[ltp] Upgrading hard drive on T61

John Jason Jordan linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Wed, 5 Aug 2009 10:46:42 -0700


On Wed, 5 Aug 2009 09:58:06 -0700
John Jason Jordan <johnxj@comcast.net> dijo:

> I have T61 that is about two and a half years old:
> 
> Original description: T7300(2GHz), 1GB RAM (upgraded to 4 GB), 160GB
> 5400rpm HD (ATA HITACHI HTS54161), 15.4in 1680x1050 LCD, 128MB nVIDIA
> Quadro NVS 140M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn, Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb
> Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion, WinXP
> Pro (Win was wiped out right after opening the box and replaced with
> Ubuntu x86_64).
> 
> I also have a desktop computer that I built myself. Its CPU is not much
> faster and it has only 2 GB RAM, but it runs much faster than my T61.
> Its video is nVidia 6150 on the motherboard. The primary difference is
> that the hard drive in the desktop is 7200 RPM SATA-2. The hard disk in
> the T61 is 5400 RPM and SATA-1. 
> 
> I could also use a little more room on the T61 hard drive. I am
> thinking about upgrading it to a 7200 RPM drive of 250 GB or so. What I
> am wondering is if the SATA-1 rating on the T61 is due to the
> controller being only SATA-1, or is the controller really a SATA-2
> controller and the limitation is that the disk is only SATA-1. If the
> controller is really a SATA-2 controller I think I would get a
> significant performance improvement with a fast SATA-2 disk.
> 
> Does anyone know what kind of controller Lenovo put in my T61? Or is
> there some way to find out via the command line?

I forgot to add that lspci says the controller is:

SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)

Google has not turned up any information about it.