Recommend me a new HDD and memory for my T61p

My T61p has been running flawlessly after 3+ years of using it everyday. This laptop has treated me great these past years. This is a great site and I used the windows XP clean install guide that is posted on this site many times. Worked great.

Now that my laptop is getting old I want to upgrade my hard drive.

I am looking at a 500 gig Hard drive. Any recommendations? I was thinking about this one. Momentus Laptop Hard Drives | Seagate

Where is a good place to buy memory from? I am not even sure what kind of memory my T61p takes? I have 2 gigs now and want a total of 4 gigs.

Any help on where and which items to buy is appreciated. I have not bought a hdd or memory is 5 plus years.. Been a while..

 

The seagate 500GB 7200rpm is definitely a nice choice, pretty reliable, fast and quiet.

For the RAM, you first have to check whether you currently have 2x1GB or 1x2GB installed (the T61p only has 2 banks). Then get the new memory accordingly (for example from newegg).

Don't forget that you need a 64bit operating system to use more than ~3GB of RAM.

 

T61p can accept up to 8 gigs of ram.

 

Thanks for the reply everyone.

I am looking at newegg for a 500GB drive.

Which of these drives is compatible with me t61p? Not sure if I should get a 16mb or 32mb cache? Which one of these will be best?
Newegg.com - 500GB,7200 RPM,seagate momentus

Also I did not know If i put in 4 gb of memory that I need to run a 64 OS.

Is this true, can anyone else confirm this? If this is the case I will just get 3gb total ram.

 

You don't NEED to run a 64-bit OS, but it would certainly take full advantage of 4GB. 32-bit OSes usually only address up to 3.00 or 3.50 gigabytes of RAM.

 

if you want to utilise more than 3 gigs of ram, then you should get 64 bit OS. Otherwise 3 gigs should be suffice.

As long as the sata hdd is 2.5 inch form factor with 9.5 mm thickness, then it will work in your machine.

 

Thanks guys, makes sense.

Can I get a solid state drive? Or a standard one would be fine?

Newegg.com - 500GB,7200 RPM,seagate momentus

Can anyone recommend me a hdd from this list?

 

Eh... Personally, I'd go with WD. Seagates are clickier in my experience.

SSDs are expensive and low in capacity. Not to mention the whole thing about limited write cycles in the long-term.

You can DIY a software hybrid drive with better than Momentus XT functionality too.

 

Which WD do you recommend that is 500gb?

 

The Scorpio Blues go up to 750GB but are 5400RPM. The Scorpio Blacks also go up to 750GB but are 7200RPM and are a bit faster than other platter drives in the same range.

I have a Scorpio Black 500GB in my T400 right now, and it works great.

 

Is this the one you have? Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BEKT 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

How do I find out if they are 9.5mm thick? Doesnt list the dimensions.

 

As a system drive it's best to go for the faster one. I would vote for WD Scorpio Black, the Scorpio Blue is a tad slow as a system drive under my experience.

WD5000BEKT is a 9.5mm drive according to the spec sheet.

 

WD5000BEKT is the one. There's one with the accelerometer, but that's redundant and may potentially conflict with the built-in APS.

 

Looks like I will be getting the WD5000BEKT. You guys have been helpful, thank you.