Hard Drive Transplant Question

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mongol05
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Hard Drive Transplant Question

Post by mongol05 »

Yet another question about my pending laptop build :rolleyes:

I have an old IBM Thinkpad. I don't recall the model right now, but in is a 12GB Hard Drive. As I plan building this laptop, I keep wanting to upgrade the parts I'm planning on buying. So, to counter this, I thought I could put this drive in to save a little coin. I figure if I skimp on the hard drive, it's easier for me to justify buying a Gig-o-RAM instead of just 512. :)

Would there be anything stopping me from doing this? I assume it just a regular 2.5" IDE Drive in there, but I don't know this for certain.
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Apoptosis
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Post by Apoptosis »

Nothing is stopping you from doing that as long as it fits.

If it is an older drive then it might not have much cache and be a bit slow on the RPM side.

I used a Toshiba Super Slimline MK8026GAX (HDD2191) 80GB 5400 RPM notebook drive. It features 16mb of cache, which is more than most notebooks and I can tell a difference.

Drive Features:
Price: $113
Average Latency: 5.55ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms
Cache: 16MB
Features: Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) Motor, Low Power Consumption, Improved Noise Reduction Technology
Form Factor: 2.5"
Interface: ATA-6
Manufacturer Warranty: 3 Years
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mongol05
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Post by mongol05 »

Apoptosis wrote:Nothing is stopping you from doing that as long as it fits.

If it is an older drive then it might not have much cache and be a bit slow on the RPM side.

I used a Toshiba Super Slimline MK8026GAX (HDD2191) 80GB 5400 RPM notebook drive. It features 16mb of cache, which is more than most notebooks and I can tell a difference.

Drive Features:
Price: $113
Average Latency: 5.55ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms
Cache: 16MB
Features: Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) Motor, Low Power Consumption, Improved Noise Reduction Technology
Form Factor: 2.5"
Interface: ATA-6
Manufacturer Warranty: 3 Years
Where would I see the difference between using a new drive like the Toshiba and using my older drive? Is it something noticable during gaming or just general usage?
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Apoptosis
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Post by Apoptosis »

you'd see the biggest differences in load times of games/applications and file transfer times from a USB key or a network.
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mongol05
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Post by mongol05 »

I checked it out and from what I can tell it's a regular 2.5" IDE Drive. So, as long as I can figure out how to open it up, I should be able to put it in the new laptop.
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