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Replacement Powerbook HD?

tobio

tobio

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 5, 2004
146
0
London
My second powerbook hard drive has died now (It is still working but has become so erratic that I can hardly ever boot the machine now) I was wondering if anyone knew of a good brand of 2.5" hard disks? RELIABILITY is the key for me here, price is not.

After my previous experiance with apple support (see some of my other posts) there is no way on earth I would let them get their hands on my laptop, so my second question is how easy is it to open up a powerbook 15" and fit a new hard disk in. or... would an apple store genius be willing to fit a hard disk in that i didn't buy from them "while I wait"? (there is no way it is leaving my sight or being sent anywhere)

I hope some of you guys have had experiance with this, and I eagerly await your responses.
 
I love my Hitachi travelstar 40 gig 5400 rpm in my tibook. SO QUIET I CANNOT HEAR WHEN IT IS ON.
 
@California: I was looking at those Hitachi ones and they seem to be quite reasonably priced... how long have you had it in your iBook and how often do you travel with it?
 
Wouldn't suggest travelstar.....

I had a travelstar which I bought about 2.5 yrs ago. It just died. I thought it would have lasted longer than this. However I never put my laptop to sleep. Only when I traveled. But I always but the HD to sleep.

Anyways search around, but I wouldn't suggest a travelstar...

Nuc
 
I highly reccomened the Hitatchi 5Kxx series (i.e. a 80 GB drive @5400 RPM is a 5K80)
they come in a lot of sizes, and according to the specs have double the load/unload cycle of most drives. to extend life, try increasing the time until spindown (10 min. not one min.) so it's not start stop start stop * 100 every night. Also extreme hear (car windows) and dropping them never helps... :p )
 
well 2.5 years would be great considering i have had about 3-6 months from my stock apple ones. I think the current one is western digital and the last one may have been toshiba both 80gig. I guess i have just been unlucky as I dont think I have been particulary abusing my powerbook, like moving it when it is on. It's alway asleep when I travel, and i have never dropped it or given it any serious knocks.

I would imagine that most iPods go through much more punishment in their lifetime compared to my laptop, and if they only lasted 6 months at a time no one would buy them. They are just a laptop hard disk with a screen and headphone socket, so reliability must be possible.

If there is a "holy grail" manufacturer or range of particularly robust hard disks then I would love to hear of it.
 
TOBLO

Had the Hitachi since August. NO problems. Since I kept the brand new stock drive Apple sent me at the same time they replaced other things under warranty that month, I have their NOISY Fijistu 10gig drive plugged in to my PB via USB. It is a noisy slow fiend and the Fujitsu original drive they had in the PB was replaced. I have since put Hitachis in two older iMacs with grand successtoo on their Deskstar. Thre three year warranty is also a plus.

Oh yeah and I take my PB out regularly on for lengthy interviews. I don't like moving the Tibook that much (ALs and Titaniums are "portables" but not "laptops" according to Apple) but the hd works like a champ. I am thinking of upgrading to Hitachi's 7k60 but am so pleased with the 5400 rpm drive and how darn quiet it is, I may just keep things as they are.
 
If i didn't have to buy some new glasses, a Hitachi travelstar would be on its way to me as we speak! I know a few people with the deskstar hard drives, and although there was a period a few years ago where they had a bad name IBM/Hitachi apparently at the time admitted there was a defect in them and replaced them. I have in the meantime reformatted my powerbook, but everything work related was backed up, so i have not lost anything critical, only inconvieniant. I will probably get a stock mac mini at some point, and shift this 80gig into there, then use the 40 or whatever capacity comes in that to go into my firewall pc. Both this powerbook and my last one were toshiba hard disks, so i guess they are the ones to be wary of at the moment.
 
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