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IBM TravelStar 60GB in rev a TiBook

AlphaTech

AlphaTech

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2001
4,556
0
Natick, MA
Alright all you Mac speed freaks.. I have FINALLY installed my brand spankin new 60GB hard drive into my PowerBook G4 and am ready to give you the skinny.

First impressions... the speed is there, man is it there. Compared to the 20GB Toshiba drive that was in there before it is very noticeable. I did copy the entire contents of that drive off to my external 30GB Firewire drive (VST/SmartDisk titanium/thin) so that I wouldn't loose anything. I have had to copy some items back, to get my email there, as well as chat engines. I forgot to export my bookmarks, so I had to search for them (was able to get them back).

The install of the drive took all of maybe 10 minutes from the time I flipped it over until I was powering it back up. I decided to ONLY install OSX on it this time, so that I would be forced to only run native software. I was planning on doing that eventually, so I figured now was as good a time as any. I am not yet sure where I got the largest speed boost, either the OSX only, or just the hard drive. Either way, I am glad for both. I will be getting some real testing done over the next few days so that I can give better numbers for just how fast it has become.

One thing I have noticed, startup and shutdown speeds have increased by about 2x-3x what they were with the old drive.

More info to follow as I can do more testing... I will be installing OS X native versions of Bryce, Illustrator, Nav and Toast next...
 
I was brighteyed like a kid on Christmas when my 30 gig Travelstar arrived...

but 60 gigs!!! :D

I am salivating right now as I type this...u gotta keep us posted to let us know how the performance is!
 
3 Words for You

WOW! That is such a big frigin drive. I want to hear your thoughts on it. How hot is your tibook now?
In my G4, I have an 18GB Ultra SCSI Drive, but it is soooo loud.
 
illustrator 10 is *so* slow

although I have to admit timing doc open times in AI 9 and AI 10, 10 beats 9, but for everything else I see a lag in 10. and the symbol brush is almost unusable unless you have really good control over the mouse while it works so slowly
 
I will be seeing how Ill10 performs on this new drive, under OS X ONLY... I didn't install OS 9 at all.. no classic mode, period.
 
Alpha, how fast would you say your new Travelstar is in comparison to your Firewire drive? And your old drive in comparison to the Firewire drive as well. Do you have any concrete MB/sec transfer rate figures?

Also, how noisy is the Travelstar, and how noisy was your old drive?

Just curious as adding a new HD (Firewire or internal) is something I'd like to do sometime in the future.

Alex
 
Buyin

I am looking to buy a 60/80 GB 7200RPM/IBM or Maxtor or Western Digital Hard Drive. But first, I need to get the new computer. I am looking for something with L3 Cache, such as an 867/933 G4. The DP is too expensive. I think I am holding off to MWNY though, to see what is released.
 
The 60GB TravelStar is not generating any more heat then the 20GB Toshiba that was in the TiBook before. At least not noticeably so.

The Firewire drive that I was using is not a good comparison, considering how that is an external device and at lower rpm then my internal now.

The old drive was virtually silent, and the new drive can only be heard when you are actively writing to it. You get an occasional click and whir, but that is about all. Not at all bad considering that the IBM drive is spinning at 5400 rpm, and the Toshiba was only 4200.

I have some numbers, but I won't be able to post them until tomorrow (when I can put up screen shots as well). If anyone has a drive speed testing utility that they would like for me to use, post it in here and I will give it a go. Only ones that run under OS X please, since I will not be installing 9/classic at all.

The new drive is considerably faster, at least my initial perceptions of that are holding up after over six hours of running it. I will post more info as I can.
 
whoa man!

you got the new drive installed in 10 minutes! i thought that TiBook hard drives were really hard to install. do you do this sort of thing very often?
 
Re: whoa man!

Originally posted by cb911
you got the new drive installed in 10 minutes! i thought that TiBook hard drives were really hard to install. do you do this sort of thing very often?
Click to expand...

Considering that this was not the first time I have opened up a TiBook, it wasn't too hard to do. I also have read the instructions about taking the bottom plate off of the computer, and the proper procedure to follow in doing so. I also have all the different screw drivers that I needed (both philips and torx head). If you don't have the torx 7, 8, 9, and 10 drivers, I wouldn't do this. You will need them in order to pull the old drive out, as well as install the new one. The philips is for the bottom screws (I believe it is a #0 or a #1 size).

This is also part of what I do on a daily basis, depending on the circumstances. I work on a wide range of systems, from the original iMac all the way up to the current G4 towers and laptops. I am also waiting for the new iMac's to arrive (soon I hope) where I work. I want to open one of those up and see what makes it click.
 
Originally posted by krossfyter
Congrats Alphatech!

Maybe this question already has been answered but..


what are you doing with the old hard drive?
Click to expand...

Thanks....

I plan to be purchasing an external FireWire enclosure for my old hard drive in the coming month or so and connecting it to my system that way. With that, I will chain my two other FireWire drives and have a total of 90GB outside the computer, along with the 60GB inside :D... Memory and storage are two things you can never have too much of.
 
Ok,

Here are a few screen shots of the initial testing that I have done with the new drive inside my TiBook. I will be getting NSW2 by the end of the month, and I will run them again. If anyone has specific OSX native tests that they would like me to run, let me know (email me).

image one, more to follow...
 

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