What's a good replacement C: drive for a T61?

It looks like my C: drive has bitten the dust. Gory details discussed in another thread. The machine came with an Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00 drive, nicknamed Travelstar 5K160. The machine is no longer under warranty (naturally), and so I'm going to do it myself. Given that the Hitachi failed after only 18 months, I don't really want to replace it with an identical drive. I'm not particularly hardware savvy, so I was hoping someone could suggest a good substitute. Will any 2.5" 1.5Gb SATA work? What are the gotchas I should be looking out for?

Thanks,
Richard

 

Machines are not picky about drives like they are about memory. Also I would not let a failed drive turn you away from a brand of drive since that could happen to anyone.

Do you want another 160GB 5400rpm SATA drive?

Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9160821AS 160GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive

On another note could you return the drive to the manufacturer since it should still be under warranty? The seagate drive I linked comes with a 5yr warranty.

 

Yes, I know that one failure can happen anytime. I just might feel really dumb if a second identical one fails.

I wouldn't mind moving to a 7200 RPM drive and more capacity never hurts. I'm just not sure how much margin a laptop has for differences in power drain, timing, and other stuff that I don't even know about. I would think the SATA interface hides most of the differences from the rest of the system, but as I said earlier, I'm not a hardware guy.

 

If you were happy with the performence you had then I would suggest you look at the same RPM drive but in 320GB or 500GB sizes from pretty much any company that makes them. They will be faster then your old drive while using less power.

 

Additionally, if you don't need the extra space (e.g. 160GB is fine for you), you should look at 160GB drives from a 320GB series (e.g. a 160GB Hitachi 5k320, or similar drive from WD/Seagate). This will be a single platter design and thus be lighter and use less power than a two platter design (e.g. a 320GB Hitachi 5k320). In addition, a 5k320 will have superior sequential speed to your 5k160 due to the improved aerial density.

An SSD is another option, but you may not want to go that route due to price and/or capacity. The best deal in SSDs right now is probably the 64GB MLC Samsung SSD from Geeks.com for $133. This is the same SSD Lenovo currently sells (albeit 2.5" vs. 1.8") and is a great option if you can live with the reduced space. You may want to read the SSD effects link in my signature (I transitioned from a Hitachi 5k320 to the SLC version of that SSD).

 

Did you see the 500GB Dell Seagate drive for $90 on SlickDeals?

 

I'd like to vote for a 7200 rpm drive if you are performance conscious and are to get an hdd.
-Renee

 

Thanks so much for the suggestions, everyone. Aside from the usual Web surfing and email, my primary use of the machine is for photography. Photoshop is a performance pig, and while the 5400 RPM drive was OK, I think I would see some benefit from a 7200 model. SSD sounds great, but spendy. I am less concerned about capacity, as I use an external drive for archiving pics and backup. I think I had around 90 GB free on the internal drive when it crashed and after 18 months of use, and I'm sure there's all kinds of useless junk I could get rid of if I had to.

What I get will also depend on what I can find locally...there are probably fewer options available in Spain than in the US or Britain. I should know more about that in a day or two.

 

OK, so the plot thickens: I've spent a couple of days looking around at what's available locally without waiting a month for delivery. The 7200 RPM drives all seem to be SATA 2 interfaces, while my dead Hitachi drive is SATA (1). While SATA 2 is supposed to be backwards compatible, I read in the Wiki that some chip sets can't handle the mismatch.

Does anyone know whether a T61 (model 6460-7EU) would have a problem with a SATA 2 drive?

 

The T61 should be compatible with a SATA-II (3.0 Gbps) 2.5" drive although it will run only at SATA-I speeds (1.5 Gbps).