Suggestions for a 2.5" HDD?

[zxcvbob]

I want to upgrade the HDD in my 3 year old laptop.  No particular reason, other than with a large drive I could have separate system and data partitions and both have plenty of room.  Also I can do a test run of a system restore from backup to make sure I could recover from a total disk failure.

So, WD or Seagate or Hitachi is what I want, right?  The old drive is SATA-150, and most of the new ones are SATA-300.  If I buy a 300, it'll either negotiate down to 150 if necessary, or have a "Force 150" jumper?  Maybe that ICH8M or 82801 will surprise me and support SATA-300.

And is there any reason to get a 7200 rpm drive if the only disk-intensive thing I ever do is a weekly reboot?  Is there any reason not to get a 7200?  (like maybe shorter battery life)

[RocketMan]

There's no reason your system won't recognize and use the entire 300GB drive.  It could go a lot larger than that, actually.

eta:  I'd go for a WD.  I've had much better luck with them over the years.  And Hitachi drives, at least the ones from just a few years ago, are a royal PITA to clone.