granodemostasa Posted January 10, 2008 Report Posted January 10, 2008 Hello I have a 2.5 year old thinkpad T42 that needs to upgrade it's speed. I don't like the new vista.. or the newer T60/61 models so I just want to upgrade what I got (i just spent like a month with a t61p that was so tank-like i called it the "petreaus computer"... and the windows kept crashing like once ever 3 days!) 1. my memory is already 2gb, which is as much as this computer is willing to go. 2. it's a very clean computer... so i don't think i have anything slowing it down.. but eliminating useless programs is always a plus. 3. i want to focus on the hard drive: Should i get a solid state hard drive or should i get http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3296045&CatId=1277 which is a pretty fast conventional drive. (i got like 3 external hard drives where i keep my junk...so i dont need more than 30gb really) 4. How can i copy my old hard drive perfectly so that everything will be exactly how it was before... and not have to go through the process of re-doing everything again? 5. I've heard of some SS drives for the PC card slot that can boot windows-making start up faster, are any of these for sale yet?
dc Posted January 10, 2008 Report Posted January 10, 2008 3. solid state is quicker and less prone to shock. they have record boot times 4. you'll need to make a ghost image and ghost it on to the new one
tkam Posted January 10, 2008 Report Posted January 10, 2008 The current SSD drives have fairly good transfer rates but where they really whip tradtional HD's is in I/O they can do many many more simultaneous disk read/writes than a traditional HD could ever hope to do. That said theey still cost an absolute fortune for the available sizes. Getting a nice solid 7200rpm traditional drive should be a nice improvement for you. I have the 200gig version of that Hitachi drive in my laptop and I highly recommend it.
granodemostasa Posted January 11, 2008 Author Report Posted January 11, 2008 I wanted an SSD, and I previously saw the price at 350.... but then i realized that THAT price was for the sellers.. for me i'll be over 1K just for the drive.... so i'm putting that idea aside for now... I think i might try one of the faster 10K-15K hard disk drives? Reasons why I don't want linux: 1. I have quite a bit of information (like my itunes library, pictures, research projects) well organized on my computer and i'll take me a millennium to reorganize it. 2. I'm highly dependent on Windows Office and Note-One for my work and need everything as it is. so if you guys can get around these things... i'll take a look at linux.
Dusty Chalk Posted January 11, 2008 Report Posted January 11, 2008 Open-office.org will get you around the Office files problem. There's dozens of ways to get your files out of iTunes. Pictures are a snap. What format are your research projects? Oh, wait, it doesn't matter (see sentence #1). What is Note-One? If you take out your hard drive and put it in an external case for $14.99 or whatever, you could probably experiment as it is. That said, linux is not for everyone. But if you're technically savvy at all, it's worth trying. You can create one of those non-destructive bootable DVD's and try it. And just think -- the bootable version runs from memory, a true install will be faster.
Iron_Dreamer Posted January 11, 2008 Report Posted January 11, 2008 I'm guessing your T42 isn't dual core (at least they weren't back when I was considering one). Dual core is definitely the single most effective way to increase the perceived speed of a computer these days, as it is nearly impossible to overload on doing normal tasks. Unfortunately, I don't think it would be very easy to change this without changing your laptop. Laptop HDD's are pretty slow, but a 7200 RPM drive is definitely a noticeable upgrade over a 4200. SSD's will definitely have to wait a few years until I get one, but damn if some of the benchmarks aren't tempting, eh?
granodemostasa Posted January 11, 2008 Author Report Posted January 11, 2008 One note is a microsoft program made for taking notes...it's good because it's a very good base from which i could send stuff to all the office programs. i practically use it for everything. the deal with itunes is that all my stuff is in apple lossless, and while I know i could take stuff out of itunes... i do have an ipod and like it's integration with just about everything else in the known universe (of college students). and what about my M-audio audiophile usb... my rig runs off of that thing!... i guess linux worth looking into... the T42 is a centrino 1.7ghz. i have an three external 2.5'' hard drives, one for music, another for back up, and one for storage and back up of the music drive why should i experiment with taking the drive out? as i said before, i'm still very suspicious of the newer laptops. the T61p was 85 seconds on start up, while my T42 is 57 seconds... and vista is a disaster.
granodemostasa Posted January 11, 2008 Author Report Posted January 11, 2008 http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=ST936451SS-DT&cm_mmc=googleproducts-_-HardDrives-_-SerialAttachedSCSI(SAS)HDs-_-ST936451SS-DT&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=ST936451SS-DT what you think?
grawk Posted January 11, 2008 Report Posted January 11, 2008 T42 has had several processor options over the last few years.
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