TiBook HD and Bundled Apps

[Anna]

I am going to buy the new 1.25GHz PB when they arrive down here but does anyone have any advice on what HD I should get? there is the 4200 or the 5400rpm? and also should I wait till' panther is bundled with it before making my purchase?

thanks in advance!

 

[Ramsos]

I'm not sure what HD you should get but I guess it depends on what you will be using it for, I suppose you should get the 5400 if your doing a lot of video work. I don't think its neccessary though because I have a Tibook 800 with a 60 gig 4200 rpm drive that I use for video all the time with FCP and I have never had a problem. BTW the new 15" is not a Tibook its an Albook good luck-RAM

 

[jamall]

You could either pay the extra A$220 for the 5400rpm model, or you could go for the base 60Gb 4200rpm model, save A$132 and replace it with something like the Toshiba 60Gb 5400rpm with 16Mb buffer for US$210 from OWC or the Hitachi/IBM 60Gb 7K60 at 7200rpm for US$310, putting your original drive in a portable enclosure. The first option works out costing about the same, only you get two drives, one of them fairly fast, and the second option works out about A$150 more than the Apple solution, for two drives, one of them blazing fast. I'd be looking to third parties in the US for memory as well.

 

[Ramsos]

I think the 1.25 comes with an 80 gig drive standard not 60.

 

[GrizzlyHippo]

7200 drive

I've ordered the 15" 1.25 PB with the standard HD and also a Hitachi/IBM 60Gb 7K60 HD (7200rpm) as well as an external Weibetech mini FW enclosure.

When the PB arrives, I'll put the 60GB 7200 HD into the PB and install the 80GB OEM drive into the FW case for a backup and storage drive.

The 7200 HD gives a very good and very noticable speed increase - see reviews at barefeats.com and xlr8yourmac.com

Good luck,
Grizzly

 

[Ramsos]

Do you think that 7200 rpm drive will give you heat problems? Just wondering because my tibook has me a little toasty right now. Sounds like a great drive.

 

[reflex]

I think the 5400rpm drives are too expensive at the moment (kind of like buying ram upgrades from Apple). In most uses I don't think you'll actually need the extra speed.

This might (or might not) be a good rule of thumb: if you don't know that you need it, you don't need it (add grain of salt as applicable).

As for your second question, I for one won't buy a new mac until Panther is released. But I don't need a new mac at the moment.

 

[GrizzlyHippo]

Originally posted by Ramsos
Do you think that 7200 rpm drive will give you heat problems? Just wondering because my tibook has me a little toasty right now. Sounds like a great drive.

By all accounts it runs cooler than the 5400 drives around at the moment. And it is also quieter. I did some reading a few days ago on xlr8yourmac.com which convinced me. Take a look.

Since the PB update was not earth shattering (i.e. 1.6 G4's or some sort of G5), I'm putting in 1Gb ram (2x512) until 1Gb modules come down in price and I'm putting in the fastest HD to get the maximum speed out of the new PB from the off.

As a side note you should also consider using a 3rd party formatting software to format the HD as this can again increase the performance of the HD over the standard Apple formatting. Again, I found this info on barefeats.com or xlr8yourmac.com - can't remember which, sorry. Found it http://www.barefeats.com/fire23.html

Now with the hardware nailed down, I've just got to choose the correct bag...

Grizzly

 

[cb911]

wow. i didn't know you could put a 7200rpm drive in a notebook. isn't the vibration too much? wouldn't that be riskier when writing to HD, and the risk of it getting bumped?

putting a 7200rpm HD in a PowerBook would sure help it live upto it's status of "desktop replacement".