[v2nce]

I'm looking for fast (> 60 GB / 5400 RPM / 8 MB cache), quiet and no vibration! causing Harddirve for my Powerbook G4 Ti 1GHz

I had some bad experience with the Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 with 7200 RPM, this Drive makes my Powerbook unpleasant vibrating and caused much more noise than the original Fujitsu MHS2060AT. I returned this drive to the dealer and exchanged for the Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 with 5400 RPM / 8 MB cache, but only 40 GB version (this was the only one he got in stock at this time), this one causes less vibrations and noise than the 7K60, but I can still feel the vibration when the drive working and sometimes more randomly it makes a loud metallic "clicking" sound. I've tested it with TechTool Pro 4, the results of all available tests was okay or rather passed.

There are 2 drives in this category I've not tested:
the Fujitsu MHT2060AH and the Toshiba MK6022GAX

Have someone in this forum experiences with these drives using them in a PB Ti ? Which of them is recommendable ?

[himself]

Originally posted by v2nce:
I'm looking for fast (> 60 GB / 5400 RPM / 8 MB cache), quiet and no vibration! causing Harddirve for my Powerbook G4 Ti 1GHz

I had some bad experience with the Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 with 7200 RPM, this Drive makes my Powerbook unpleasant vibrating and caused much more noise than the original Fujitsu MHS2060AT. I returned this drive to the dealer and exchanged for the Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 with 5400 RPM / 8 MB cache, but only 40 GB version (this was the only one he got in stock at this time), this one causes less vibrations and noise than the 7K60, but I can still feel the vibration when the drive working and sometimes more randomly it makes a loud metallic "clicking" sound. I've tested it with TechTool Pro 4, the results of all available tests was okay or rather passed.

There are 2 drives in this category I've not tested:
the Fujitsu MHT2060AH and the Toshiba MK6022GAX

Have someone in this forum experiences with these drives using them in a PB Ti ? Which of them is recommendable ?

I recently upgraded to the 80GB 5400RPM Travelstar drive (667 TiBook), and I like it quite a bit. No vibration (have to try very hard to notice it), very quiet, very fast. The only qualm is that annoying clicking noise you described, but it seems to be part of its normal operation, so I can learn to live with it.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find any hard drive with no vibration at all. I recommend just studing the specs and picking the one that appeals to you the most.

[jewing80]

I had similar vibration issues with the 7K60. I even exchanged it twice but the additional noise and constant vibration lead me to return it. The one drive that I tried and really liked was the Toshiba MK6022GAX. The drive was fairly quite, not much louder than my stock Toshiba MK6021GAS drive and did not produce any noticeable vibration. The 16MB cache is academic to me, but it sure seemed better on paper than the 2MB in the stock drive.

Performance in comparison to the stock drive varied from equal to much better depending on the task that was being performed. Normal day to day stuff seemed about as fast as the stock drive, no real noticeable difference. Usage consisted of Mail, Safari, Calendar and Finder. There was a definite performance boost when working in iMovie, and startup/shutdown seemed much faster. In contrast the 7K60 simply smoked; absolutely everything felt faster, but alas the vibration and noise did not warrant the extra speed.

There is now an “enhanced” version of the 7K60, known as the 7K60EN. Transintl.com is selling the enhanced model for roughly the price the old standard version went for, and now the standard is going for $220, at least from them. I checked out the specs on Hitachi’s website but I don’t recall seeing anything about noise and vibration reduction… only heat dissipation and lower power consumption. I think the two aforementioned “problems” are essentially trade offs of a very fast, very small drive.

In the end I went back to my stock drive. At the time I paid around $225 for the MK6022GAX, and the performance boost really didn’t justify the cost. With the going rate now under $160 the 6022 is looking a lot more appealing. The beauty of the Ti is the ease of swapping hard drives. I experimented by putting a 7K60 in a 1Ghz 12” and let me tell you the process is neither quick nor fun! As an aside the 12” 1GHz using a 512 stick of Corsair (768 total) and a 7K60 was an amazing little machine. After doing the upgrade I toyed with it for a day and it truly flew. Sadly I had to give it back to its owner… that was still probably the most fun I’ve had using a Powerbook…

[Fellow2000]

When you had the 12" powerbook for the day with the 7k60 in it, did you notice any vibration or noise issues, or does that just happen in the ti?

[jewing80]

The "wooshing" sound was still noticeable... honestly I can't remember if it was any quieter than on the Ti. The vibration was reduced, I remember that distinctly. The vibration was still noticeable but not near as bad as on the Ti. I’m assuming this has to do with the overall construction differences in the two units.

If I traveled a lot, or needed an ultra portable the 1GHz 12” with 768 and a 7K60 would be my choice. Even with the 32MB nVidia it played Spearhead and UT2K3 just as well as my Ti did when I was running the 7K60 and 1GB of memory. Really the only downside was the screen quality. Not to say it was bad, just not as good as the 15” on the Ti.

[flypenfly]

That's really weird, my 7K60 is just as quiet as the Fujitsu it replaced... btw, does anyone know if I'll get in a lot of trouble if I don't put back that wax paper thing that was covering the HD? I forgot to put it back in and am now too lazy to put it in again. Everything works fine though...

[v2nce]

Originally posted by jewing80:
In the end I went back to my stock drive. At the time I paid around $225 for the MK6022GAX, and the performance boost really didn’t justify the cost. With the going rate now under $160 the 6022 is looking a lot more appealing.

I can get here im germany the Toshiba MK6022GAX for € 155 (=$185) and for nearly the same price the Fujitsu MHT2060AH, I've heard nothing from this drive around, I've found nothing aboout it at the xlr8yourmac driveupgradereports site, but I've found a test report in a german computer mag c't, it has nearly the same results in speedtest and noise-produktion than the Hitachi 5K80 series, it is but much faster than the Toshiba MK4025GAS with 4200 RPM/8MB cache.
Mabye I should order both of them, test them and return the one witch causes more vibration and noise. I will report about my expirience here.

I've found also another 7200RPM 2.5" drive from Toshiba the MK5024GAY but it has only 50 GB capaticity but has 16 MB buffer cache! it cost about $197 at http://www.computergiants.com/items/...subsubcat=1720 but I couldn't find it in here in germany.

[gorickey]

Originally posted by v2nce:
...and sometimes more randomly it makes a loud metallic "clicking" sound.

Phew, glad I'm not the only one...I've learned to totally block it out; however, it's sort of annoying from time to time. It's really random when it occurs though...