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What the heck is a 30 gig hd good for?

I 'm guessing you mean why is something this small still stock on the base iBooks? to keep costs down somewhat, I guess. And I know it sounds odd, but some people actually don't have huge music or video collections, and a 30GB HD works fine. My (upgraded) G3 iMac with its 20GB HD was doing fine for me until October, for example. Of course now that I have more room, I do more with it, and so it goes.

People on these boards have Panther installed on old iMacs, Lombards, and Pismos with tiny HDs. Many just throw on an external drive when necessary, but 30GB can actually cover the basics for a lot of low-end users.
 
I mean what can you put in 30 gigs? In actuality isnt it more like 20 to 25 gigs because i thought once a hd starts to reach its limit it slows down the comp.
 
Yeah, OS X does like you to keep a litle extra HD space around. But 2GB or so should be enough, although I don't have a lot of experience with this. My iMac went nuts once when I almost filled its HD, gave it some room and it's been fine since.

there is also the idea that the spinning platter gets accessed slower depending on how far/close you are from its center ... is that what you mean? But that shouldn't be major at all, and applies to all HDs. I don't know anything about this, I've just heard it mentioned here.
 
mcgarry said:
Yeah, OS X does like you to keep a litle extra HD space around. But 2GB or so should be enough, although I don't have a lot of experience with this. My iMac went nuts once when I almost filled its HD, gave it some room and it's been fine since.

there is also the idea that the spinning platter gets accessed slower depending on how far/close you are from its center ... is that what you mean? But that shouldn't be major at all, and applies to all HDs. I don't know anything about this, I've just heard it mentioned here.
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Yea thats what i meant. Im not to familiar with that theory though. I dont have any experience in filling a hd. I have a 120 hd in one of my peecees, and im only using 30 gigs of it. I have a 12 inch ibook with an 80 gig hd, and im only using about 25 gigs in there. Seems like 30 gigs wouldnt even cut it though with music,videos,and todays programs.
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
I have a 120 hd in one of my peecees, and im only using 30 gigs of it. I have a 12 inch ibook with an 80 gig hd, and im only using about 25 gigs in there. Seems like 30 gigs wouldnt even cut it though with music,videos,and todays programs.
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I'v used all but 2 gigs on my 80gb pb hd. Wish they had 100gb drives when I bought mine 🙁
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
Yea thats what i meant. Im not to familiar with that theory though. I dont have any experience in filling a hd. I have a 120 hd in one of my peecees, and im only using 30 gigs of it. I have a 12 inch ibook with an 80 gig hd, and im only using about 25 gigs in there. Seems like 30 gigs wouldnt even cut it though with music,videos,and todays programs.
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Meaning...you don't use music, videos or todays programs? Hmmm... I guess it all depends on what you do. I have a 40 gig HD, that has about 10 gigs free (it formats out to 37.25 GB in the computer GB sense, as opposed to the HD GB sense).

I have a 3800 song collection, pretty much all legal (well, maybe two or three MP3s still in there), I have about 500 5MP photos, but no videos.

As for todays programs, I don't play games on my iBook, but I have a pretty decent complement of software -- MS Office, GIMP, SPSS and <R>, iLife, XCode, and a few other things. I guess the content on my HD is a little bit over what would fit on a 30 GB hd, but not by that much. Especially considering I have a couple of gigs of stuff I don't need on here -- like those stupid games that came pre-installed on my iBook, and CD images of NT4.0 and Office97 that I was playing around with in Bochs 🙄

Anyway, I guess 30 gigs is a little on the small side, but it isn't that far from usable.... If someone gets a computer with such a HD and intends to do video editing....well, that's another story. But OTOH I think they should probably bump up to 40 standard....
 
my friend has 2 250 gig HD's almost filled to capacity....... he likes to keep his DVD's on his computer and sell them.. pff.
 
mkrishnan said:
Meaning...you don't use music, videos or todays programs? Hmmm... I guess it all depends on what you do. I have a 40 gig HD, that has about 10 gigs free (it formats out to 37.25 GB in the computer GB sense, as opposed to the HD GB sense).

I have a 3800 song collection, pretty much all legal (well, maybe two or three MP3s still in there), I have about 500 5MP photos, but no videos.

As for todays programs, I don't play games on my iBook, but I have a pretty decent complement of software -- MS Office, GIMP, SPSS and <R>, iLife, XCode, and a few other things. I guess the content on my HD is a little bit over what would fit on a 30 GB hd, but not by that much. Especially considering I have a couple of gigs of stuff I don't need on here -- like those stupid games that came pre-installed on my iBook, and CD images of NT4.0 and Office97 that I was playing around with in Bochs 🙄

Anyway, I guess 30 gigs is a little on the small side, but it isn't that far from usable.... If someone gets a computer with such a HD and intends to do video editing....well, that's another story. But OTOH I think they should probably bump up to 40 standard....
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Maybe in the next update 😛
 
Flinstones? Captain Cavemann? Uh-oh!!! Too many ancient cartoon references in this thread!!! Must run away!!!! 😀
 
I used to believe that Mac OS X liked to have a good 3+ Gb of space left to run efficiently. But then I saw my friends computer (667 Titanium 30Gb) and she only had 500mb free and it ran like it was new. I never noticed any speed difference.
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
What is a 30 gig hd good for anyway?
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A lot more than my 6 GB hard drive is good for. 🙁

Two weeks until my 80 GB PowerBook is supposed to arrive! (PLEASE no delays!)
 
Well, for first time Mac buyers, without an extencive iTunes collection, who doesn't own a 8MP digital camera and don't dl/rip movies the introductive 30/40 GB HD of the iBook/Mac mini are more than enough.

If yourun out of space or initially know you gonna need it, get BTO 80 GB on either... for even more power and space go with the iMac or ultimately the PowerMac...

There are different price and performance levels... don't complain about the capacity on the low end consumer lines, they're never gonna be as high as the Pro lines...
 
killuminati said:
I'v used all but 2 gigs on my 80gb pb hd. Wish they had 100gb drives when I bought mine 🙁
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Yeah i'm almost filled to... I'm thinking of upgrading the HD to the 100 gig thorugh apple when tiger comes out and have the 80 as an external via a HD enclusure...
 
wwooden said:
I used to believe that Mac OS X liked to have a good 3+ Gb of space left to run efficiently. But then I saw my friends computer (667 Titanium 30Gb) and she only had 500mb free and it ran like it was new. I never noticed any speed difference.
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If it's a TiBook, is it running Panther? And if not, is the file system journaled? I think this issue becomes most critical with a journaled file system, which if you have Panther, you have.
 
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