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i need a 7200rpm HD for my 667 TiBook.

cb911

cb911

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 12, 2002
4,134
4
BrisVegas, Australia
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.
 
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!?!
 
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.
 
what!!! no 7200rpm notebook HDs???!!

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....
 
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
 
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.......
 
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.
 
From zippy to Slow?

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.
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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).
 
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).
Click to expand...

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

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.
 
I suppose it easy when you get a few games and big apps like 400mb each it goes kinda quick
 
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.
 
that really bothers me!

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!
 
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.
 
Thanks Alpha Tech~

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!
 
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.
 
louder!>?

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!
 
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
 
ibm and toshiba

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.
 
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.
 
sheesh

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>
 
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