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upgrade iBook? or not?

P

penguy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 20, 2007
379
8
CA
My cousin has just upgraded her computers (new unibody Macbook Pros) and had an older iBook lying around. I had already installed 1.5 gb ram in it, so that is good (it is a 12" G4 with 1.3 ghz), but it only has a 40 gb HD. Is it worth it to buy a new 160 gb- 250 gb 5400 RPM drive?

It's running Tiger, not Leopard, but for the most part, that seems to be just fine with the G4s (my older Mini still runs Tiger as well).

Advice? Skip it and live with the 40gb drive? I was planning on giving it to my son to use as he enters high school to get an idea as to whether he will really need a laptop at all at this point.

Thanks..
 
penguy said:
My cousin has just upgraded her computers (new unibody Macbook Pros) and had an older iBook lying around. I had already installed 1.5 gb ram in it, so that is good (it is a 12" G4 with 1.3 ghz), but it only has a 40 gb HD. Is it worth it to buy a new 160 gb- 250 gb 5400 RPM drive?

It's running Tiger, not Leopard, but for the most part, that seems to be just fine with the G4s (my older Mini still runs Tiger as well).

Advice? Skip it and live with the 40gb drive? I was planning on giving it to my son to use as he enters high school to get an idea as to whether he will really need a laptop at all at this point.

Thanks..
Click to expand...

I think iBooks use the (older) PATA interface. Last I knew, there are no 160-250GB+ PATA drives, I could be wrong though. Personally, I don't see a need to upgrade. After installing Leopard, I was able to trim my installation down to under 5GB by slimming the OS down to one language and one architecture, along with killing the sleep file.
 
Stachelsk said:
I think iBooks use the (older) PATA interface. Last I knew, there are no 160-250GB+ PATA drives, I could be wrong though. Personally, I don't see a need to upgrade. After installing Leopard, I was able to trim my installation down to under 5GB by slimming the OS down to one language and one architecture, along with killing the sleep file.
Click to expand...

It's got Tiger loaded now, and I don't have any Leopard disks (I doubt my disks from my new Mini will work). Can you trim down Tiger in the same way? I would agree with you, but after deleting some things, it only has about 10 gb free. Not really enough for the amount of music my son has!

Also, according to OWC, you can get up to 320 gb (only 5400 rpm, but that is still substantially better than the 4200 original) for all pre 2006 apple laptops.
 
I used the same model iBook G4, with the same specs for over a year as my main machine. I only used about 25 GB of the 40 GB HDD, I wouldn't really worry about replacing it unless your son has a large movie/music collection.
 
penguy said:
It's got Tiger loaded now, and I don't have any Leopard disks (I doubt my disks from my new Mini will work). Can you trim down Tiger in the same way? I would agree with you, but after deleting some things, it only has about 10 gb free. Not really enough for the amount of music my son has!

Also, according to OWC, you can get up to 320 gb (only 5400 rpm, but that is still substantially better than the 4200 original) for all pre 2006 apple laptops.
Click to expand...

Google, and download/run, Monolingual. Go into the preferences mode, and make sure that you add the directories /usr, /bin, and /sbin... I forgot how to unhide these folders from the root directory, but google it and you'll probably get an answer. Also, since you're running a PPC processor, you can select to trim languages and architectures of your /System folder as well.

Next, select all of the languages you want to remove (e.g. I only leave English and English (United States) unchecked), and hit slim. Then go over to the architectures tab, and only leave your processor unchecked, slim again. All in all, that should remove a couple of gigs.

Google and figure out how to disable the creation of a sleepfile when the iBook goes to sleep. (using pmset)... then delete /var/vm/sleepimage - that'll give you another 1.5GB.

Futuremore, I go throughout the drive and delete things like /Library/Documentation, /Library/Receipts/*, /System/Library/CoreServices/SetupAssistant and other unnecessary things. Some people warn it's not save to slim and delete things in the /System folder, but I did and I've never experienced a crash or anything odd.

Just keep searching around the hard drive for things to delete... when it's all said and done, you can really cut down on the space. On my Leopard's main drive, I have Leopard (English only, no rosetta support), x86 developer tools, MS Office '08, and VMware Fusion, along with a few other small apps, and cross compilers for other platforms)... and it all fits into 5.5GB.
 
penguy said:
It's got Tiger loaded now, and I don't have any Leopard disks (I doubt my disks from my new Mini will work). Can you trim down Tiger in the same way? I would agree with you, but after deleting some things, it only has about 10 gb free. Not really enough for the amount of music my son has!

Also, according to OWC, you can get up to 320 gb (only 5400 rpm, but that is still substantially better than the 4200 original) for all pre 2006 apple laptops.
Click to expand...

I would suggest buying your son an external portable hard drive. That way, he can back up his machine every so often, he can store his music collection on there too (and whatever else he wants), and can use it for the future when he next upgrades to transfer files or information.
 
I have to agree with the above,

the addition of an external hard drive is a good recommendation. It is in the long run a much cheaper option

I have to say, talk to him and found out exaterly what he is going to use it for, e.g. just essays and music, or some serious Graphics work and a replacement for a computer (but its maybe a little too young for that, but the future maybe).

But the fact its a External hard drive means he can continually use it in the future, and the back up option is a big plus.

Buy the External Hard drive, ultimatly more conviniant, cheaper, and can be used again on a newer laptop. :)


Birkett
 
penguy said:
My cousin has just upgraded her computers (new unibody Macbook Pros) and had an older iBook lying around. I had already installed 1.5 gb ram in it, so that is good (it is a 12" G4 with 1.3 ghz), but it only has a 40 gb HD. Is it worth it to buy a new 160 gb- 250 gb 5400 RPM drive?

It's running Tiger, not Leopard, but for the most part, that seems to be just fine with the G4s (my older Mini still runs Tiger as well).

Advice? Skip it and live with the 40gb drive? I was planning on giving it to my son to use as he enters high school to get an idea as to whether he will really need a laptop at all at this point.

Thanks..
Click to expand...

I have an iBook G4 with a 30Gb HD and was facing the same question a few months ago, the total cost of a 320 GB HD installed from a Mac Certified store was around $300 or so, plus I still had the PowerPC chip. The guy at the store made a good point, being i have the older PowerPC chip it will eventually not be able to handle new programs as they will be geared toward the Intel chips, so I ended up deciding to get a Macbook.

I lucked out and got one from Best Buy that as returned, had no battery, just the Macbook and the power cords, I paid $549, got 18 months same as cash, then went to the Apple store, used my education discount and spent $116 on a battery and it works great! i did up the RAM to 4GB myself for about $60.

So maybe check out Best Buy and any displays models or open box deals they may have.
 
Depends on what it will be used for. If your son will be doing consumer level applications (livin' the iLife) and won't need it for anything too intensive, it may be worth it to stick in a larger IDE hard drive:

1. The current hard drive is at least 4-5 years old, and will be nearing the end of it's lifespan statistically.

2. The drive, besides being larger, will be faster.

3. There's a couple of good sites online that tell you how to maximize an older machine for maximum performance under 10.4 or 10.5, most of which involve turning off or disabling ram and processor draining eye-candy and unneeded features.

4. www.ifixit.com has a good guide to replacing a hard drive on the ibooks. If you think you've got the technical skill to do it yourself and not break anything, it's definitely worth it. If you have to pay someone to do it, you may be better off keeping the original hard drive.
 
RDM3 said:
I have an iBook G4 with a 30Gb HD and was facing the same question a few months ago, the total cost of a 320 GB HD installed from a Mac Certified store was around $300 or so, plus I still had the PowerPC chip. The guy at the store made a good point, being i have the older PowerPC chip it will eventually not be able to handle new programs as they will be geared toward the Intel chips, so I ended up deciding to get a Macbook.

I lucked out and got one from Best Buy that as returned, had no battery, just the Macbook and the power cords, I paid $549, got 18 months same as cash, then went to the Apple store, used my education discount and spent $116 on a battery and it works great! i did up the RAM to 4GB myself for about $60.

So maybe check out Best Buy and any displays models or open box deals they may have.
Click to expand...

I can see your point, but in my case, the iBook is free, so, I can leave it as is, which is decent, but with limited storage, or, for $60 or so, I could upgrade to a hard drive with triple the storage and 25% faster. The external is a good idea, but takes a little bit from the portability of the computer.
 
penguy said:
I can see your point, but in my case, the iBook is free, so, I can leave it as is, which is decent, but with limited storage, or, for $60 or so, I could upgrade to a hard drive with triple the storage and 25% faster. The external is a good idea, but takes a little bit from the portability of the computer.
Click to expand...

I still say skip the install and buy a portable HD, you can get a 250gb for about $80 or go all out and get a 500gb for $119 at Best Buy.
 
RDM3 said:
I have an iBook G4 with a 30Gb HD and was facing the same question a few months ago, the total cost of a 320 GB HD installed from a Mac Certified store was around $300 or so, **snip**
Click to expand...

Wow and I only charge $30 to change out hard drives in iBooks.... :eek:

But yeah It's definitely worth it to change out that hard drive. Check out the online sites like ifixit.com for guides. It's easier than you think ;).
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Wow and I only charge $30 to change out hard drives in iBooks.... :eek:

But yeah It's definitely worth it to change out that hard drive. Check out the online sites like ifixit.com for guides. It's easier than you think ;).
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone. I'm not worried about changing the drive, I have always performed my own upgrades, whether PC or Apple. I'll consider the external.

In the meantime, I deleted the other languages, upgraded iLife, and found a directory titled 'previous systems' which I also deleted (6 gb!!). So now I have close to 16 gb free, plus some 5gb of my cousins music which I will delete giving me nearly 21 gb free. I think this will do for his purposes, at least for now.

thanks again.
 
penguy said:
Thanks everyone. I'm not worried about changing the drive, I have always performed my own upgrades, whether PC or Apple. I'll consider the external.

In the meantime, I deleted the other languages, upgraded iLife, and found a directory titled 'previous systems' which I also deleted (6 gb!!). So now I have close to 16 gb free, plus some 5gb of my cousins music which I will delete giving me nearly 21 gb free. I think this will do for his purposes, at least for now.

thanks again.
Click to expand...

Where did you find the "previous systems" at?
 
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