Powerbook hard drive upgrades...

[bluewox]

I'm trying to decide between the 12" pb combodrive base model or BTO with the 80gig 5400 drive. I'm not going to be doing much video till next, summer. Do you think its worth the uppgrade now — its $181 CAD with tax to upgrade — or next summer, when my cashflow is more secure, buy a 7200 RPM drive drive for it and then stick the 60 in a fw case...

Any thoughts?

 

[SolidGun]

Paying that extra money for HDD upgrade is as much as buying that HDD. When you swap the stock model out, all you have to do is get a $15(US) Mobile HDD USB2.0 case and use it as an external HDD with other stuff.
However, 4200rpm drive that comes with PB is ever so slow.

 

[thekid055]

Paying that extra money for HDD upgrade is as much as buying that HDD. When you swap the stock model out, all you have to do is get a $15(US) Mobile HDD USB2.0 case and use it as an external HDD with other stuff.
However, 4200rpm drive that comes with PB is ever so slow.

Is it really THAT slow compared to the 5400 drive?!?!?!

The upgrade is a bit much! I already have an 80GB firewire drive that i use with my windows machine. Would I have to reformat this to be able to hook it up to the PB that I don't have yet but am considering getting in the next few weeks?

 

[Bozola]

This should answer it..
Look at Question 2..

http://www.barefeats.com/pb12.html

 

[bluewox]

yes but it is not just a $50 upgrade....

and next summer the 7200rpm 2.5 drives should have matured considerably...

and thats 158 for the upgrade not indluding taxes...

And this is pricing for other hds now in toronto.

Fujitsu*60GB Laptop HDD 4200rpm$173
Toshiba 60GB Laptop HDD 4200rpm$172

Toshiba 80GB Laptop HDD 5400rpm $253
Fujitsu*80GB Laptop HDD 5400rpm $255

Hitachi Travelstar 60GB Laptop HDD 7200rpm, 8MB cache (7K60) $335
Hitachi Travelstar 60GB Laptop HDD 7200rpm, 8MB cache (E7K60) $369


Also, does anyone know the actual specs on the BTO hd from apple cuase i'm having a hard time finding them...

 

[virividox]

if you can, get the biggest and fastest drive your wallet can allow

 

[SolidGun]

I have seen the Powerbook HDD speed test.....I know that application loading and startup time isn't a huge concern since Mac is designed to sleep and the Apps are running most of that time. Where I notice significant lack of speed is from copying files. When I transferred 20GB of music to PB it took forever (like 3 hours) with the stock HDD. It took less time on 5400RPM HDD that I used on my friend's PB with same specs.

Also, if you do get larger, faster drives, they may use more battery. I say "may" because it will depend on what you do with it.