Computer question, Laptop Hard-Drives

[Plecostomus]

My refurbished IBM X41 has a Hitachi Travelstar C4K60 HTC426060G9AT00 60gig 4200RPM ATA-6 hard drive. After running several SMART scans I am concerned about the life of this drive, it seems to be quite old and some of its scores are in the WATCH or CONCERN areas.

I'm behind the times on hard-drive technology. For example I notice we now have PATA and SATA. Which is what and what do I have? What about RPMs? What's the deal with that? Finally it has to be 1.8" to 2.0" in form-factor to fit in the X41 case.

Can ya'll bring me up to speed here so I can select a replacement?

 

[ATimson]

I'm behind the times on hard-drive technology. For example I notice we now have PATA and SATA. Which is what and what do I have?

PATA is what you currently have; it's the latest evolution of the standard that's been called IDE, EIDE, and ATA over the years. SATA is a faster replacement, but you'd need a new laptop to be able to use it.

What about RPMs? What's the deal with that?

The faster the disc spins, the more Revolutions Per Minute it makes, and the faster data can be read from the disc. But spinning the disc faster is louder and uses more power.

Finally it has to be 1.8" to 2.0" in form-factor to fit in the X41 case.

You probably mean the 2.5" form factor; the 1.8" form factor is generally only used by devices like iPods.

 

[TEH BABA]

So you plan on having hentai on that laptop?

 

[farmkid]

You probably mean the 2.5" form factor; the 1.8" form factor is generally only used by devices like iPods.

I thought so too, when I first read it, but a quick google search showed that the X41 is a 12.1" laptop and it indeed uses a 1.8" hard drive. A quick search on Newegg came up empty, but eBay has several drives of that form factor. Of course, most of those will be used, so you may not be any further ahead with any of those. I'm sure you can find a new drive to replace the old one, but it probably won't be easy to find or inexpensive. Also, it may not be very easy to access the hard drive to replace it. I would recommend figuring out how to replace the drive before you buy anything.

 

[Rii]

I'm behind the times on hard-drive technology. For example I notice we now have PATA and SATA. Which is what and what do I have?

PATA is what you currently have; it's the latest evolution of the standard that's been called IDE, EIDE, and ATA over the years. SATA is a faster replacement, but you'd need a new laptop to be able to use it.

For most consumer-level applications SATA offers no real performance benefits over PATA, the HDD itself is the limiting factor. SATA drives do tend to be faster than PATA drives, but that's the result of other concurrent improvements in their design. It's the superior interface, but performance doesn't exactly top the list of reasons why that's so. The real advantages are in the cable/connector design which is cheaper to manufacture, less prone to damage, and allows for better airflow around various components. Also SATA is less vulnerable to signal degradation which allows for longer cable lengths without compromising data integrity. With SSDs (and 15k RPM HDDs, but they're all SCSI anyway) the performance benefits of SATA over PATA become meaningful, but for the moment at least they're a minor player.