Categories
Hardware

Best laptop HD ever

It’s seems amazing. The Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 is an amazing hard drive. It’s blazing fast, and 7200 RPM (that’s the same as most desktops). Unlike the 4200 drives that ship in most laptops.

It’s given me a giant improvement on my system. I really feel the difference. On boot, my computer used to hang for 20 seconds, while the drive would spin like it was about to fly to the moon. Now it doesn’t do that at all. It’s speeds along. Very, very fast. And runs surprisingly cool. Oh, and it’s quiet. It’s a great drive.

I took my old 40GB IBM Travelstar (IBM’s storage unit joined with Hitachi’s, hence the name for the new drive is also Travelstar), and got an IBM Ultrabay Adapter for it. I keep my floppy drive out now, and put a 2nd HD in there. I haven’t used a floppy drive in ages, so it’s no loss. And if I need it, I can take that drive, or the CD-ROM out. So I don’t really loose any functionality.

I’ll be putting Linux on that other drive soon. A few other things need to get done first. That’s not priority #1.

Great product. Good for the geek you need to get a Christmas present for ;-).

Categories
Hardware

Still Waiting

Still waiting for a new drive. Should arrive tomorrow, should be home to install it Wednesday Evening. Won’t have the IBM Adapter so I can get my data over for another few days though (perhaps Friday). So we shall see.

Let the silence begin again… warning, it may be harmful to your hearing.

Categories
Software

I’ll be doing Linux soon.. help me

In the ongoing laptop saga…

Windows XP is trashed. No networking at all. So I need to backup. My best solution has been to move up the plans I had for a summer upgrade to a Thanksgiving upgrade (who says only your tummy gets full on the holiday?)

Here’s the plan:
Get a much faster HD. Specs include 7200 RPM Drive, and 60 GB. Fastest 2.5″ drive on the market. By far.

Put current drive in UltraBay, with 2nd Hard Drive Adapter for Thinkpad, Take new Drive, and put in HD bay.

Copy my data over, with a fresh install of XP.

Use Rapid Restore as backup software (included with Thinkpad).

Format old 40 GB Drive, and install Linux.

Now my question for all is:

What distro?

Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, Debinan, SuSe, SlackWare

I’m looking to use it as an alternative desktop. I’m an OS X Lover, so you want to impress me 😆 Want it all, the absolute best. Some UNIX experience, and want more. So tell me what you like/don’t like. Your opinions are more than welcome, feel free to email, or use comments. Make your case.

I’ll tell what I choose, why, and the status as I go. Should be fun.