Laptop drives

[Mercutio]

I just decided to buy a nifty new Thinkpad T61. I already have a T60, but that machine is for my personal business and not for my trainer job.

So I bought another one.


It came with a 100GB 7200rpm SATA drive. A not-known-for-reliability Hitachi drive, but a 100GB SATA drive nonetheless.

Fortunately for me, years of collecting T-series accessories has left me with compatible Ultrabay devices, including both SATA and IDE drive bays.

So...
100GB doesn't seem like that much space to me, particularly when I want to install several Virtual machines and perhaps also multiple OSes (XP/Vista/Server 2003 at the very least).

At any rate, I can either replace the drive it came with, or add a second "part time" hard disk, and I'm having a difficult time deciding which I'd rather do. I'd prefer a non-Hitachi, non-WD drive in 7200rpm. If I go with a new primary drive, it'll have to be SATA and 7200rpm. If I go the secondary drive route, I guess it can be anything.

Has anyone had any recent experience with the newer, high capacity 2.5" drives?

 

[ddrueding]

No thoughts of going SSD for a primary drive?

 

[Mercutio]

Absolutely none. I am, as always, interested in capacity. If 100GB seems small to me, do you really think I'd be happy with 16 or 32GB?

 

[mubs]

I know you absolutely love WD drives, so here you go:

WD ships 320GB notebook drives

3GB SATA.

 

[Mercutio]

Scorpios are 5400rpm products, even setting aside their WDness for a moment. I guess if I were looking at a 5400rpm secondary drive that wouldn't matter so much.

I haven't looked at notebook drives in a while. I'm surprised by how... uncompelling everything is.

 

[udaman]

I know you absolutely love WD drives, so here you go:

WD ships 320GB notebook drives

3GB SATA.

Samsung is shipping the 320GB for use in Alienware lappy's. Toshiba claims to be ramping up production for availability of their 320GB 5.4k, and 7200rpm 200GB MK2049GSY in November. Samsung was supposed to have a 200GB 2.5in 7.2k server drive in production last June, still not available in retail market.

Hitachi's are alwasy shown to be highest performance and I don't know where Merc gets his ideas that WD are any more reliable than Hitachi laptop???

At any rate, all of the newer 7.2k drives I've read about are using more power than any laptop drives before them, something to consider if battery only life is important to you.

 

[Mercutio]

Hitachi's are alwasy shown to be highest performance and I don't know where Merc gets his ideas that WD are any more reliable than Hitachi laptop???

At any rate, all of the newer 7.2k drives I've read about are using more power than any laptop drives before them, something to consider if battery only life is important to you.

My personal notebook has a nine cell battery that will run the laptop for about five hours if I'm not using the DVD drive or 802.11 (which I normally don't). At times when battery life is even MORE important, I can get another three hours out of the Ultrabay 6-cell battery that I also have. In fact, I have two of them. Assuming there's enough charge on the main battery to run for about 30 seconds, I could switch between my secondary batteries and run my T60 or T61 for about 11 hours continuously without charging it.

Hitachi notebook drives are long term known as unreliable; notebook OEMs tell stories of being shipped two drives for every one ordered, and in personal experience, probably 85% of the notebook drives I've replaced for all time have been Hitachi/IBM drives.

WD has, in my version of reality, ceased to exist. Their products do not even merit consideration. Urine, perhaps, but not consideration.

 

[mubs]

So if you have the ultrabay battery in, does the laptop drain that first and then switch to the main battery, or does it drain both batteries concurrently at the same rate?

I see in my Latitude D531 that if the battery is fully charged, plugging it in does not turn on the charging light. I have long wondered why laptop mfrs didn't do intelligent battery / battery charge management of this kind. AFAIK, Thinkpads will charge the battery even when it is full if you have them plugged in.

 

[Santilli]

I'm real happy with the 7200 rpm 80 gig in my Panasonic.
Imagine they make bigger, but, the under 100 dollars seemed like the value spot, and, the bigger drives the usual ripoff, due to 'what the market will bare, lack of competition' pricing.

 

[LunarMist]

I know you absolutely love WD drives, so here you go:

WD ships 320GB notebook drives

3GB SATA.

Wow, 320 GB in a 2-platter 2 1/2 inch drive is amazing! I wish there were a 320GB PATA drive to upgrade my old notebook.