Do Generic Internals Work on ThinkPads?

[mutefan]

If I go to Staples or BestBuy, will an upgrade (60 or 80) 2.5" HD work
on my ThinkPad? Do generics mess up anything? (A IBM rep actually
told me to go to one of these places, but I'm thinking he believed I
wanted some external ball-and-chain.)

 

[Arno Wagner]

If I go to Staples or BestBuy, will an upgrade (60 or 80) 2.5" HD work
on my ThinkPad? Do generics mess up anything? (A IBM rep actually
told me to go to one of these places, but I'm thinking he believed I
wanted some external ball-and-chain.)

There is no generic 2.5" HDD. You need to know what you get. Especially
power consumption and heat generation are important. Noise and
speed are usually also issues. Reliability is a concern.

Arno

 

[NickM]

Depends on the model you have and what the BIOS supports in terms of hard
disk capacities. If your Thinkpad is three years old or less I wouldn't
anticipate any problems with you fitting a 100GB or even a 120GB drive of
the same generic type (i.e. IDE or SATA) depending on what your machine uses
now. Lower capacities shoudn't be an issue. When changing your drive, I
would however recommend that you go for one with a faster rotational speed -
i.e. 7200rpm, as yours is almost certainly going to be slower than this.
You should notice a speed boost overall, with the most noticeable difference
being between a 4200rpm and 7200rpm drive. Obviously, replacing the hard
drive will mean completely re-installing your OS, software and data, but you
may want to simply use something like Norton Ghost to create a complete
backup as-is, which you can then restore to your new drive.

Nick

 

[mutefan]

When changing your drive, I would however recommend that you go for one
with a faster rotational speed -

Yeah, I forgot to ask if I "had" to stay with the 4200 rpm that's now
on my 20G. So-- I *can* upgrade to a higher rpm. Thanks!

 

[NickM]

Amost certainly you can upgrade to a faster speed, yes. I did this with my
now 3.5 years old Toshiba Satellite 1900-303 with no problems which
originally had a 30GB 4200rpm drive. It now has a 60GB IBM/Hitachi 7200rpm
drive and the speed improvement overall was very noticeable.

 

[mutefan]

Amost certainly you can upgrade to a faster speed, yes. I did this with my
now 3.5 years old Toshiba Satellite 1900-303 with no problems which
originally had a 30GB 4200rpm drive. It now has a 60GB IBM/Hitachi 7200rpm
drive and the speed improvement overall was very noticeable.

Nick, you don't think the fact the new drive was a "name brand"
contributed to your good experience? I ask because I'm searching the
typical Internet sites for "deals," and coming across a lot of WD,
Maxtors, Seagates, etc.

 

[J. Clarke]

There is no generic 2.5" HDD. You need to know what you get. Especially
power consumption and heat generation are important. Noise and
speed are usually also issues. Reliability is a concern.

I'm not sure what your point is here. The laptop drives one finds at Best
Buy are Seagate or Hitachi, in the manufacturer's sealed packaging. They
aren't "generic".

Noise and speed and reliability are all factors in a purchasing decision but
they have nothing to do with whether any given drive will operate in any
given machine.

Unless the machine is old enough to be using proprietary connectors any
current drive sold as a replacement drives for laptops should be
installable and should run. Power consumption on newer drives, even with a
significant capacity increase, is in general lower than on older ones, and
with lower power you get less heat.

The 137 GB barrier is only a minor issue--there is only one laptop drive
actually buyable that has more than 137 GB capacity (160 GB Seagate
Momentus 5400.3). SATA vs PATA the same--it's possible to buy SATA laptop
drives but they are not something one finds in brick and mortar stores
unless they were special-ordered and very, very few laptops require them,
certainly an older Thinkpad won't.

 

[J. Clarke]

If I go to Staples or BestBuy, will an upgrade (60 or 80) 2.5" HD work
on my ThinkPad? Do generics mess up anything? (A IBM rep actually
told me to go to one of these places, but I'm thinking he believed I
wanted some external ball-and-chain.)

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was formed by IBM and Hitachi and part
of the deal was that the entire drive manufacturing operation at IBM was
transferred to Hitachi, so the Hitachi drive is the closest thing you're
going to find to an IBM brand disk--it's no more "generic" than a new
Thinkpad (now made by Lenovo).

In general, a newer laptop drive will work fine in an older laptop.
Upgrading from a small 4200 RPM drive to a large 7200 runs a slight risk
that there might not be adequate cooling but even there the risk is
small--the drive manufacturers compromise performance in laptop drives to
keep the heat dissipation and power consumption under control, so this
would only be a problem if your machine was marginal to begin with, which
wouldn't be a Thinkpad.

On the shelf at Best Buy you will find a kit from Hitachi specifically
intended for people who want to upgrade their laptop drives. It contains a
60 GB or 100 GB 5400 RPM drive, a 2-1/2" USB 2.0 drive enclosure, and
instructions and software for copying the data from your old drive to the
new one and then exchanging the drives. If you've never done this sort of
thing before that might be a good option because it gives you everything
you need except hand tools in one box, and you end up with your old drive
in an external carrier so you can use it for whatever purpose you like.

There of course a small chance that you will encounter an
imcompatibility--this is always a risk when upgrading hardware, but that
risk _is_ small. There's also the chance that you'll get a broken drive,
but that's the risk you take with any purchase of electronic equipment.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Yes, you can use any 2.5" IDE laptop drive (note that there are now some
2.5" SATA laptop drives as well ... I'm assuming that the laptop is IDE).

They are very well standardized. All new products (anything that you
would buy in any store new) should work fine. Power consumption on
virtually all current drives is (and has been for several years) 500ma
or less (because that is the standard for a USB port's power capacity).
[and Heat generation = power consumption] Virtually all new drives
are 9.5mm thick, but almost all laptops will take a 12.5mm thick drive
if you happen to get one. Rotational speed doesn't matter to the laptop
(although it does impact performance). It's possible that you could
have a capacity limitation in your laptop, but it's unlikely in a modern
laptop that such a limitation would be as small as even 80 gigs.

 

[Toshi1873]

If I go to Staples or BestBuy, will an upgrade (60 or 80) 2.5" HD work
on my ThinkPad? Do generics mess up anything? (A IBM rep actually
told me to go to one of these places, but I'm thinking he believed I
wanted some external ball-and-chain.)

Worst case, you'll have to put that new HD into an external 2.5"
enclosure and hook to it via USB/Firewire. (Or return it and get
something that works bettter.)

I've replaced the HD in my Toshiba Tecra (originally a 60GB) with a
100GB. IIRC, I went from a 4200rpm to a 5400rpm. It's not a difficult
task for the most part, especially if you have Acronis or know how to
wield Knoppix+NTFSClone.

 

[mutefan]

Yes, you can use any 2.5" IDE laptop drive (note that there are now some
2.5" SATA laptop drives as well ... I'm assuming that the laptop is IDE).

They are very well standardized. All new products (anything that you
would buy in any store new) should work fine. Power consumption on
virtually all current drives is (and has been for several years) 500ma
or less (because that is the standard for a USB port's power capacity).
[and Heat generation = power consumption] Virtually all new drives
are 9.5mm thick, but almost all laptops will take a 12.5mm thick drive
if you happen to get one. Rotational speed doesn't matter to the laptop
(although it does impact performance). It's possible that you could
have a capacity limitation in your laptop, but it's unlikely in a modern
laptop that such a limitation would be as small as even 80 gigs.

Thanks, Barry, John, Nick, Toshi. I hope it means something, Barry and
John, that I've saved and printed almost every response you guys ever
made to my posts on the comp* groups. You're really decent people.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I'm not sure what your point is here.

Nothing more but a huge urge to babble.

The laptop drives one finds at Best Buy are Seagate or Hitachi,
in the manufacturer's sealed packaging. They aren't "generic".

Noise and speed and reliability are all factors in a purchasing decision but
they have nothing to do with whether any given drive will operate in any
given machine.

Unless the machine is old enough

Or new enough.

to be using proprietary connectors

The 'proprietary' connectors are back again, although not on the 2.5" drives.

any current drive sold as a replacement drives for laptops should be
installable and should run.

Power consumption on newer drives, even with a significant capacity
increase, is in general lower than on older ones, and with lower power
you get less heat.

The 137 GB barrier is only a minor issue--there is only one laptop drive
actually buyable that has more than 137 GB capacity (160 GB Seagate
Momentus 5400.3). SATA vs PATA the same--it's possible to buy SATA
laptop drives but they are not something one finds in brick and mortar
stores unless they were special-ordered and very, very few laptops require
them,

certainly an older Thinkpad won't.

But may therefor well have some bios limit between 32 GB and 137 GB.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

I'm not sure what your point is here. The laptop drives one finds at Best
Buy are Seagate or Hitachi, in the manufacturer's sealed packaging. They
aren't "generic".

Then there is no issue. I have no access to a "Best Buy" here (unless I
want to do a transatlantic flight), but there are generic HDDs
on sale here.

Arno

 

[NickM]

No. Any drive by any of the major manufacturers should work fine, but when
I got my 60GB drive IBM/Hitachi were pretty much the only ones available to
run at 7200rpm.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

No.

That's a yes then.

Any drive by any of the major manufacturers should work fine, but when
I got my 60GB drive IBM/Hitachi were pretty much the only ones available to
run at 7200rpm.

 

[NickM]

OK, I'll bite once.

It was actually and correctly a 'no' to his single question: 'you don't
think the fact the new drive was a "name brand" contributed to your good
experience?'.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

OK, I'll bite once.

It was actually and correctly a 'no' to his single question: 'you don't
think the fact the new drive was a "name brand" contributed to your good
experience?'.

Nowhere to be seen in your post.

In case you have some memory deficiency, this was your post:

"Subject: Do Generic Internals Work on ThinkPads?

No. Any drive by any of the major manufacturers should work fine, but when
I got my 60GB drive IBM/Hitachi were pretty much the only ones available to
run at 7200rpm."

 

[NickM]

Nowhere to be seen in your post.

In case you have some memory deficiency, this was your post:

"Subject: Do Generic Internals Work on ThinkPads?

No. Any drive by any of the major manufacturers should work fine, but when
I got my 60GB drive IBM/Hitachi were pretty much the only ones available to

READ THE WHOLE THREAD. I don't have a memory deficiency. Clearly you have
a deficiency in good manners. Do you always cast unwarranted and unprovoked
insults at people you don't even know? My guess from your response is that
the answer is 'Yes'. What a sad way to live your life.

I have at least tried to help the OP with several replies based on my tried
and tested knowledge and experiences, and from his responses it would appear
that he could follow what was meant. My reply to him was clearly a reply to
his previous post IN THE THREAD.

What useful experience or information have you offered to this thread
exactly? Precisely none so far.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt: does your ISP support the the use of
newsgroups? Is your news reader capable of retrieving ALL the information
in a thread? Is it conceivable that your system has, perhaps, not
retrieved all the information pertinent to the thread?

For your information and as you appear to be being deliberately obtuse and
downright rude, the subject was actually 'Re: Do Generic Internals Work on
ThinkPads?'. With the operative part in the subject line being 'Re:' In
other words, in case you have some kind of problem in understanding simple
good English, and accepted abbreviations, it was RE-ferrring or RE-lated to
something that went before it in the thread.

Now if you have quite finished and you haven't got anything useful to
contribute to this thread other than silly pedantic nonsense, kindly go and
play your little trolling game somewhere else. I'm sure you must have
better things to do with your time. I know I have.