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i need a 7200rpm HD for my 667 TiBook.

Where is Onyxx.?

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!
 
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).
 
WHAT!>?

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?
 
Re: WHAT!>?

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?
Click to expand...

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).
 
The light dawns on yet another day!

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!
 
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).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
onyxx~

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.
 
ok, let me get this straight......

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?
 
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 $$.
 
good news/bad news

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 ;) ).
 
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