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    T61 : New HDD upgrade

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by .nox, Jan 23, 2009.

  1. .nox

    .nox Notebook Consultant

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    I want to upgrade the HDD on my Lenovo T61 and I'm currently leaning towards a WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm 500GB, but I've seen that the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB is right around the corner. Should I wait ? I won't upgrade my hard drive for a while after this. Is the difference going to be noticeable, performance wise and power consumption wise ?


    Regards
     
    .nox, Jan 23, 2009
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  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    What is the current harddrive in your T61?
    If you do not know, you can download and install hdtune.
    It will tell you the model of the harddrive in the pulldown menu.

    You can benchmark your current drive with hdtune and than compare

    The WD5000BEVT can do 66-68mb/sec
    whereas
    the new 7200rpm 500gb drives can probably do 75-85 mb/sec with lower seek times.
    We dont have any 500gb 7200rpm laptop drives to benchmark so i just gave a rough estimate.

    7200rpm drives have faster access times generally because of the higher rpm, so that will give a nice performance increase in application loading.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Jan 23, 2009
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  3. .nox

    .nox Notebook Consultant

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    I forgot to mention it , sorry.

    It's an 80GB 5400rpm drive...

    EDIT :

    Is the power consumption between 7200 and 5400 noticeable ? I have a 9cell battery.
     
    .nox, Jan 23, 2009
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  4. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Most of the new 7200rpm and 5400rpm drives are very power efficient, so you will not notice any real difference in battery life. It may be 5minutes of battery difference at 3hrs battery life.

    Please note the harddrive takes a very small portion of the power the T61 uses, so even if you get the most efficient drive you will not notice much of a difference at all.
    Expect the 7200rpm 320 and 500 gb series to use less or as much power as your 80gb 5400rpm drive.
    Your system probably a Hitachi 5K160 in it

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Jan 23, 2009
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  5. .nox

    .nox Notebook Consultant

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    Thank you for the heads up. I'm still not sure I wether I should wait or not. The price difference is not negligeable. I can cop a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB for 133$ CAD and the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200.4 goes for 170$ CAD...
     
    .nox, Jan 23, 2009
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  6. t30power

    t30power Notebook Deity

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    Probably you have a WD Scorpio Blue 80GB on your T61 as mine.
    If you are concerned with heat & quiet go for the 5400rpm drive WD5000BEVT.s
     
    t30power, Jan 23, 2009
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  7. .nox

    .nox Notebook Consultant

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    Ok, I ended up going with a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB ... It should cover most of my needs with decent performance at a very decent price. 95$ CAD. Hope I won't regret it.
     
    .nox, Jan 23, 2009
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