laptop hard drive?


Recommended Posts

i want a powerbook, but this question goes out to anybody, really...

i have found the following 2 drives:

a 5400rpm, 2.5" hard drive with 16mb buffer and

a 7200rpm, 2.5" hard drive with 8mb buffer.

a few questions:

which would you get?

is there anyway to put it in the apple notebook without voiding the warranty, applecare or one-year?

couldn't find a review for the 16mb buffer one, but for the 7200rpm one:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view....693&cid=10&pg=1

as you can see, it doesn't seem to use much power, but i don't know what the standard drive is on the powerbook, i just know the performance is horrible, as is the case with most 4200rpm hard drives. i could get the 5400rpm, but why, if this is faster and uses about teh same amount of power?

if i can't get it without voiding the warranty, screw it ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can only answer your later question, I'll leave the hardware stuff to experts :)

You just open up Disk Utility (either from within the OS, or from the Install CD) and create a partition from there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My 12" powerbook G4 has a 40GB 4200RPM hdd but it's the older model. For the newer one check www.apple.com/uk. I would suggest going for a lower speed drive because - as i am sure you have heard - the G4 PBooks get VERY hot. The cause of this is the hdd. A word of warning: on my powerbook there is no way to replace the hdd without completely opening the case. This will probably viod any warantees you have on it.

If you manage to get the drive installed then you can boot the machine with the OSX cd and just install it onto the new hard drive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thanks cerbero. when i installed osx, i didn't pay much attention to it installing. and i only needed to do it once. unlike a more popular operating system, but i can't think of it's name *cough*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My 12" powerbook G4 has a 40GB 4200RPM hdd but it's the older model. For the newer one check www.apple.com/uk. I would suggest going for a lower speed drive because - as i am sure you have heard - the G4 PBooks get VERY hot. The cause of this is the hdd. A word of warning: on my powerbook there is no way to replace the hdd without completely opening the case. This will probably viod any warantees you have on it.

If you manage to get the drive installed then you can boot the machine with the OSX cd and just install it onto the new hard drive.

i live in the us, but ok :-P

i was gonna get a 15.2". as for heat, the 7200rpm is only a few degrees warmer than a 5400 or 4200rpm drive, it's one of the last pages of the review.

as long as nothing explodes, i'm happy.

as for the warranty, i was just hoping i could take it to like an apple store or authorized apple repair place or what not and have them install the drive for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing that Apple has done WRONG with the current generation of notebooks is that they have made it VERY difficult to get to the hard drive and optical drives. The absolute best models they ever made in this regard were the G3 PowerBooks. I can literally change out the hard drive in my Pismo in under 5 minutes, removing about 6 screws.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's wrong with the 5400 RPM drive that you can get in the PowerBooks?

Do you NEED 7200 RPM? 5400 is perfectly fine for most tasks, and same with 4200 RPM! Horrible performance? I don't see any problems. If you're that impatient and can't wait an extra half a second or so... :rolleyes:

harddrive.jpg

You can get that in your PowerBook, 5400 RPM and 80GB... more than enough, and you don't have to void your warranty, because you will, no matter what.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's wrong with the 5400 RPM drive that you can get in the PowerBooks?

Do you NEED 7200 RPM? 5400 is perfectly fine for most tasks, and same with 4200 RPM! Horrible performance? I don't see any problems. If you're that impatient and can't wait an extra half a second or so... :rolleyes:

http://pics.qvdonline.com/harddrive.jpg

You can get that in your PowerBook, 5400 RPM and 80GB... more than enough, and you don't have to void your warranty, because you will, no matter what.

looking at the various benchmarks of apple notebooks, the jump in performance from 4200 to 5400 is quite nice, and would be even better with 7200rpm.

but, since it doesn't look like i can put it in without voiding the warranty, i'll just get the 5400rpm bto'd from apple.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.