7200RPM drives in ibooks - Heat problems?

supposedly the 7200rpm drives rum cooler b/c they are accessed less due to their higher throughput. but, when encoding a dvd (or something else) the drive might be running non stop for a while.

i have also heard this from an apple retail employee, but i do not know the validity of the heat issue.

my recommendation: install the 7200 drive, but keep your old one. if you have problems, put the old one back, send it in for warranty work, and never tell apple you switched drives.

the 7200 drive runs cooler cause it uses more efficient components to minimize friction. i read that in an article. and the 7200 drive only uses a nominal more power than the original drive and significantly less than a 5400 drive.

This link might be helpful - it's someone's story of how a new drive was installed into and works nicely with his PB.

No HEAT problem with IBM 7200rpm/60GB; Apple tech is full of Bull Durham

maclamb said:

I am considering having a certified Apple tech install a 7200 RPM hitachi drive into my ibook G4 1G.
He said he is hesitant to do so as he has had problems with the heat from the drive "frying" the mobo. He said he has had ibooks come back after he has done this.
Has anyone actually done this/or knows someone (for real) who has done this- problems? issues?

Click to expand...

Hi MacLamb.
A few days ago I finally received my 7200rpm 60GB (55.7 usable) Hitachi IBM 2.5" HD from ZipZoomFly.com (same price from NewEgg.com) $212, no tax, no S&H.

Install in iBook took me several hours and I would not do it again, MacLamb is smart to pay a tech to do it.

NO HEAT problem whatsoever. IBM Runs cool, smooth and very quiet. Less active than 4200 rpm Toshiba that I removed. Highly recommend upgrade.

Self-install in PowerBook is relatively easy and not a problem,
iBook is time consuming and difficult. Dangers include breaking the plastic bottom when removing, not putting all the screws back correctly (I had 3 left over, probably from the Combo Drive, and damage to things like the cable to touch pad "mouse", the hard drive or combo cable, power cables to various other parts, slip with screw driver and damage a circuit, etc. Let a tech do it.

One odd thing, the Toshiba 30GB HD I removed had 4 permanent black studs where one would expect screws on the sides, which fit nicely into 4 rubber grommets (or washers) 2 on aluminum strips - one on each side of the drive, for vibration dampening. Since NO screws are supplied with the new drive, I had to add 4 hard drive screws to the new IBM for it to install properly - this was unexpected but as long as you have the standard drive screws handy, it will not be a problem at all. Attached below is a photo of the old Toshiba drive - note the 4 black studs sticking out, 2 on each side.

Also, there was a nice thick clear plastic shield APPLE had stuck (like glue) to the bottom of the Toshiba, which I pulled off and applied to the bottom of the new IBM replacement drive to help protect its tender green underbelly of circuits. The old Toshiba will end up being inserted in a metal FireWire housing for a mobile 2.5" drive and I'm not as concerned with it as the nice new IBM. I'll find something to stick on it at that time.

Obviously, you have to Initialize (Erase) new HD with Panther install CD (disks 1 & 2) using Disk Utility on the install CD, followed by a mandatory RESTART before new HD would be recognized by CPU. Initially it said, "you cannot install OS X on this drive" which threw me for a loop. So, I had to name the blank drive "Macintosh HD" THEN the installer would allow me to install Panther on it, strange? Should have been automatic as part of install.

Apple really needs to make this 7200 rpm drive an under $200 option for "build to order" on all books, especially on the difficult to install anything inside iBooks. PowerBooks are way easy and very much do-it-yourself.

If I ever sell my iBook, i'll remove the IBM 7200 rpm drive because it is definitely a Black Pearl in the White Oyster shell.

To be blunt, that Apple tech is full of bull****. Check out info on xlr8yourmac.com, no where to you find support for his "heat problem" bull. I know at least 6 people with books who have had it done and all are very satisfied, including me.

MacRAND gives the most thorough help of anyone on this site I would say

he always puts a lot of effort into his posts. I respect that.

I would agree. that if there really are not any issues with heat, Apple needs to offer the faster hard drives on their entire line up of laptops. They could really benefit from reducing the hard drive bottleneck.

when I went from my 6gb maxtor 5400rpm with 512k cache to my western digital 7200rpm 120gb with 8mb cache I saw a worthy boost is system performance. just simple things like how long a folder with lots of files takes to load is nice to have faster.

this in in a powermac though but it will give you an idea of rpm boost vs performance.

this is an interesting thread. i shelled out the extra dollars for the higher processor and such for my powerbook, and am very intent on keeping it around for quite some time. while it seems the general consensus is that macs don't allow for much upgrading, any upgrade that actually does work and increases system performance is much welcomed news. while the machines and software apple makes are definitely top notch machines, their steeper prices would be much more justified if there were more opportunities to increase their longevity. getting a couple hundred dollar hard drive or anything like that is much more appealing than getting a couple thousand dollar new machine.

ifjake said:

this is an interesting thread. i shelled out the extra dollars for the higher processor and such for my powerbook, and am very intent on keeping it around for quite some time. while it seems the general consensus is that macs don't allow for much upgrading, any upgrade that actually does work and increases system performance is much welcomed news. while the machines and software apple makes are definitely top notch machines, their steeper prices would be much more justified if there were more opportunities to increase their longevity. getting a couple hundred dollar hard drive or anything like that is much more appealing than getting a couple thousand dollar new machine.

Click to expand...

actually when it comes to laptops macs are more upgradable than a pc is. I don't know of any cpu upgrades that can be done for a pc book but there are several for powerbooks. I used to have a powerbook 540c which was originally a 040 33mhz and had been upgraded to a 603e 117mhz.

funny, just last night i was looking around EBay for a faster drive for my PB and was wondering about the heat issue... and then i come across this thread! cool... i think i might hold out till they come out with an 80 GB model to upgrade to the 7200 RPM drive.

maclamb said:

I am considering having a certified Apple tech install a 7200 RPM hitachi drive into my ibook G4 1G.
He said he is hesitant to do so as he has had problems with the heat from the drive "frying" the mobo. He said he has had ibooks come back after he has done this.
Has anyone actually done this/or knows someone (for real) who has done this- problems? issues?

Click to expand...

I've been thinking about getting a 7200 RPM drive for my iBook recently also. I called the local Apple Tech and he said that the iBook only goes up to a 5200 RPM. Plus there was a $150 charge for installing the hard drive.

My question is, where can I send my iBook to have a 7200 RPM hard drive installed while still maintaining the Apple Warranty? Thanks for the help.

lasuther

I'm doing this upgrade to my 1 GHz PB, as well. You can save your self some time by getting a 2.5" FW enclosure before you start. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your current HD onto the Hitachi (or whatever other drive you choose). Make sure to make the target bootable in the CCC preferences. Now you can just swap the drives and you're back in business. No OS X install needed.

Edit: One more note: The 2.5" FW enclosures may say you can power the drive off of FW, but you won't get enough juice. Unfortunately, the enclosures I've come across take power from a PS2 port, which PBs and iBooks don't have (at least recent ones). There may be some out there that have their own AC power adaptor, but then you lose some of the portability.

the fw enclosure is a great idea. it will allow you to keep using the old one as a storage disk.

blue&whiteman said:

the fw enclosure is a great idea. it will allow you to keep using the old one as a storage disk.

Click to expand...

I plan to use the old drive as my traveling backup device, as well as extra storage, when needed.

maclamb said:

So, how does the new 7200 drive perform in the ibook - worth the price of admission?

Click to expand...

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=52235&doc2=50878

look at that link. compares a 12" 1ghz powerbook with stock hd vs. a 12" 1ghz with a 7200rpm drive.

the pb with the 7200rpm does have 3 times the ram but the hd score alone proves how much a fast drive helps.

think about it this way. your hd contains everything the computer needs to open/read/write. its the one thing that if slow your whole system really suffers. if its fast your whole system gains. I saw a big boost going from a 5400 to a 7200. just imagine the boost going from a 4200 to a 7200.

daveL said:

Edit: One more note: The 2.5" FW enclosures may say you can power the drive off of FW, but you won't get enough juice. Unfortunately, the enclosures I've come across take power from a PS2 port, which PBs and iBooks don't have (at least recent ones). There may be some out there that have their own AC power adaptor, but then you lose some of the portability.

Click to expand...

look for the ones that draw additional power from a USB port.
usually found for aroun $30-$40 at pricewatch.com

so what is required of a hard drive in order to fit in a 15" Ti powerbook? 2.5"? does anyone have any good recommendations for a 7200 RPM drive?

Edit: nevermind, this xlr8yourmac.com site has all the answers to my questions.

adamjay said:

look for the ones that draw additional power from a USB port.
usually found for aroun $30-$40 at pricewatch.com

Click to expand...

Hmmm... I wonder if this is just a power cable thing, i.e. all you need is a cable that plugs into USB and the DC power input on the drive enclosure?

PowerBook hard drive installation instructions

Can anyone point me to good online instructions on installing a new hard drive in a aluminum PowerBook (17", in my case).

You guys talked me into it; I just ordered a 7200 rpm Hitachi drive. I currently have a stock 4200.

Adding IBM/Hitachi Travelstar 7200 60GB to PowerBook

stevemolitor said:

Can anyone point me to good online instructions on installing a new hard drive in a aluminum PowerBook (17", in my case).

You guys talked me into it; I just ordered a 7200 rpm Hitachi drive. I currently have a stock 4200.

Click to expand...

Congratulations on your purchase.
Less than $212 with free shipping?
NewEgg.com or ZipZoomFly.com?

Where to look for possible instructions:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com

I was willing to chance it with my 2 year old G3 iBook which is worth less than $600 at this point. I successfully got the drive in, it works great, but I had to pay $45 to fix the touch-pad (mouse) because the thin, flat cable came out of its socket and had to be micro-soldered back in. Now I find my microphone does not work, probably a similar cable/wire problem.

I'm happy with the significant boost in performance and doubling of the drives size, even though I've had to sacrifice my internal mic.
But, I bet you would not be. You have a new Alum PB, probably still under warranty, and I would definitely recommend taking it to an Authorized Repair Shop or Apple Dealer to have it put in for you. It's worth the $150 or $200 for them to do it, and do it right.

Oddly, the old Ti books are relatively easy. Not so with the newer Alum PB or any iBook. The number of screws, places to undo, things to watchout for, then putting it all back together without leaving out a single screw...I just would prize an expensive new PowerBook too highly to try it. And, you don't want to mess with the warranty.

It's great to upgrade the drive - you are going to love it, but maybe
not so good an idea on doing-it-yourself.
Let us know what you decide and how it comes out.

Success upgrading to 7400 rpm drive

Thought I'd report back:

I successfully upgraded my 17" 1.33 ghz / 1 gig RAM PB from the stock 4200 rpm drive to a 7200 rpm 8 gig cache Hitachi drive. Big difference! Booting time is almost cut in half. Starting Eclipse (a Java IDE notorious for long startup times) went from 32 seconds to 17 seconds. Similar improvements elsewhere. There's no more occasional lags when open stuff in the Finder. Overall things feel much snappier. Well worth it.

I got a fire wire enclosure and used Carbon Copy Clone to clone my existing drive to the Hitachi first, and booted from the Hitachi via FireWire first to make sure everything worked. That worked like a charm.

I stupidly ignored the advice on here and tried to install the drive myself. I couldn't get the two star shaped screws on the back in the memory area out, so I gave up and paid a tech $50 to do it. In the process, I lost two screws, two of the screws that go on the sides (which you don't even need to take out to install a HD.) Anyone know where I can get those screws?

Also, the first two times I booted up after the tech installed the new drive, OS X couldn't find the internal airport card. The airport status said 'no airport card found'; similar messages in the console log. So I took it back the tech, he booted it and the card was found. Since then everything's been working fine, but it makes me a little nervous. I worry that in trying to take it apart myself, I may have knocked something loose. Any ideas?

Anyway, thanks for everyone's advise here. It's definitely a worthwile upgrade.