T400 Harddrive replacement

So I plan on replacing my T400 HDD. I have HITACHI Travelstar 7K200 HTS722016K9SA00.

Its 160 gig 7200rpm and i was planning on upgrading to either a 320 gig or 500 gig drive.

Which of these would you recommend or perhaps list other suggestions.

Seagate Momentus 7200.3 ST9320421AS 320GB 7200 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148336

HITACHI Travelstar 7K320 HTS723232L9A360 (0A57547) 320GB 7200 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145228

Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

And then this is the only 500 gig with a decent review, and is only 5400rpm.

Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314


Also, I got a 7200rpm drive with my T400 but would I benefit in any way if i got a slower drive instead? I notice the 5400rpm drives have a ton of reviews so people must be buying those...

 

Theyre all good drives, I'd get the cheapest

 

There is a chance that a 5400 RPM drive will run a little cooler, quieter, and use less electricity than a 7200RPM drive. However, most of the newer 7200RPM drives (especially the Seagate 7200.3) are supposed to be greater good on all these points.

The most important thing in drive performance (in my opinion) is areal density. All 3 of those 320 GB drives (as well as the one in my x200 Tablet) should have 2 160GB platters. The 500GB drive should have 3 167GB platters ( there is a chance this is thicker than average so make sure it will fit). This is the best you are going to do with current technology and all should be comparable in that regard.

I have heard nothing but good things about the Seagate 7200.3, so I would buy that for performance. If you want space, I would get the 500GB drive (it won't be much slower), just make sure it is standard height.

 

The data thata shows that in contest of power consumption there is a wash. There is a lessened amount of time that the power cosumption goes on with a 7400 rpm engine.

Renee

 

well thanks for suggestions. i'm gonna think about this for a bit before ordering anything.

and jonlumpkin, how should i go about identifying whether the 500 gig will fit in my T400?

 

I just got my T400 in the mail today, and im taking it apart as we speak to put a 500gb western digital hard drive in it. Ill let you know how it goes when im done.

Right now though im having a hard time trying to figure out how to make recovery disc, lol

 

The WD Scorpio Blue drives will fit fine. I believe only the Hitachi and Fujitsu drives were 12.5mm (standard is 9.5mm).

 

yeh thanks look forward to reading your next post.

 

Just double click on the recovery partition (most likely 'U') and follow the wizard. It should take 1 CD (boot) and 2 DVDs (or 6+ CDs) for the image.

 

Well this is great, the 500gb hard drive fits great, but now im having serious problems. I made the 1 cd, and the 2 dvd's. I start up with the cd, then it ask me to put in the first dvd (operating system disc 1) and it says its the wrong disc, then exits me out. I cant get past this.

Im about ready to download vista busniess 64 on bittorrent or something and use my product code. Unless someone else can help me.

O also i cant boot into the 160gb HD that came with the laptop. Dont know what happened there.

 

no when you get to the second disc i think it asks you for some extra disc.

youre supposed to say no and then it'll ask you to put the 2nd disc in.

 

If the original drive is still intact (factory install) you can do a direct drive clone. Either use a USB enclosure for a 2.5" SATA drive, or do what I did and put BOTH drives into a desktop and clone them there (this is the fastest way if you have access to a modern desktop computer). I had trouble with the recovery discs as well, and just fell back to this method.

I used SelfImage (freeware) for the actual cloning. This runs from within Windows and is very easy to do. Tee one downside is that it doesn't resize partitions. Therefore you will either need to expand the system partition on the new drive (Vista can do this, as well as utilities like the System Rescue CD), or just create a separate data partition in the remaining space (this is what I did on mine).

 

So when i say no to having operating disc, im supposed to put in the other disc and keep going??

I didnt think that would install the operating system??, I thought it was just going to install the drivers and thinkvantage software.

 

just follow the instructions.

if it asks for additional disc click no. if it asks for Product Recovery Disc 1 put it in the tray and hit okay.

i think after Product Recovery Disc 2 finishes installing it'll ask if you have any other discs to install as well. click no and the process will continue. dont take Product Recovery Disc 2 out at that point though.

 

Hmmm, mine didnt come with hardly anypaper work, just came with a pamplet for assc, 2 screws, and the little red nubs. Ive been searching around, is their a guide somewhere that explains this??

 

no, by instructions i mean on screen instructions.

and my T400 came with those few things as well.

 

Well ive got everything backup and running. I did though however want to play around with the different partitions on the disk. I wanted to delete a few, and add them together, all into my main file storage partition.

Im not in front of my computer right now, but from what i remeber you can not add 2 partitions together through the windows vista disk manager software. Atleast i havent had any luck in the past. Is there some recomended software i could get to do this for me?? Add multipule partitions together into one??

 

Well ive got it all figured out, im going to keep my 160gb 7.2k rpm HD in the main bay for the OS, and programs. And ive got a harddrive bay adapter coming for my 500gb HD for all of my work, and files.

Now i just have to fix this smooshy keyboard.....lol

 

Just realize two HDs are going to put more strain on your battery life and heat up the notebook some more—and as for the keyboard, just search the forum and you’ll find out Lenovo’s offering replacements for free as a mea culpa for poor QA. I have one of these “old is new” keyboards and the smooshy problem is gone.

 

I don't think a second hard drive will be any worse than an optical drive. The second drive is used for data storage and should be spun down most of the time. Further, in operation a 2.5" hard drive runs cooler, quieter, and uses less energy than a DVD±RW.

He is right about the keyboard. There is a sticky on the main page of this forum. If you have a T400 (or T500/w500), and are concerned about flex, you can get one of the firmer T61 keyboards from Lenovo as long as you complain to the right person.