i need a 7200rpm HD for my 667 TiBook.

[cb911]

i really need a new HD. at the moment i've just got the standard 30GB 4200rpm and it is really sllooooww. i've had a look at Mac Mall and all i could find were some 5600rpm drives. i'm looking for a 7200rpm HD, 30GB or larger,definitely not smaller than 30. does anyone one know where i could find one? i also only have 256 MB RAM, and i haven't shut-down for 3 days. could this have anything to do with the slowness? do Macs have to reboot like PCs to refresh the RAM and temporary files on the HD?

i'm getting a faster HD and more RAM anyway, so whats the cheapest place to get them? i'm thinking that buying on-line from a U.S. site will be heaps cheaper than any store here in Aus.

[Onyxx]

7200 rpm's?
A) what makes your "standard 4200 30 gig" slow? I have a 20 gig 4200 in my pismo and i do video editing on it in final cut pro. doesn't feel slow to me.

B) Why would you need more speed? Do you do any sort of intensive graphic applications (photoshop writes scratch to disk), audio applications (itunes doesnt count fella), or video? If you said no to any of the above, you don't need a new hard drive.

C)And finally, did you know that there is no such thing as a 7200 rpm 2.5 HD!?!

[AlphaTech]

Onyxx is correct that there are NO 2.5" hard drives above 5400 rpm.

It is a good idea to shut down your computer when you are done for the day, or at least if you are not going to be using the computer for more then an hour. I shutdown my 800 TiBook when I am done for the night.

Which OS are you running??? You should shutdown for the evening either way. For one thing, it will give your TiBook time to cool down, and will extend it's lifespan.

As for memory, go for an extra 512MB... OS X loves more memory.

[cb911]

i sort of worked that out after i started looking around on the web. oh well, i'll shut down now and see what happens.

another thing, i'm also thinking of getting a 7200rpm firewire external HD.

yep, time to shutdown now....

[alex_ant]

OS X is Unix-based, and so rebooting is not what "restores" performance - it's the killing of buggy and/or memory-leaking processes that will have the effect, which can be done by logging out and back in. Rebooting is completely unnecessary. Whether a computer is on or off should have no effect on its longevity (at least not the longevity of its circuitry). The LCD screen gets dimmer the longer the backlight is on, though, and the hard drive life is reduced the more frequently it is forced to spin up.

7200rpm 2.5" drives are not available, but what about Firewire drives?

Alex

[iGav]

Can't say I've noticed the speed of my TiBooks HD, seems fine to me...... and handles DV capture and cutting with no problems...... and my external 80Gb Maxtor Firewire drive is pretty swift as well.... but I've never had real concern about the speeds of my drives......

If your machine is running OS 9, then so I believe that you do need to restart the machine to sort out memory problems occasionally, but like what Alpha says, I like to shut my machine down at the end of every night....... so I never really get any problems from continuous use.......

[cb911]

well i'm using OS X and i just started up and everything is running zippily again. i will probably end up getting a external firewire drive.

so alex_ant, if i just make sure i logout at the end of every day, and then put it in sleep overnight, and then login in the morning, this should solve all the memory problems, right? i'll give it a try next week.

[Grokgod]

First, i would say that I am happy to have upgraded my HD tothe 60 gig 5400. Cripes, is it really 60 gigs?

Thats a BIG laptop HD!

I think that the additional 1000 rpm will make a difference.

Also, I think that you should get more RAM now!
Not later, if you using 256, that way too little ofr graphics work.
Hell, 512 aint nothing, I got the 512 and plan to up to 1gig via Crucial!
<Anyone know if thats a good place for mac ram> considering the 1 gig Ti problem>

OSX needs mucho ram for window redraw and storage, if you leave your Ti on all day, i think that it stores up window graphics for redraw, there is a method of turning this off in the unix tele something, but i havent gotten into this thing yet.

Look at it this way. When you load OSX on boot thats your 256 in RAM right there all used up. Then your load the SHOP, well whoa baby, your gonna slow down. You need plenty of ram to give SHOP the space to create the RAM intensive operations that it does.

SOlution~ Get a 512 stick, if they made a 1 gig get that!
Can never have enough ram, NEVER.

[Onyxx]

Hate to break it to all of you "5400 rpms must be better because it has 1000 more rpms" guys, but in recent tests the 5400's did worse than the 4200's. And they consumed much more power too; not something you want in a laptop. You might want to do some actual research before buying a new drive. And there is a bit of a bug with 1 gig of ram in the ti/pismo. The max you sould put in is 768, after that is detrimental to system performance.

CB911, why don't you just shut it down over night? You also still haven't answered my quesiton as to what you need this faster hard drive for.

[AlphaTech]

Onyxx, I have been considering putting my 60GB (5400 rpm, TravelStar) into my new TiBook, but have yet to. I stay plugged into the power adapter most of the time, so battery time is not a huge issue with me. I would like to see some reviews, or whatever you based your statement on the 5400 rpm drives on. It would be interesting reading.

As for the memory issue... I have 768MB right now, since I had the 512MB (PC133) that I pulled from my old TiBook before selling it. My new one came with a pair of 256MB chips, so I pulled one. I don't think I will be trying to get another 512MB chip anytime soon, since it would be a hassel, and I would have to figure out what to do with the pair of 256MB chips. I might be able to trade them in, but don't know if it would be worth the effort.

I will probably be placing my 60GB drive into a firewire enclosure and use it that way. At least that is the current plan. I keep flipping between putting it internal and external.

Oh yeah, and I always power off my TiBook when I am leaving the apartment, or am done for the evening/day. Just a matter of habbit of shutting down systems when I am done (desktop and laptop alike).

[Onyxx]

damn, leave it to me to mention something without being able to remember the url of the info to prove it. I thought i read about the 5400 being slower than the 4200 on barefeats.com but evidently I was wrong. I'll keep looking but as far as i can remeber about the tests, the 5400 was better at reading but it was outpaced by the 4200 in both random and continous writes. So if you need the drive for disk intensive apps, you are better off with the 4200 but if you only need it for storage of say, your mp3 collection, then the 5400 should be more than adequate.

AlphaTech: depending on the transfer rate of the new tibook's (hopefully revised) firewire, I would go with an external 7200 rpm firewire drive.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Onyxx


AlphaTech: depending on the transfer rate of the new tibook's (hopefully revised) firewire, I would go with an external 7200 rpm firewire drive.

I have the drive already (2.5" 5400rpm IBM TravelStar) that I don't know if I want to put inside my new TiBook or not. I might just get the enclosure for it, so that I can use it with my new TiBook.

I already a 30GB thin drive from VST, a 40GB 3.5" drive that I put into a firewire enclosure. If I add the 60GB outside the TiBook, that would give me 130GB outside and 40GB inside (that should be enough for a while at least).

[mac15]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
I already a 30GB thin drive from VST, a 40GB 3.5" drive that I put into a firewire enclosure. If I add the 60GB outside the TiBook, that would give me 130GB outside and 40GB inside (that should be enough for a while at least).

for a while hey
that would take me a year to fill...what type of files do you have.....130gig woah

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by mac15


for a while hey
that would take me a year to fill...what type of files do you have.....130gig woah

Combined of 170GB :D... I have pretty much filled up the 30GB drive with backups from when I was swapping drives in my rev. a TiBook. The 40GB has backed up files from my G4 tower (from when I sold it) and I was using the 60GB TravelStar inside my rev. a TiBook. That one has about 15GB on it, and the drive inside my new TiBook has about 30GB free. Granted, I have yet to install much software, so that will drop pretty fast once I do.

[mac15]

I suppose it easy when you get a few games and big apps like 400mb each it goes kinda quick

[AlphaTech]

Yep... especially when you install Illustrator 10, Bryce 5 and more along those lines. I will probably even slide Cinema 4D back onto it and update it to run under OS X. I also have many games for the Mac, most for OS 9, but some run under OS X, like Oni.

[Grokgod]

I am really angry about what you said about the 5400 drives, I spend more money for the extra speed. I fail to see how a faster drive is infact slower.
then all the 7200 drives are slower still by your logic.
I hope that you are very wrong or that there are other circumstances
contributing to result.

I really hope that your are wrong.

I am really hoping that Aplha tech comes to rescue on this one!
I hope that your not irresponsible making such statements, because that would very lame.

Lets see that proof!

[AlphaTech]

Grokgod, I think I will put my 60GB drive into my TiBook tomorrow. I will most likely need to reinstall the operating systems (both 9 and X) since when I tried a simple transplant when I first got this TiBook I got the infernal panic.

I will let you know if I see any performance difference once I have done the swap.

[Grokgod]

I knew you would come through!

Does it make any sense to you that the 5400 would actually be slower.
It doesnt to me, but i have seen weirder things happen!

Still imagine buying a desktop with a 5400 drive, you would say "what the hell are you crazy, I need more speed, all the Pcheese's have 7200.

Now I am being told that 4200 is better, there is something up here, i smell dead fish!

Isnt there anyone out there that knows the truth!

[AlphaTech]

Grokgod, I believe when I was going for the new drive (the 60 gigger) I checked the spec's and it came out faster then the 4200 drives in most, if not all, listings.

If I remember, the 60GB drive is a little louder in some items, but I could live with that, if it means a performance boost.

Guess this means yet another backup of files so that I don't lose anything important.

[Grokgod]

Oh crap , i hate extra noise , in what context was the noise louder.?

Why was it only faster in some areas , is it a cheaper drive or something
like that?

I am scourng the net for iformation right now,
I could still stop my Ti build!

[AlphaTech]

It wasn't all that much louder. It was some noise from the drive, but I don't recall much about it. It was only an occasional noise, not a constant.

I'm sure the drive spec's are available from IBM and you can compare them with ones from Toshiba. I will look and see if I can find them and then post them here.

For IBM 60GB: http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/travel/tr60gh.htm

Turns out that the new TiBooks are using IBM drives as well... the 40GB model is shown at this link: http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/travel/tr40gn.htm

[Grokgod]

Is the 60 gig a IBM and the 40 a toshiba>?

I am going to check the apple support site for any information on this.

Thanks for the help AlphaTech, your one reliable fellow.

so when you say noise, it wasnt a high pitched whine because the drive was a little faster I hate that sound!

Was it just some extra clicking, Ibm's do that, i think.

[AlphaTech]

The sound was clicking... like sometimes when it was being accessed. More of the sound of the heads moving or such... see my above edits for the drives inside the NEW TiBooks.

[Grokgod]

They both have the same access time, thats weird!

The Pdfs are the same, the drive is a fourth generation so they may have all the bugs out for speed on the 60 giger.

They state that the 5400 is 25 percent faster.
Larger cache and faster micro processor!

I dont think that Apple would go out of thier way to change components for BTO's that have the 5400 drive so that it would go slower.

If Ibm has its spec as faster with a better Cache and faster processor on it.
We all know what large cache and faster processors do!

They SPEED data up, NOT slow it down. ~Onyx!

I want to see where you managed to read your data incorrectly.

The imacs have fast drives in them <7200, i think. Of course Onyx will say that the 4200 are faster. But i wll disagree again!> and their noise doesnt bother me, so i should be ok, <crossing fingers>

[AlphaTech]

Judging by the specifications listed from IBM, the 60GB (5400 rpm) drive has a faster Latency (average ms) then the 4200 rpm drive. The 5400 drive shows 5.5ms where the 4200 drive shows 7.1ms. Max. media transfer rate (Mb/sec) is faster, showing 262 on the 5400 and 245 on the 4200 drive. The recommended power-on hours for both drives are listed at 333, which comes out to about 11-12 hours per day. I am not certain if that is constant on, or cumulative on hours.

The acoustics of the drives are very close in both idle and operational ratings.

Hope that helps.

[Grokgod]

Do you think that,that adds up to the 25 percent speed increase IBM talks about.

Didyou get those noise numbers off the pdf. how close were they?

I am trying to figure out if the extra speed if there is any is worth the extra noise and loss in battery time!

[AlphaTech]

I did pull the numbers from the pdf file. Both the drive inside my TiBook and the 60GB outside are the ATCS05 models, not the other ones. I don't know if the difference adds up to 25%. I do know that the IBM drive WAS significantly faster then the 20GB Toshiba that was in my old TiBook.

I still don't know if I want to go through the effort of putting the 60GB drive inside my TiBook at this time. I am inclined to wait to get an enclosure first. Considering that the spec's are not all that far apart.

I'd say, if you want more storage space, get the 60GB drive. You get the bonus of the faster spec's with that drive. It would also help with drive intense functions, where the faster drive will give you more benefits/speed. Since there are not any 60GB drives offered in 4200 rpm, it would be almost impossible to get solid number differences.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Grokgod
Do you think that,that adds up to the 25 percent speed increase IBM talks about.

Didyou get those noise numbers off the pdf. how close were they?

I am trying to figure out if the extra speed if there is any is worth the extra noise and loss in battery time!

It doesn't look like the battery time will be impacted all that much. I would say (judging by the spec's) the difference would be in minutes.

[Grokgod]

I will have to sleep on it, and call apple tomorrow to get some additional information!

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Grokgod
I will have to sleep on it, and call apple tomorrow to get some additional information!

Good idea.... post what you find out.

[cb911]

Onyxx, heres the answer to your question.
i originally thought i needed the faster HD because everything was running really slow. but then i shut down last night. when i started up this morning everything was running normally. but i hate shutting down, because it takes so long to startup again. this week i'm going to try putting it in sleep whenever i'm not using it, and i'm going to make sure that i log out at the end of every day. this should solve my problems.

i'm also going to get another 512MB of RAM sooner or later. i'm waiting for the prices to come down a bit.

are there problems with the 1GB of RAM? that was one of the main things i was looking forward to with my TiBook. whoever says that has to be wrong! i will get 1GB of RAM to work!!

[AmbitiousLemon]

wow, i kept expecting alpha to lay down the facts for everyone but he never did. lets see if i can help.

cb911 - the slow down you are experiencing is due to RAM. when osx uses up all the available ram it starts using virtual memory (hard drive space). This will cause osx to come toa screeching halt. 512MB would be the minimum i would suggest for running osx, as you will still start using virtual memory after a few days. OSX eats ram up in no time. i think (although i am not certain) that this is because osx caches lots of information to RAM. you will notice the first time you open a window it will be slow, but the second time is instant. same with app launches. the first launch is slow the rest are very fast. The problem that i see is that after running for a few days you run out of RAM. Logging out WILL NOT fix this. Only a restart will. on restart you will notice os uses about 128MB RAM. once you launch a few apps (mozilla, adium, mail, itunes) you will liley be up to 256. After a few days of running those apps and nothing else you will notice you now use roughly twice the ram 512mb. this is why you want tons of ram, so your apps can be free to use it rather than Virtual memory. virtual memory (especially on a laptop) is very slow because it is accessing your hard drive.

2.5" laptop hard drives come in two speeds 4200rpm and 5400rpm. IBM was the first to make a 5400rpm hard drive but now toshiba also offers 5400rpm hard drives. ibm 5400rpm hard drives are available in 32gb, 48gb, and 60gb. i do not know toshiba's specs. ibm is also now offering smaller 5400rpm hard drives (read some articles about it) i do not know of these have hit retail yet though but they were from 10-30gb.

5400rpm hard drives WILL boost performance. big time. i would not even use a laptop witha 4200rpm drive after using a 5400rpm drive. the speed difference (especially in osx) is VERY noticable. i read a number of reviews about the 32gb drive (the first 5400rpm drive to hit market) when it first came out. the benchmarks were VERY impressive. I have a 32gb ibm 5400rpm drive in my lombard and i can tell you 100% that that computer is so slow that osx would not be usable if i didnt have that nice fast drive in it (that and i upped the speed of the system cache). i think onyxx is probably confused about the benchmarks. all the reviews i read back in 1999 showed a considerable speed boost, and i also noticed this my self as soon as i installed it. the 48gb and 60gb drives employ new technology (i think this is why you cant buy the 32gb anymore) that makes them slightly faster and quieter. The drives are virtually silient (compared to desktop drives, or toshiba drives) but every once in awhile (as alpha mentioned) there is a fairly loud and distinct clicking sound. i have been told that it is quieter in the 60gb models but i have yet to hear the sound in a side by side comparison (its a fairly rare to hear).

since these drives are very expensive compared to the 4200rpm drives i usually suggest to peopel looking to buy a laptop that they buy the smallest 4200rpm drive they can (usually 20gb in apples) and if they feel it is slow or when they are ready to expand then consider a 5400rpm drive (this is when money is a big issue, otherwise just grab that 60gb drive now!). you can still find people selling 32gb drives and teh price is low, but i would avoid them as they are likely to be refubs which generally have dimished lives and run louder. also avoid drives that have been taken out of another computer. many of the ibm travel stars that have low low prices on the web have been pulled out of dells. for some reason they have more problems. ask for the serial number and you can tell if it is a dell or ibm. the ones pulled out of the dell will not have an ibm serial number but a dell serial number that corresponds to the computer it was taken from.

[sidenote, its 3am i woke up for a minight snack so i might be groggy, sorry if some of the above sounds weird. i get rambly when tired]

[Onyxx]

Originally posted by Onyxx
AlphaTech: depending on the transfer rate of the new tibook's (hopefully revised) firewire, I would go with an external 7200 rpm firewire drive.
Originally posted by Grokgod
They SPEED data up, NOT slow it down. ~Onyx!
I want to see where you managed to read your data incorrectly.
The imacs have fast drives in them <7200, i think. Of course Onyx will say that the 4200 are faster. But i wll disagree again!> and their noise doesnt bother me, so i should be ok, <crossing fingers>
Grokgod: you seemed to have skewed my logic to the point of no return. You odviously don't know what the number of rpm's in a hard drive do in relation to the drive's read/write times. Well, to clarify for you, the rpm's are the speed at which the platters in the drive turn. The dirve's heads then move back and forth on top(or bottom) of these disks and erase/write/reat the info off of the platter. Usually, the faster they turn, the faster they can be accessed. In the case of 7200 vs. 5400, the 7200 will always kick the 5400's @ss. However there are many cases in which the design of the drive makes a lower rpm drive faster than a high rpm drive. An example is the western digital "jumbo buffer" drives. Because of their large buffer, these ata 100 drives rip right through enourmously expensive scsi 10k and 15k rpm drives.

Back to the issue at hand. Well i couldn't find my original article, but i did find one on the new 60 and 48 gig drives. My original info was based on the tests of the first (or second) generation 5400 48 gig from ibm. The noise was reported to be a low "fan-like sound" (from the newly developed fluid bearings) and constant. It seems that IBM has fixed their original design and ironed out a couple of bugs. However, the new tests show http://www.barefeats.com/fire24.html that the 4200's did write faster and the 5400's read faster. considering that the 40 gig 4200 rpm ibm is a little over half the price of the 48 gig 5400 and less than half the prive of the 60 gig 5400 I will sticke with 4200 internal and 7200 external in a firewire enclosure.

AlphaTech: looking forward to seeing some trial results from your drive(s).

[AlphaTech]

Hey AmbitiousLemon... looks like you made a oopsi with "2.5" laptop hard drives come in two speeds 7200rpm and 5400rpm." Don't you really mean 4200 and 5400???

Onyxx, did you check out the spec's of the 60GB vs the 40GB (5400 and 4200rpm respectively)?? I put a link to where you can get the data sheet. Read it before making statements about drives where all you have is a dated article that applies to drives that have had revisions since then.

Check the performance spec's on page three of the pdf...

Oh an Onyxx, we are NOT looking at external drives here, but all internal. Your posted link holds about as much water as a sieve. Considering how it was using the previous generation TiBook (not the one I have, or anyone getting a new unit, such as Grokgod). He also pretty much admits to hamstringing the TiBook in his tests, which WILL effect performance. He also has to be using it under OS 9 since he shows "The test "mule" was an Apple Titanium G4 PowerBook (667MHz) with disk cache set to 512K (to diminish effect of system caching), AppleTalk OFF, Virtual Memory OFF, and Extensions set to minimal (BASE)." I am running OS X 99% of the time, how about you Grokgod? Also, who the ***** uses third party utilities to format/initialize drives??? I ALWAYS use the Apple utility. That alone could account for the internal being f*cked in his tests.

I will be running Norton's system check utility before pulling the 40GB drive out of my TiBook and installing the 60GB drive. After that, I will run the test again to see what it comes up with for a difference. It might be negligible, but then again, it might just surprise you.

[JimmyMac]

Hello everyone. This is my first post to this forum.

I've been following you all for a while now, and have been very impressed with the quality of the discussions. There's some smart people here!

I have to pipe in about the fast drive issue with the PowerBook. I have the G4 400 that originally came with the huge 10 GB 4200 RMP drive. Unfortunatly, I have to use Virtual PC for some of my structural engineering applications. Getting VPC to run well is important to me. VPC is the benchmark for performance on my PowerBook.

I installed the 48 GB 5400 RPM IBM Travelstar drive recently. Let me just tell you I've noticed a speed increase. Navigating through folders in Windows is noticeably more smooth. Scrolling through long files is faster. I have also noticed a hit on my battery though, but not too bad--I'm talking minutes here. It was well worth it to me. Yeah, that extra few GBs comes in handy too.

This new drive is silent except when she's read/writing; idle, it's hard to tell which is which: the drive or the fan. I put the old drive in the OWC FireWire enclosure. Having them side by side you can tell the difference in acoustics

In my opinion however, the single most important thing you can do to speed up applications like VPC, is to install as much RAM as you can afford into that PowerBook. I first tried to run VPC Test Drive on OS X 10.0 with the stock 128 MB RAM. I was not too impressed with the performance. I spent about $300 and got myself two 512 MB sticks of RAM. Wow. Windows 2000 is actually usable.

Get that faster drive, but don't forget about the RAM!

[Grokgod]

~Alpha, I run OSX 99 percent of the time!

~Ambitious Lemon. That was a great slew of fantastic information

I am rereading it to make certain that I understand it.
This generation of ibm drives have Tech that makes then quieter and faster?
And that the 60 gig which is the newest version may infact be quieter than the 48 or the 40 4200 drive.?

Did i get that right?

~Onyx Sorry if you feel that I have skewed your information, but it seems
to be dated and out of context. Using OS9 or older drives with different machines or not laptop drives isnt applicable.
Or at least i am hoping that it is!

I called Apple today and spoke to various tech till I got one that I thought was competent.

This is the information I was able to gather from various sources.
A: 5400 drives are VERY important for OSX! The operating system goes to the drive often. A 5400 drive will create VERY noticeable speed increases.
B: The new 60 gig has a larger Cache which obviously is important.
C: Yes the 5400 HD will take a bit more juice, yet they claimed that it was negligable. I think I believe that.
D: As for noise, which is a prime concern of mine. well, he said that any higher revved drive will create more sound but he felt that it was comparative to the 4200. And went on to state the obvous facts that noise is subjective.

Well Duh~ We all know that, but is it louder than the 4200!
Well, he skirted the issue and restated the obvious.

So either his subjective evaluation of the noise is nil, or huge. I couldnt figure that out. I think the final point is if OSX runs much better on a 5400 which I believe it does! Then is that worth the trade in sound irritation.

Oh the pain!

If only I could find someone with a 5400 TI .
Apple told me to drive toa store and listen.
Hell, If I could do that I would have bought the dame thing already!

~Jimmy Mac <cool handle> thanks for the info! there are rumors about 1 gig ram problems in the Ti , you experience any of that?

I just read that Barefeat article. the firelite 40 is a toshiba that was faster in some issues was aided by some software or bridgeboard. Not sure if Apple is using the Toshiba 40 any more, i though it was all IBM

[JimmyMac]

Grokgod,

Funny you should ask about problems with 1 GB of RAM in the PowerBook. Or as I like to say "1.24 'jigga-bytes" (said like Dr. Brown in "Back to the Future") When I first tried to update about a year ago, I got two 512s from OWC. I talked to the tech rep, and he told me first that there was a fit problem, that they would not fit perfectly. He also mentioned that there might be other problems too. At least they were honest. They said just try it, return it if it doesn't work for you.

When I first installed both sticks, my Mac wouldn't boot. I pulled the top stick out, then it booted ok. I switched the two sticks, still booted ok. OWC agreed with me that their two 512 stick combo just didn't work right yet for some people. They took one of em back and gave me a 256 stick. That was a year ago. Now they have smaller, thinner PC 133 jobs that work perfectly. I got the new PC 133 stick and put it in the top slot. It fits better that the 256 did.

Everything works great! Everything seems "snappier":D Yeah, I know you guys don't like it when people use that term--I couldn't resist.

Now here's a question: why would I see such a drastic increase in VPC perfomance when I upgraded to 1 GB? I used to have 768 GB, but VPC only needed like 300 or so. There was plenty of RAM left over, and no pageouts. I KNOW I'm not just imagining things--everything runs better.

[Grokgod]

Say it fast three more times!

Thats weird about the 1 gig issue. that what i heard also about the bad fit.
But why does a 256 fit ok. its still a stick of ram, isnt it.
Is the 512 a bigger stick, i mean i know its bigger ram wise but stick wise , fit wise?
Who is OWc, not familair with them.

Also may I , Puhlease ask, Is your 5400 drive noisey or noisier than the 4200.
You said you could tell the difference in acoustics, uhh and they are?
Did I misread your post?

I gots to know!

About VPC, its all about ram baby, the more the better, its that simple and the longer your running the appz the more ram you need for windows and such. So time and appz equals the need for more ram.

[JimmyMac]

OK, OWC is a huge Mac parts supplier here in Chicago. Check them out at otherworldcomputing.com. Sorry for not being more clear.

The 256 stick that they sold me was thicker than the new 512 stick. It would not lay flat once it was installed. And you could tell that the two chips were touching each other. If you're going to get a few 512s, be sure and measure their depth. At least in my PB 400, there's about 1.6 inches of room behind the little keyboard support member for the TOP piece. You can go deeper in the bottom slot--you just have to slip out the support member. My new 512 is like 1.25 inches deep and thin enough as to not touch the bottom piece.

The new IBM drive is very silent when it's idle. When she read/writes, it makes kind of soft jingle crunchy sound. Yeah, I know, that sounds funny. But it's true. You hardly notice it.

I put the old 4200 drive in a FireWire enclosure. When it's fired up right next to my PB, you can HEAR it. It makes a grinding sound while idle. That's mainly due to the type of bearings used in the old Toshiba compared to the fluid bearings in the IBM.

I would suggest you look at the drive specs as presented on the OWC page or each mgf's site. They both give you pages and pages of technical data on the drives. You'll be able to quantify the acoustics of each drive. Maybe you can quantify what a jingle-crunchy sound is:)

PS,
I like the interface of this forum. Can you spell check stuff?

[Grokgod]

Thanks for the travel star noise evaluation.

Imagine you were going to buy a desktop and it had a 4200 drive in it.
I would say no way, thats way to slow, what is this prehistoric days.
And grab the 7200 hd quick and run.
Well, there are none for laptops, SO~

If a freakin Toshiba can have a 5400 drive then my Ti most certainly will!

I think that IBM may have another winner here with the 60 gig hd and that
the sound may be comparible to the 40 gig 4200. Hopefully.
I think that any additional battery depletion probably counts in minutes, thats single digits.
I also think that OSX wants HD speed and for that always wanted speedy osx experience, the 5400 is a must.
I know that i would feel slighted if my Ti experience was hindered by a slow HD. yet, It would also be by excess noise, so I am going for the BTO, that I ordered and if the thing is way to loud and i cant sleep it, as a Apple Tech described, then I will install a quieter drive.
I will do what has to be done to get the best Ti/osx experince that is possible whatever the cost, whatever the time, whatever it takes.

I am a dedicated bastard!

Now about that RAm issue.
Crucial should be ok, to buy from, right? :)

[bonehead]

I just got a 800Mhz TiBook with 1GB of ram and a 60GB 5400rpm drive. It's my first laptop so I can't compare it to anything I've owned previously but it is fast. I've mostly been installing software so there has been a fair amount of writing to the drive and it seems plenty speedy.

The audio applications I use need to constantly load sounds into ram from the hd and I've had no problems in the tests I've done. "Test" in this case means, "does this work like it's supposed to?" This is all in OS 9, by the way. I haven't installed any video apps yet and I don't use Photoshop so I can't say anything about performance in those areas.

I had some concern about the 1GB ram issue but I haven't noticed any problems. What was supposed to happen?

One other thing, the computer has gotten pretty warm a couple of times but I thought they fixed the heat issue. Has anyone with a new TiBook experienced this?

[Grokgod]

YOU GOT MY TI BOOK!

gimme, I am still waiting for mine.
So puhlease tell me!!

Does the HD make a lot of noise? Does it whirr and spit and chime?
Or is it a little clicking like others say?
Or worst is there a loud high pitched drone from the intense 5400 spinning?
I really appreciate the information , gimme all you got~!

The higher rpm hd is really supposed to make a difference in OSX, which I mostly use.
The Ram issue isnt actually an issue if you get the 1 gig set from APple as far as I understand it. So you should be fine.
I opted for the better HD but settled on the 512 thinking that in the future I can get another stick at perhaps cheaper prices.

The heat issue was supposed to be dealt with to a degree but will still heat up using high end appz like audio and video editing. Is your fan or fans coming on alot.

I would say that the noise issue on the 5400 hd is my main concern, so spill the beans, Mr Bonehead!

[AlphaTech]

Alright peeps and freaks... I have installed the 60GB drive into my new TiBook and ran NSW's system info (only test that I have readily available to me). The 40GB drive pulled a 1908 where the 60GB pulled a 2056. Those are the overall disk numbers (I didn't break them down deeper). I have updated OS X on the 60GB drive, since the old install didn't boot the new system. I intend to use the 60GB drive inside now, since it is in here and has most of the software I want/need already installed.

[AmbitiousLemon]

hey alpha thanks for pointing out that rather important oopsie. hope i didnt confuse anyone with that.

in my experience toshiba drives are louder than ibm. even when comparing 4200rpm drives to 5400rpm drives. by louder in this case i mean the whirling sound. my laptop is silient most of the time. i get a quiet whirl and occasional clicking under very heavy use. but the toshiba that was originally in the machine was a louder whirler (but no clicking).

i would compare the toshiba to the sound created by a desktop hard drive, while the ibm as i said is virtually silient most of the time. and i have sensitive ears. i sleep in the room that i have my computers in (never log out never shut down never put to sleep) and its the lcd imac that is loud while i sleep. but my laptop (lombard) was built in 1999 so the toshiba in it originally was probably not the same as the one in your computer now. although the ibm i have is also supposed to be louder than the new ibms as well.

grokgod: sounds like you understood correctly. the new drives are supposed to have better bearings, i guess that makes them run silient. also the 60gb has some more features but i read about them awhile ago so i dont recall the details; but it basically meant faster quieter.

as i understand it if you buy a laptop from apple you get a toshiba unless you buy a 5400rpm drive (i could be wrong about this, its just based on observation).

as far as ram goes, i dont know the problems people are having (although it seems very common) but i do know that some sites sell 1gb ram kits specifically designed for the tipowerbook. also the ram that you are speaking of that is smaller is called low profile ram and i had to use it in my lombard as well. it is more expensive because it is smaller. low profile ram is also required by the lcd imac if you use a airport card because withe the airport card in place there isnt room for full sized ram. the low profile ram is about 1/2 the size of a normal 512mb chip.

hope that helps out. its finals time here at CAL, which means ill be in the computer room all day, so if you have any quetsions you can always you can always email me or instant message me (aolsn=ambitiouslemon).

o and one more thing (sorry for the second long post) osx should see a considerable speed boost from a high speed drive as others have noticed. this is because of the unix layer. im not a unix geek, but as i understand it osx will access the drive often because of the file system used. unix uses lots of various files all over the drive. if you have invisible files shown you will notice they are always moving around. this is also why optimizing your drive (defraging) provides such a big performance boost. dont ask me to explain this because i dont understand it. maybe someone with a unix background can clean up what im trying to say.

[AlphaTech]

AmbitiousLemon, it appears that Apple is using IBM drives in the TiBooks now. I pulled my 40GB out (when I installed the 60GB) and it is an IBM Travelstar. Actually, it's the same as listed in the pdf that you can get from the IBM site about the 60GB drive. I guess enough people were complaining about the Toshiba drives, so they switched to the IBM drives.

The fluid dynamic bearings make the drives virtually silent. All you really hear are the drives being accessed by the heads, not any spinning sounds. When the drive is not in use, you cannot tell the difference.

As for memory issues, as long as you get good memory, you should have no issue going to 1GB. I had that in my rev. a TiBook. I did have to put a PC100 (normal size) on the bottom, and a PC133 (low profile) in the top slot to get the keyboard to seat properly. The low profile memory does cost more, since it is a smaller chip.

[bonehead]

Grokgod:

I have only had the computer for a few days and haven't had much time to mess with it. The HD is pretty quiet to my ears. I think I heard the fan come on once but couldn't be sure. The loudest thing by far is the CD drive. I've mostly been installing software and hooking up the Airport so I can transfer files from the desktop computer. I plan on using the TiBook for audio but haven't recorded anything into it yet. When I do, I'll post to let you know if the mic picks up HD noise. Sorry I don't have much more info. Noise is a concern for me too so I'll let you know when I've had more time on the machine.

[bonehead]

One more thing:

I did notice a very high pitched whine last night but only after I plugged my MIDI keyboard into the USB port. When I unplugged it, the whine seemed to disappear. The level of the whine was very low so the HD couldn't have been making much, if any, noise at all.

[Grokgod]

Well Bonehed~ I think that a whine caused by a USB midi keyboard is strange indeed. But I am happy to hear that the drive was virtually silent.

Ambitious Lemon~ now! thats good news about the IBMs. This is really restoring my faith in the 5400 drive that I will be getting.
I was worried for a moment that perhaps Apple was using the toshiba's but thanks to AlphaTechs endevors we now know for certain that its a Ibm thats being used for the 40 gig which makes it almost certain that the 60 is IBM because i dont think there is another company that makes a 60 gig.

All this delicious Fluid Drive talk is great, I cant wait to NOT hear the noise that this drive makes!

My information on OSX's methods of accessing the HD frequently is siimliar to Ambitious Lemons. I am certain that this will prove to be very useful in creating a good Hardware scenario for OSX.

~alphatech Those numbers really look amazing, I mean its double the rate.
That should put a crimp in all the misleading information posted by Onyz.
Imagine when Quartz Extreme is out, this Ti will be SICK fast!

I am quoting the Apple tech.
" With the 5400 drive your OSX experience will be SICK fast!"
We both snickered, it was a ZEN moment!

So was the install hard, it does void the warrenty, doesnt it?
I have never been so excited about a hard drive before...:P

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Grokgod

So was the install hard, it does void the warrenty, doesnt it?

The install was easy. It is also listed as one of the "Customer-Installable Parts". The list, and instructions can be found at http://www.info.apple.com/support/cip/index.html

[Grokgod]

There seems to be someone missing from the exchange of information.

There is precious little from Onyxx on the subject that he began.

I would thank him for bringing up his tidbit of info. If there was any doubt in my mind before this, there isnt now.

I suppose the overwhelming personal data of experience and experimentation <kudos to Alpha tech for yanking the 40 and putting his 60 gig Ibm in his Ti for testing> created from all of our co-operation has rendered the point mute.

I think that surely this rendering was done on a 5400 ibm hd because it was fast, silent and precise. < little rendering metaphor >

I now look forward to my new Ti's arrival with confidence and a smile.

I thank you all for laying my fears to rest.
It was a gesture of kindness and friendship, you have my appreciaton!

[AlphaTech]

I swapped drives again last night. I don't really need the speed boost from the 5400 drive, plus, I will be getting an enclosure for it. After using it for a bit, I didn't see a difference much of a speed difference between the two drives. I did hear the drive being accessed more then when the 40GB drive. Right now, with the 800MHz chip and all, I don't need the faster drive. Besides the fact that it seems that the overall performance of the computer was a bit better with the 40GB drive. It might have something to do with the software installed. Once I can back up the drive, I will try it again and see what happens. I am also thinking about contacting IBM to see how much I should hear (might be this one drive is louder then the rest). I will have time to do that later, since it is looking like a busy week for me (only tech at work since the other is on vacation).

[Grokgod]

Now your saying that the 5400 is slower and louder?
Is that what your saying, what about the speed tests you posted?

Iam confused!
First you state that you dont need the speed boost, or the extra space I guess. then it seems that your saying it was slower than the 4200.

MAn, that really confused me, Could you please clarify?

Why woudl the 60 gig be accessed more?
It has a larger cache, doesnt it.

Maybe Onyxx is right after all?

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Grokgod
Now your saying that the 5400 is slower and louder?
Is that what your saying, what about the speed tests you posted?

Iam confused!
First you state that you dont need the speed boost, or the extra space I guess. then it seems that your saying it was slower than the 4200.

MAn, that really confused me, Could you please clarify?

Why woudl the 60 gig be accessed more?
It has a larger cache, doesnt it.

Maybe Onyxx is right after all?

What I am saying is that my drive (which may not be the same one Apple uses since there are two models of the 60GB 5400rpm drive) was a bit louder. I noticed it, but then again, I usually hear the noises that most people cannot. The drive itself was faster, but when I did a fast config, the overall system preformance (with the Apple drive) was a little faster (not all that much). I will check the snapshots when I get home and post the other numbers. I just hope I didn't toss them out.

If you want the storage the 60GB offers, don't worry about it. I have plenty of storage to connect to my TiBook (with the external drives) so putting the 60GB drive inside is not all that important to me.

I think I put above, that I will be calling IBM to see if the drive noise I had with the 60GB is normal or not. It is very possible that the drive I have is louder then it is supposed to be. If that is the case, I will be pushing to get a replacement drive from IBM. I will let you know what I get from them for info.

If you really are concerned, go to an Apple store and see if they have a TiBook on display with the 60GB drive. If they do, check it out. I would be willing to bet I have a drive that is not the norm (just my luck too).

[Grokgod]

So, to revise my prevous statements.
time for an about face!

It looks like the 60 5400 IF faster, it is marginal at best.
Now there is the increase in noise to consider. If Alpha tech's drive is an abnormal one.
I think that there is still going to be additional spin noise, etc.
The apple techs agree and state this with an explaination of the drives location and the fact that there is little to dampen the noise.

I am, like AlphaTech very sensitive and can hear or notice almost anything!
I think that I am leaning towards Onyxx concept.
I thank you for saving me from a mistake!

Is it worth the possible aggravation, plus the additional cost?
Worth the price? I dont think so.

If there was an APple store in my area I would own one of these guys already.

But i will say that AlphaTEch is one hell of a TECH, the amount of times that he has yanked that the drive out of the Ti is amazing!
I am not certain that I could do it once!

[AmbitiousLemon]

i would most certainly not state that the speed gain is marginal. i think what i am getting from alpha is that he feels he doesnt need to speed gain. i for one am very sensitive to speed. especially in osx. the drive most certainly will speed up your system in general and the read write speeds for large files will be much faster. in my case the price was definitely worth the benefits. nothing marginal at all about the performance boost. the real question though is if yo feel you need more speed. i guess alpha felt he didnt. also when i switched i switched from a toshiba (known to be loud) to a ibm (known for being quiet) but alpha switched from a ibm to another ibm. so i got a sound decrease where i think the most alpha could have hoped for is no change in noise. but the biggest thing is that i have read numerous benchmarks on these drives as well as had my own experience and everything indicates that a 5400rpm drive provides far more than a marginal performance boost. i remember when i first got mine in i just kept copying files around and opening windows constantly shocked at how much faster everything was. i have a 2 gb and 4gb drive as well (both toshiba) and swap them in every once in awhile (i cant boot from them externally) and everytime i do i notice they are much slower even though they have virtually fresh installs. i certainly wouldnt dismiss the benefits of one of these. if you have the money to burn i would say that hard drive speed is almost as important as ram. and boosting your drive from a 4200rpm to a 5400rpm is going to be of more benefit than boosting ram above 384mb (under 384 ram is definitely more important).

[AlphaTech]

AmbitiousLemon, which speed TiBook are you using your 5400 rpm drive in? I noticed more of an increase when I was in a Rev. A then my current model.

I will be contacting IBM support to see how much noise I should have from the drive. If they want, I could send them the drive for testing (could be flawed). Of course, I would wipe it first.

[AmbitiousLemon]

alpha. im on a lombard. 333mhz g3, 66mhz fsb. :) thats why i notice every tiny bit of speed difference. i guess thats what i was trying to get across. if you really feel you need more speed out of your machine he drive helps, but if your machine is already up to your standards then it may not be worth it. kinda like the powermacs right now. they are so fast some people say why bother with a faster fsb and ddr, while others just want every ounce of speed they can get.

[AlphaTech]

I called IBM earlier. The tech there wants me to run the disk check from NSW on the 60GB drive to see if there are any bad blocks. If there are, they will replace the drive. If not, then I will call back with all the test numbers so that they can see the differences.

She agreed that the system should be faster with the 5400 rpm drive (then the 4200 drive). Looks like I will be running the tests, and swapping drives again tonight. If they don't like the numbers, then a new drive will be coming my way. :D

Good suport is the name of the game here.

[Onyxx]

Grokgod- I was only conveying the (limited) info that i knew about the 5400 vs. 4200 drives. But i also know from experience that a new 4200 drive sounds great when you first get it, but begins to sound horrible as the bearings wear out. This is not the case with the 5400's bearings but it has an almost fan-like noise to it. The noise is by no means horrible, however constant (as long as the drive is spinning). I am running on a 400 mhz pismo so like lemon, i notice speed increases. I haven't tried a 5400 yet but i may swap with a friend of mine just to see if there is a difference. But if it is marginal, I will stick with my 4200 and save up the rest for a new ti:D

[Grokgod]

I see where your coming from and I can appreciate it.

I dont think that I would like to endure any excess noise from a laptop.
I received an email from "accelerate your mac" after explaining my situation.
It was a brief reply since he gets so much mail.

He states that the two drives have the same cache, while i was under the impression that the 60 had a larger one.
He goes on to say that during his tests he found very little difference tween the drives although the 60 gig should never go slower.

As for the 4200 drive soundng bad, I hope that your referring to the tosiba's that were in the last version Ti, from what i know they have changed that drive for the ibm.

All in all, I will turn to my new powermac that I will buy in july for breakneck speed. While I have the quiet <i hope> Ti for those contemplative moments in life when the constant whirr or crack or whatever is not welcome.
If the 4200 turns into a beast and growls in the future i will yank that thing out with distain and replace it.

Actually by the time that happens there will be new Ti's out that blows mine away and they will be using 7200 drives so I will just buy a new one and sell the old.

[cb911]

i've been away for a couple of days, and i quickly caught up on reading all of the posts. if i say something thats already been covered, just let me know.

AmbitiousLemon, you said that if i log out it won't make a difference to the slowness. are you sure? someone else said that you can log out and it will refresh everything because that is the way unix handles things. i just wanted to check, are you sure that i have to restart?

i was thinking of buying a 512MB stick of RAM anyway. is OWC good? i'm going to e-mail them soon and find out about shipping to Australia. i hope they're reliable. they were the cheapest i could find - $200 for a 512MB stick.
i also noticed on their website that they have 2 different 512 sticks - stacked and not stacked. the non-stacked stick is cheaper. what does stacked and non-stacked mean? which one should i be getting?

[AlphaTech]

I believe that the stacked/non-stacked referrs to if you have more then one chip inside your TiBook. Go with the stacked chip, or the thinner one or you will have issues putting any additional memory inside your TiBook. The additional either won't seat properly, or will lift the keyboard over it.

Pay the few extra $$.

[AlphaTech]

Alright... I called IBM yet again to give them my test results and to see what was going to happen. The good news is that they will be replacing my drive, since the noise I have been experiencing is not normal. This is good since that also means that if you get one from Apple it should be silent except when being writen to/read from (as is normal).

The bad news is that I need to ship the old drive to them before they can send me a replacement. They will send a new drive to me as soon as it arrives there (they are experiencing a 14 day ship time for new drives due to low inventory). I should have the replacement drive within a month. This is fine for me, since I am using the drive that came in my new TiBook anyway. They will wipe the 60GB drive when it gets to them, or junk it in such a way that my data will not be stolen.

The IBM people were very nice over the phone, and did NOT think I was 'blowing smoke' as some companies might imply (to avoid replacing a drive/part). I don't know if this is because I mentioned that I am a tech early in the call or not (professional respect :D).

Any system that gets the 60GB TravelStar should be virtually silent (except when the drive is in active use) and faster then a 4200 rpm drive (even if marginally when comparing IBM drives using the same technology). I noticed a larger boost when I went from the Toshiba drive to the IBM then between the two IBM drives. Guess that means that IBM makes a better laptop drive then Toshiba (I know... big duuuuuuh there ;) ).