Hard drive selection for my t420

I purchased a T420 about 6 months ago. I purchased it with the stock 250gb 5400 rpm hard drive expecting to upgrading to an SSD when prices got cheaper...this has not happened. Id like to upgrade to a bigger hard drive but wanted to get everyones input. Im choosing between the hard drives below. My research has concluded that a bigger hard drive with slower rpm's might be just has fast as a smaller hard drive with higher rpms. Let me know what you guys think

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400 rpm
Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB 7200 rpm

 

Actually SSD's are pretty reasonable now compared to HDD. Due to a worldwide shortage in HDD prices for them had rocketed as a result while SSD prices in comparison remained relatively stable. Personally I still would get a low capacity SSD for the OS and pair it up with a decently sized 5400 RPM HDD. You get the best of both worlds in speed and storage capacity.

A minimal cost setup would be:
Kingston mSATA SSD 64GB + Pair up your HDD.

Performance budget setup:
Samsung 830 64GB SSD + T420 Ultrabay Caddy + Pair up your HDD.

 

Is 64GB enough for windows and all the updates?

 

For Windows 7 OS and all the updates, yes you will still have quite a bit left over. I have a 60GB SSD in my desktop along with a couple of apps (such as Office, Browsers, Antivirus etc.) and I still manage to have just over 20GB space to play with so it should be no problem with 64GB.

For the more bulkier files (this most likely to be your Documents, Music, Videos, Steam games etc.) I just put them in the capacity hard disk drive. Below is a snapshot of a setup i'm using at my office desktop with another 60GB SSD at the moment (along with a 1TB hard disk drive split into 2 partitions):

 

I ran Windows on an OCZ Vertex 1 30 GB just fine. After Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, drivers I had 16 GB free. After normal applications, I had like 15 GB. Games were on my 2nd mechanical HDD.

 

As always thank you guys for your help. The issue I have is with a 64 gb ssd and my 250 gb hd...it wont be enough memory for me. I need to up grade to at least 500 gb. Any recommendations on the drives below?

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400 rpm
Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB 7200 rpm

 

While out of the list I choose the Scorpio Black, if it's the one drive you're looking for how about considering the hybrid drives such as the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB instead?

 

mSATA drives go up to 128GB if 64GB. My own install is about 16-17GB. 64GB should be plenty for most users, though your specific needs may differ. If I were in the market today, I'd get the Kingston liked, but when I bought, Intel was the only option.