If one wants to upgrade the hard drive which one to pick?

If I wanted to swap the current hard drive with a new one, how do I know which ones to purchase? Are there different types that fit into our thinkpads? (Mine is a T60). Or are all internal notebook hard drives the same as far as fit and compatibility? I am not sure what is the difference between SATA, ATA, etc.

Are there particular ones that any of you bought and liked?

Thanks in advance,
S

 

T61 is SATA. I think the T60 is too.

 

So you want bigger or faster or both?

If you want faster get a 7500RPM drive. If you want bigger get one with more GBs than you current.

Otherwise you'll need a 2.5" laptop SATA drive.

Hitachi, Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital... there all good. You'll find just as many people that willswear by any of those.

 

They make 7500RPM hard drives?

 

7200RPM, actually. The Seagate Momentus 160GB 7200RPM is probably the best notebook drive available right now.

 

Just wait a bit longer and get a hybrid 7200rpm HDD w/ built in flash memory for ReadyBoost support under Vista. Your ThinkPad will boot faster, be more energy efficient, and produce less noise. That way you can have a similar technology as the T61 Intel Turbo Memory on your T60. Seagate's hybrid HDDs were already released but they sold out the 1st production for OEM use. Hybrid HDDs should be available directly to consumers within a month or two.

 

FTLOG - my brain keeps typing 7500... I mean 7200

 

If you can afford it, that's a good way to go. The current generation momentus drives are very fast already though, and most probably will be hundereds of dollars cheaper than high-end hybrid drives.

 

Thanks for the replies. Looks like they're all compatible then as long as they are 2.5, and SATA. Personally I would want faster, so definitely 7200RPM.

 

You may get a warning from the system with some 3rd party drives about them being incompatible...not because of physical or electrical problems, but because of the security and Active Hard Drive Protection features on Thinkpad drives. So if you do want to try a 3rd party drive, make sure you have a good return policy on it. Otherwise, get the Lenovo 7200RPM 100GB drive appropriate to your model. Tech sheets can be found at ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitute/psref. Look at the psrefxxx.pdf (where xxx is a version number) for the latest sheets on currently sold items. There are other sheets for withdrawn items as well.

 

would all the different hardrive brands be compatible with active protection system? i would stick to hitachi drives for lenovos.