigs.

Larry

Yes, it is IDE, and I read somewhere last night that something about
my setup means I have a 137 GB limit. Can't vouch for that as I'm
only marginally literate in this stuff.

Anyway I need "newness" more than I need capacity. (I run a minimal
system and have 640 GB of storage on USB.) Event Viewer is showing
disk errors, altho the SMART says all is well. (Do I trust SMART?)

I'm fairly sure that the T42 isn't limited to 137GB. Have you read
http://forum.thinkpads.com/ ? It's a great resource for us ThinkPad
fanatics. ;-)

 

[~misfit~]

That indicates the bios/hard drive controller is using LBA (28 bit)
rather then LBA48 (48 bit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

However the wise folks at http://forum.thinkpads.com/ have many times fitted
320GB HDDs into their T42 ThinkPads so it doesn't really apply.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=78512

 

[JimL]

How much RAM do you have in that T42 Jim? I found that maxing the RAM in
my old R51 to 2GB (and turning of swapfile) stopped a lot of HDD activity.
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and
he'll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.

1GB.

By swap file do you mean the hiberfil thing? Something else?

I'm thinking the problem is the failing hard drive. Got a new one coming so
if I can get the switch made I'll know for sure.

Thanks

 

[JimL]

I'm fairly sure that the T42 isn't limited to 137GB. Have you read
http://forum.thinkpads.com/ ? It's a great resource for us ThinkPad
fanatics. ;-)

Don't know. I've had much bigger on USB but I don't know if that changes
anything.


Yeah, I've been there for solutions several times. One of the very best
forums around. Altho I was a bit stunned when I asked something about a
Lenovo one time and got blasted big time. I thought that was odd given that
Lenovo made the ThinkPads.

Do you happen to know if Lenovo is keeping up the reliability or they like
so many others riding the reputation into the ground while milking it for
bucks.?

 

[JimL]

Hi Jim. I've replaced my ThinkPad IDE drives with Seagate 5400.4 series
drives with good results.

Cheers,

I ordered a Seagate 160GB this afternoon. Cost a little more than a SATA
320GB.

 

[~misfit~]

Don't know. I've had much bigger on USB but I don't know if that
changes anything.

No, it means nothing. The LBA limit that's been discussed is a machine BIOS
thing, it doesn't apply to USB.

Yeah, I've been there for solutions several times. One of the very
best forums around. Altho I was a bit stunned when I asked something
about a Lenovo one time and got blasted big time. I thought that was
odd given that Lenovo made the ThinkPads.

LOL, you've got to remember, ThinkPads aren't just a laptop, they're almost
a religion. <glances around the room at the four here> If you want to know
about other Lenovo products then Lanovo have their own forums that aren't
bad.

Makes me smile, remembering an auction on New Zealand's equivalent of eBay.
The seller said "You aren't just buying a laptop, you're buying a ThinkPad!"
and a bidder asked what he meant, she wanted a laptop....

Do you happen to know if Lenovo is keeping up the reliability or they
like so many others riding the reputation into the ground while
milking it for bucks.?

Their top-end stuff is still up to IBM ThinkPad standards. They do a range
of ThinkPads, like IBM did, keeping the same nomenclature. The top stuff,
the T series of corporate machines and the X series of ultralights are still
top-end, top quality. Their R series of "affordable quality" is comparable
to IBM's Rs. The SL stuff is Lenovo's own line of "ThinkPad Light", a budget
machine, fine for a weekend emailer or light use but I wouldn't buy one. In
fact I don't think they should call the SL's ThinkPads but they bought the
rights to the name, they can do as they will.

However, I'll keep this excellent 3:4 ratio 15" IPS screen T60 T7400 C2D
machine going for as long as I can. I don't like 'widescreen' for a computer
and, as far as I know, nobody is making laptops with IPS screens anymore.
Long live my T60!!

Cheers,