HDDs compatible with Active Protection System

Hi.

I've recently bought a ThinkPad T420 laptop. It was in pristine condition and so cheap that I just had to buy it.

The thing is that it has an HDD of just 160 GB. As I had a 320 GB drive around, I thought it was just a matter of sticking it in the T420, but when I extracted the HDD from the ThinkPad, I saw that it is Lenovo branded and even has a Lenovo FPU.

It is what seems to be just a regular Western Digital drive but with some Lenovo printings in the top sticker.

The presence of such Lenovo branding make me wonder whether non-Lenovo HDDs be compatible with the built in APS system which parks the HDD head when a sudden motion is detected.

I've googled a lot about this and found lots of differents opinions, from people saying that every HDD will work with APS to people saying that the drives must have a custom Lenovo firmware.

So, do I have to purchase a (probably expensive) Lenovo HDD or will any HDD on the market work with APS?

 

No, you don't. Pretty much any reasonably recent HDD will work just fine.

Given that the machine in question is a T420, I'd install a mSATA SSD in the WWAN slot as a boot drive and use the conventional HDD in the main bay for storage, but that's me.

Happy upgrading.

 

Hi, ajkula. Thanks for the answer.

When you say that any modern drive will do fine, do you say it because they have their own anti-shock system or because they will just work with the APS system in the ThinkPad?

I'm eyeing this Western Digital Black 750 GB WD7500BPKX. I assume it will work OK with my T420, but should I disable my TP's APS and just let the HDD handle the motion thing itself or will it work OK with the APS?

 

The latter.

There's no reason to disable APS with any spinning drive.