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MPMoriarty · Jan 25, 2004, 06:20 PM

I will be getting a brand new 14" iBook G4 and I was curious about the hard drive it uses inside.

I assume it is a 4200rpm drive. Well, is it worth voiding your warranty and upgrading the hard drive inside to like a 5400rpm or even a 7200rpm?

Will I see a decent size performance boost overall?

Or would I be better off (safer even) just purchasing an external firewire hard drive and using that to save all my data on.

Key applications I will plan on installing and using...

Photoshop
Adobe Acrobat Pro
MS Office

Thanks for all your guy's help,

Mike

ou_bobcat · Jan 25, 2004, 06:26 PM

I would say leave the 4200 in there and get a 7200 fw drive. i just dont think its worth it to void your warranty on a brand new machine.

m_young · Jan 25, 2004, 06:33 PM

I'd definately have to agree... I won't be cracking this baby open until applecare is no more. Just not worth it.

MPMoriarty · Jan 25, 2004, 07:03 PM

Thanks everyone for the quick help.

Alright, I think I will not tinker with replacing my iBook's hard drive. Maybe I'll just make sure I max out the memory and get myself a good firewire drive. Any recommendations?

Mike

Luca Rescigno · Jan 25, 2004, 07:18 PM

Get a 7200 RPM drive with an 8 MB buffer, and a Firewire enclosure. The hard drive will be around $100, perhaps a little less, and the case should be around $40. Go to NewEgg.com and look around - they have everything there.

I am really not sure which brand is the best as far as hard drives go. Most people swear by one brand and say that others are prone to failure. But it seems as though all brands are prone to some failure. I've heard good things about Seagate but I have owned three successful Western Digitals as well.

amazing · Jan 26, 2004, 11:04 AM

Originally posted by MPMoriarty:
Alright, I think I will not tinker with replacing my iBook's hard drive. Maybe I'll just make sure I max out the memory and get myself a good firewire drive. Any recommendations?

Mike

Best not to void your AppleCare on a sensitive laptop with an unknown repair track record. If you're ordering from Apple, you can BTO a larger HD (BTO will also allow you specify the internal bluetooth, the only way you can get bluetooth) but then you have to pay tax and perhaps shipping.

Or you could order it from someplace like amazon.com which sometimes has the $100 rebate going, no tax and free freight (no internal bluetooth). Then, you take the money you've saved and buy an external fw drive. Here's a review of various HD, where you'll see that fw800 (not available on the iBook) is very speedy. Does anyone know of similar tests with fw400 cases?

http://www.barefeats.com/hard34.html

gigglebyte · Jan 26, 2004, 02:00 PM

technical you won't void the warranty if you open the case and replace the drive...Apple just won't cover the drive or any damage caused by the installation of the drive...now I wouldn't recomend popping one in because if i remember right it is about a 2 hour strip down to get to the drive as is and there are a LOT of scary points during that process.....(I work for Apple tech BTW) I will be taking my portable certification next month and I will see just how hard it will be compared to what I have heard