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iMac 333 internal hard drive question

J

jonmichael23

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 14, 2003
14
0
Red Bud, Illinois
I have an iMac 333 with the original 6 GB hard drive. I was wondering if it would be wise to install an internal drive. The one I'm looking at is the WD800JB Western Digital 80 GB EIDE Ultra-ATA 100 7,200 RPM 8 MB Buffer. I found it for 70 dollars and was wondering if that would be a good idea. I was also concerned how it would look on the front of my iMac since the original hard drive matches the blueberry iMac. Thank you for any help :D
 
Hmm.. the "front of the drive" that you mention is the CD-ROM drive... you'll be keeping that. You should have no problem swapping out drives. Do set the WD HDD to be "master" instead of "cable select" or else it may have trouble in sleep mode. (from doing the same to a iMac 350).
 
Does the iMac's IDE controller even support ATA 100, or does it only support ATA 33 or ATA 66 ?

Physically, can it handle the extra vibrations of 7200 RPM ?

My Mac is an iMac333 (lime green), so I'm curious too.
 
Yes. If you need more space (and with only 6 gigs you probably do) that's a good drive and a good price.

If you run OS X, make a partition on the drive smaller than 8GB and install the OS there.

Why are you concerned with how the drive will look if it's internal? Nobody will see it.
 
personally, i'd say go external. tho that's a good price. but you're going to be upgrading before too terribly long, and this way you don't worry about swapping the old HD back in to resell the old iMac. or, simply taking it out to use in the new computer.

wait, does that have firewire?

hmm

paul
 
Originally posted by MarkCollette
Does the iMac's IDE controller even support ATA 100, or does it only support ATA 33 or ATA 66 ?

Physically, can it handle the extra vibrations of 7200 RPM ?

My Mac is an iMac333 (lime green), so I'm curious too.
Click to expand...

ATA is backwards compatible, Anything ATA (except serial ATA of course) works fine.

7200 rpm drives are fine. I ahve one in mine right now, and know lots of people with 7200 rpm drives in their slot loading and tray loading iMacs.

instructins here: http://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/

Not perfect instructions, but give you a pretty good idea.
 
I dont know what i was thinking about it being the cd-rom drive and affecting how that looks lol. Glad to hear that this will work and that it supports 7,200 rpm. I'm also getting a 600 mhz processor upgrade as well! Has anyone done this? It will make panther run a whole lot better i hope. Thanks for all your replies! They were very helpful :)
 
Originally posted by strider42
ATA is backwards compatible, Anything ATA (except serial ATA of course) works fine.

7200 rpm drives are fine. I ahve one in mine right now, and know lots of people with 7200 rpm drives in their slot loading and tray loading iMacs.

instructins here: http://www.macworld.com/2001/10/bc/howtoimac/

Not perfect instructions, but give you a pretty good idea.
Click to expand...

Yes, but if it can only take advantage of slower speed, then maybe it's not worth paying more for a faster drive, which would only go to waste.

- Mark
 
hard drives are all pretty cheap now and all have the same specs or close. so based on that nothing would be going to waste other than the speed but the only other option would be to buy an older used drive and they are all small like the one he is taking out. I got the same drive he wants to get only its a 120GB. even though its on the same ata 33 bus its still a bit faster on external operation (opening an app etc.) but the internal operation of it (duplicating a file etc.) is over 3 times faster. I can duplicate a 705MB file on the new drive in about 43 sec. where my old 6GB 5400 rpm took just over 3 min.
 
Originally posted by jonmichael23
I dont know what i was thinking about it being the cd-rom drive and affecting how that looks lol. Glad to hear that this will work and that it supports 7,200 rpm. I'm also getting a 600 mhz processor upgrade as well! Has anyone done this? It will make panther run a whole lot better i hope. Thanks for all your replies! They were very helpful :)
Click to expand...

I think I'd draw the line before a processor upgrade on that computer. Panther will run very well on that computer (if you've been using Jaguar you'll definitely notice a difference) and the faster drive with 8MB cache will help. You can put 512MB RAM into it as well. I'm not sure the difference between 333 and 600mhz will be all that great. For the same money you could sell your iMac and buy a newer one--DV or something. Think about all your options.
 
Originally posted by Horrortaxi
Yes. If you need more space (and with only 6 gigs you probably do) that's a good drive and a good price.

If you run OS X, make a partition on the drive smaller than 8GB and install the OS there.

Why are you concerned with how the drive will look if it's internal? Nobody will see it.
Click to expand...

to save you some time, i would make the boot partition about 7.5. when i did mine at exactly 8, i ran into time-consuming problems doing the x install. it told me the partition was too big, but only after a great deal of time giving it the good college try.

i have mine setup using aliases, so my home directory is on the boot partition, but all my files (sans apps) are on the bigger, second partition.
 
i agree with horrortaxi. a new HD (esp. if you're upping the rpms to 7200) and some more RAM will make a snappy difference, but you might want to hold off on a processor upgrade -- at that point, you may want to consider sinking your money into a new system. you can get your firewire and a faster ATA bus in addition to a faster processor.

of course, i'm not really one to talk as i've already spent more on upgrades than my cube cost in the first place. but c'mon.... it's a cube!

also: you might be able to do better than $70 for that drive. within the past 2 weeks i've bought a comparable seagate 80gb for $60, and a samsung 120gb for $75.
 
Originally posted by Horrortaxi
Yes. If you need more space (and with only 6 gigs you probably do) that's a good drive and a good price.

If you run OS X, make a partition on the drive smaller than 8GB and install the OS there.

Why are you concerned with how the drive will look if it's internal? Nobody will see it.
Click to expand...

just wondering why you say to run osx on a partition of 8GB or smaller? does it improve performance? what if any are the advantages?
 
Originally posted by blue&whiteman
just wondering why you say to run osx on a partition of 8GB or smaller? does it improve performance? what if any are the advantages?
Click to expand...

its a requirement on tray loading iMacs. the OS must be ont eh first 8 gigs of the drive, and OS X must reside on a partition that is wholly contained withinthe first 8 gigs. It won't boot if you put it outside that threshold.
 
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