12"PB with faster HD, what a speed!

[mymemory]

Ok, I have a 1GHz 12"PB. Because Apple lame quality products the internal one doesn't work any more. Yes! Apple is selling us "state of the crap" equipment.

So, I am using for now my external firewire drive for the system and tyhe computer is running at list TWICE as fast now.

The original drive was 4200 rpm, the external drive I am not sure yet but I am expecting another internal drive at 7200 rpm!.

Right now al the applications are opening very fast, at list the double including the windows and everything.

Really, if you want to get the most from your powerbook start by changing the main hard drive.

 

[Finiksa]

Because Apple lame quality products the internal one doesn't work any more. Yes! Apple is selling us "state of the crap" equipment.

Yes, Apple have contracted many leading manufacturers to create special substandard versions of their renowned hardware, I believe Hitachi have a super secret Apple Craptacular division.

Get over yourself and get the PB repaired, it's still under warranty.

 

[m.r.m.]

why only have a 4200rpm drive in the first place? i´m not implying anything. just a newbie wanting to know.

 

[edesignuk]

why only have a 4200rpm drive in the first place? i´m not implying anything. just a newbie wanting to know.

Cause that's what Apple give you as standard, even if you pay to upgrade the max they offer is 5400.

 

[mymemory]

why only have a 4200rpm drive in the first place? i´m not implying anything. just a newbie wanting to know.

If you take a look ate the Apple store... to upgrade from a 4200 to a 5200 cost you the same thing as a brand new 5400. I mean, you are not paying "the difference" you are paying for an entire new drive at street price!

I got a 7200rpm 60GB for $196.

That is the thing.

On the other hand if I upgrade the internal drive (even with an apple tech specialist) I would loose all my warranty in the machine.... un less I get the Apple Care that cost me $300, in that case I can do what ever I feel like it with the machine.

Apple $uck$ big time!

I rather give my money to some independent store than to $tinky $teve Job$ in that case.

They want to put me against the wall.

Unfortunatly those are thing you get to know when you are already in to dilema.

Even if I get the new drive I won't be able to get an internal faster one unless I get Apple Care now ($300).

What I may do is to get the warranty, and once I get the unit back I would replace the drives. The new Apple drive would go to one of my beloved Pismos. If something goes wrong I would replace the drives again and send it to Apple once again.

 

[konaforever]

I knew it was true! STUPID HITACHI!

Yes, Apple have contracted many leading manufacturers to create special substandard versions of their renowned hardware, I believe Hitachi have a super secret Apple Craptacular division.

Get over yourself and get the PB repaired, it's still under warranty.

 

[Mord]

compareing a 3.5" HD to a stock 2.5" HD is not fair and yes apple should have a 60GB 7200rpm HD as a bto option or even standard

that 7200rpm drive in only marginaly faster than the 5400rpm 80GB one because the speed of the drive is a combination of the amount of data per platter, the number of heads, cache and spindal speed because if the data is more concentrated so the transfer speed is faster assuming the same spindal speed.


a 3.5" drive has many advantages like it can have more platters and heads and with some drives have a 10,000 rpm spindal speed

but dont even think that your 60GB drive will be nearly as fast as a 3.5" drive

the 2.5" drive sacrefices proformence for portability which is what almost every component in any laptop dose.

apples drives are not bad it's only the lack of availability of a 80GB 7200rpm drive which seagade will be introduceing a 100GB and 120GB 7200rpm drives which should be great

 

[keysersoze]

If you take a look ate the Apple store... to upgrade from a 4200 to a 5200 cost you the same thing as a brand new 5400. I mean, you are not paying "the difference" you are paying for an entire new drive at street price!

I got a 7200rpm 60GB for $196.

Which Hitachi did you get? The normal 7200 Travelstar 7K60, or the enhanced e7K60?

Where did you get it from?

How was installation? Any tips? All I know is what I've seen here:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/powerbookG4_12in_HD_upgrade/PowebookG4_12in_HD_upgrade.htm

 

[Flight16]

On the other hand if I upgrade the internal drive (even with an apple tech specialist) I would loose all my warranty in the machine.... un less I get the Apple Care that cost me $300, in that case I can do what ever I feel like it with the machine.

So if I get Apple Care for a PB I might buy, I can mod it, take it apart, and replace all the components I want and apple has to still service it as they normally would if I didn't take it a part or touch it at all? Apple Care doesn't get voided when you crack it open?

Also, would the 5400 drive be that much slower than the 7200 in real world apps? I mean we aren't talking a 4200.

 

[Mord]

no applecare is still void if you mod your mac but replaceing a hard drive is not voiding the warrenty it's just that you have to put your old one back in if it needs to go in for repairs which is a pain.

 

[caseyD]

You've got me worried.

I just ordered a 15 inch powerbook with a gig of memory and 1.5 ghz, but with the 4200. You guys have me thinking that the machine would be useless! For the price difference between the two drives (45 bucks) I didn't expect anything that would be a big deal for that small of an amount of money. So should I through this sucker away as soon as I open up the box this afternoon?

 

[mymemory]

no applecare is still void if you mod your mac but replaceing a hard drive is not voiding the warrenty it's just that you have to put your old one back in if it needs to go in for repairs which is a pain.

Yeah, that is what I meant.

About the speed. I am working with video but really sucks when I am paying for a processor, for a huge amount of ram (1GB+) and still very slow.

I can tell the ram do little to increase the speed over OSX. I just took off the 1GB Module because I thought it was the problem but is not.

Today I was working with the computer running the external drive and it was nice. Then I had to print something and I had to use the internal drive that still operational but very slow and is actually a third of the speed I would say. For soem reason the printers drivers didn't recognize the external drive.

Any way, I have to see about this week to be able to send the unit to Apple and get my drive. 10 days! is what they said.

I told him if I could pay for the difference of the new drive installed BY THEM and they told me "no unless you get Apple Care".

 

[dcollierp]

I just recently replaced the dead 15GB 4200rpm in my iBook with a 40 GB 5400rpm 8MB Buffer Travelstar from ZipZoomFly. I have noticed a big jump in speed when accessing the hard drive. My xBench score went up by 10%.

One would have to compare what speeds other brands of notebooks use. I don't have any idea but I'm sure Apple is on par with others in this respect.

 

[Mord]

Yeah, that is what I meant.

About the speed. I am working with video but really sucks when I am paying for a processor, for a huge amount of ram (1GB+) and still very slow.

I can tell the ram do little to increase the speed over OSX. I just took off the 1GB Module because I thought it was the problem but is not.

Today I was working with the computer running the external drive and it was nice. Then I had to print something and I had to use the internal drive that still operational but very slow and is actually a third of the speed I would say. For soem reason the printers drivers didn't recognize the external drive.

Any way, I have to see about this week to be able to send the unit to Apple and get my drive. 10 days! is what they said.

I told him if I could pay for the difference of the new drive installed BY THEM and they told me "no unless you get Apple Care".

just do it yourself or get a freind that you trust to do it, or better yet save you cash and just keep useing the external one

a 7200rpm hitachi is only about 25% faster than your current drive in transfer speeds

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

this is exactly what i wanted to know.

my parents bought me a 12" powerbook, which I had planned on upgrading the hard drive to 7200 by myself. However, we bought Apple Care so i have no intention of voiding a three year warranty in the first six months. If i swap the hard drives, is my warranty really void? Or do i just need to switch back to the 4200 if i need repairs? technically my warranty would still be void then wouldn't it? I'd just be "tricking" them? I really want a 7200, you can tell the 4200 is craptastic, and the 5400 costs about as amuch as a new 7200.

 

[iPC]

i upgraded the hdd on my ibook from 4200 to 7200 rpm and i barely noticed. the subsystem (bus and all) is so damned slow as to not make a difference. my xbench score went up about 2 points (small enough to not matter).

maybe the subsystem of the PB is better.

good luck.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Cause that's what Apple give you as standard, even if you pay to upgrade the max they offer is 5400.

Thought I saw a test of the 5400 verses 7200 drive on Barefeats. There was no real difference from what I remember reading.

 

[mymemory]

this is exactly what i wanted to know.

my parents bought me a 12" powerbook, which I had planned on upgrading the hard drive to 7200 by myself. However, we bought Apple Care so i have no intention of voiding a three year warranty in the first six months. If i swap the hard drives, is my warranty really void? Or do i just need to switch back to the 4200 if i need repairs? technically my warranty would still be void then wouldn't it? I'd just be "tricking" them? I really want a 7200, you can tell the 4200 is craptastic, and the 5400 costs about as amuch as a new 7200.

With the Apple Care you CAN switch drives in an Apple autorized dealer, without the Apple Care you can not change any configuration.

 

[mymemory]

Thought I saw a test of the 5400 verses 7200 drive on Barefeats. There was no real difference from what I remember reading.

Well, I am just telling you based on what I have on my desktop.

I have been working with the PB for 3 months already and the speed is not that fast. Opening windows takes time and applications and everything related with taking things from the HD.

Now, I have a regular firewire external drive and I can tell the speed.

I do not know if changing the internal drive is going to make a difference that noticiable, be sure I will post it when I get it done.

By the way... I got a call from Apple costumer support today asking me if I was satisfy with my product ¿? I told the girl ths story and how disapointed I was and she wished me good luck!... how sweet!

 

[Rod Rod]

About the speed. I am working with video but really sucks when I am paying for a processor, for a huge amount of ram (1GB+) and still very slow.

I can tell the ram do little to increase the speed over OSX. I just took off the 1GB Module because I thought it was the problem but is not.

1. If you're serious about working with video, you would never use your laptop's internal drive as your capture scratch. You would also never put your video files on the same hard drive as your operating system.

2. The RAM does make a huge difference in OS X. The place it makes a difference is not in the initial loading of your applications, but in subsequent instances of recalling data that has already been loaded.

The only circumstance where using your laptop's internal drive for storing your video (capture and render) files is if you're using an OfflineRT codec. Then when you're ready to online it, reconnect everything to an external hard drive.

When I have my 12" 1.33GHz PowerBook connected to my 400GB FW RAID (2x200GB RAID 0, 7200RPM 8MB cache), I get a real-time (no render, green bar) preview of four streams of DV.

 

[mymemory]

I know, I have just the software, system and the final files in the PB. Right now I am using the external drive as a main drive and that is my cache as well for everything.

Sometimes I am VJing and I need a fast internal drive.

What is keeping me a bit worry is the heat produced by a faster drive now. If the powerbook can not tolerate a 4200 what about a 7200?

 

[NP3]

When I have my 12" 1.33GHz PowerBook connected to my 400GB FW RAID (2x200GB RAID 0, 7200RPM 8MB cache), I get a real-time (no render, green bar) preview of four streams of DV.

I'm curious....what drive/drives are you using? I'm about to purchase the exact same machine & I'm looking for a good external to do my film work as well.

 

[Anticipat3]

*yawn*....

If resizing a window is twice as fast with an external HD, it's time to upgrade from 128MB of RAM...

Seriously, 95% of laptop users would rather have a significant decrease in heat, noise, and power consumption than an insignificant speed increase. Boot time is pretty insignificant for a machine that I hardly ever reboot, and how often do you copy 20 GB of data back and forth from a laptop?

The 5400 RPM drive in my powerbook is plenty fast... and I have 10,000 RPM SATA Raptors in my PC. If you aren't rebooting it all the time or using it for a scratch disk (as noted above -- this would be foolish anyhow), it isn't going to make a difference. The reason Apple probably chose not to use 7200RPM drives is that the quantities are still quite limited -- and we all know how the folks here complain when their laptop's ship date gets delayed a month.

 

[7on]

Apple is just giving the customers what they want. A 7200RPM drive will definitely drive up the heat. I might upgrade my tibook later with a 7200, depends on if I'm really bogged by the speed. And TiBooks are not de-warrantized by replacing the HD, so I have no worry in that dept.

Some drives fail, some don't. Apple tests them thoroughly. However, since Apple doesn't make them they can't open them up and examine them with a magnifying glass. There's no way to test a computer for how long it'll work after owning it, which is why there's a warranty.

 

[JFreak]

A 7200RPM drive will definitely drive up the heat.

WRONG!

a 7200rpm drive will do less "work" cycles compared to a 4200rpm drive, thus making more "idle" cycles when the two drives are doing the same thing. "idle" cycles consume a lot less power than "work" cycles, so while the greater spindle speed consumes more power, the increased idling will compensate that.

i can tell you from my own personal experience that this is in fact very true and not just a theory. i had a dvi tibook earlier, and it ran very hot - so hot that the paint fell off completely - and the cooling fan was on almost always. i then changed the hard drive to a hitachi 7k60 model when they a year ago became available, and guess what? a miracle happened. the laptop ran so cool ever since that the cooling fan almost never operated after the drive change. i had to really stress the system to constant 80% cpu usage to get the fan blowing.

so yes, the faster hard drive is worth it.

and, who says you cannot compare a 2,5" drive to a 3,5" drive? if the two drives have same capacity, same disk/head count, same spindle speed... guess what? the smaller drive wins. it can seek a lot faster because all data blocks are closer to each other. nowadays seek times are more valuable than pure data throughput (which would be better in the bigger drive. laws of physics again.) but that of course depends how you use it. in real life a 7200rpm 2,5" drive is really close to a 7200rpm 3,5" drive no matter how you compare the two.

(by the way, someone mentioned the "enhanced" hitachi 7k60... that's not so enhanced. it is a server-specced version of the very same drive, that is warrantied to run 24/7 whereas the regular drive is warrantied only for 10 hours a day. how many of you have read the specs? desktop hard drive warranty is void if it's always on.)