Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Just got my 12" iBook!!! and a few questions

chelseasian

chelseasian

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 20, 2004
187
0
New York, NY (Chelsea)
I finally went to the Apple store in SoHo this evening and after spending 1/2 hour debating between the 12" and 14' i finally decided that the 12" would be better for me- since i am using it mostly light stuff- i.e. emails, web surfing and iPhoto and I have a G5 at home to do the heavy stuff.


Anyway, just wondering if it is difficult to upgrade the hard drive- i am thinking of upping it to 80GB and a 5400 rpm HD. iBook comes with 4200 rpm
:( which sucks IMHO.

Thanks guys... you're swell
 
Congratulations.

The HD is not easy to change (edit: and you'll void your warranty if you do it yourself and harm something in the process, I think). Your best bet is to get it changed at an Apple Support/Tech centre. It shouldn't cost more than half an hour of labour, an hour tops. Maybe they even throw in the labour if you buy the HD from them (at a premium, of course). No harm in asking... ;)

Why not go for a 120 GB @ 7200...? :cool:
 
persianpunisher said:
is the speed noticable between the 4200 rpm and the 5400 rpm?
Click to expand...

oh yeah, there's a link to a site that did a test but I don't have the link. I do recall though that it was very noticeable.

Jack
 
JonMaker said:
Remember: faster drives eat more power and give off more heat... Just FYI.
Click to expand...

No! This is largely untrue. Faster drives are largely more energy efficient because they are the newest models. There is next to no difference in the power consumptions on the newer drives compared to old 4200RPM drives.

And yes, there is a huge improvement. I think Anandtech did some reviews on the 7200RPM drives in the PB. The performance gain to 5400RPM is very large. To 7200RPM from 5400RPM is less large. I think if you google, you should be able to find some benchmarks.
 
Ah, but I wouldn't go with the 7200rpm drive, yes it sounds faster but the iBook doesn't have a controller for dealing with drives of that speed, 5400rpm should be the fastest you put in an iBook, yes it'll work but you won't see any difference in speed.

PowerBooks can handle a 7200rpm drive.
 
If somebody was to get a faster external hard drive, would that be adequate? I dont want to go to the trouble and risk in changing the inbuilt 4200 drive.
 
Project said:
If somebody was to get a faster external hard drive, would that be adequate? I dont want to go to the trouble and risk in changing the inbuilt 4200 drive.
Click to expand...

depending on interface and drive type, it sometimes doesn't make a difference. i have a 10,500rpm drive running on a FireWire 800 port. it's quicker than a squirrel after a vindaloo. if you get a stock external drive look carefully at the specs - it may not be up to the job.

remember - FIREWIRE! if you get USB2 you may have a few problems, for example USB2 can't cope with scratch drive use in FCP. put a full DV file on one, even 500mb and it falls apart, because of the bus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back