Upgrading Powerbook hard drive

FWIW I replaced the hard drive in my 15" PowerBook few weeks ago.
Went from a 80GB 5400rpm to a 100GB 7200rpm. The speed increase are highly noticable!

I heard its more work replacing the drive in a 12" PB, than in the 15", but not sure about the details.

kerpow said:

My current PB (see sig) has a 60gb 4200rpm drive. I recently picked up a 60gb 7200rpm drive for quite a bargain and planned on using it in a portable USB drive caddy. Both are 2.5"

Would you consider it worth the...

a) work involved
b) risk of problems
c) improvement in performance

...to swap the drives around and put the faster drive in my PB? Can this be done without purchasing expensive software?

Thanks

Click to expand...

I am about to do the exact same thing. I have a 60 gig 5400 drive. I contemplated replacing it with a 60 gig 7200 drive, a 80 gig 5400 drive but finally bought a 100 gig 7200 drive for my my 1.5ghz 12" Powerbook.

I am also upgrading the combo drive to to a superdrive while the PB is open.

The reason I went for the 100 gig drive was that I was not going to see that much change with the 60 gig or even the 80 gig drive.

a faster HD will drain your battery faster wont it?

kerpow said:

Excellent. Have you got a plan for that? Is it easy? Questions, questions, questions

I didn't think it was possible to upgrade to a Super Drive. If you can please post details of where you bought the drive and how you upgraded.

Click to expand...

Check eBay and Panasonic. Get a DL superdrive (dual layer) Panasonic/Matashita drive -- they are the OEM drives for Apple. I really figure that once you have the Powerbook open, you might as well upgrade it for all it is worth. I think there are photos of the upgrade process online at PBFIXIT.

And for the other question, I think modern harddrives are configured to be as energy efficient as possible; i.e. in the past, I do believe they were real engergy hogs, but not the modern drives.

Check out the specs on accellerate your mac.