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Scotttheking · Jul 27, 2004, 11:48 AM

I need a new hard drive for my now out of warranty Tibook 550. I'm looking at a 7200RPM 60GB Travelstar. It's a 9.5mm high drive. Will the drive work in my laptop, both from a heat perspective and from a size perspective? Can anyone point me to some docs on how to swap out the drive so that I don't break anything going in?

Thanks,

Scott

ibook_steve · Jul 27, 2004, 12:23 PM

The answers lie as close as your user's manual....

The drive is fine. The hard drive is a user upgradeable part, so it is documented in that little book I'm guessing you never opened.

Steve

bighead · Jul 27, 2004, 12:58 PM

I'd suggest the 80 GB 5400 RPM Hitachi drive, since the speed increase you might get with the 7200 RPM drive will be offset mostly by the overall speed of the machine. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the difference between 4200 and 5400 was significant, but the difference between 5400 and 7200 was negligible. Plus, the 5400 RPM 80 is less expensive on NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...209&depa=1

The one upside to the 7200 RPM drive is the 3 year warranty as opposed to 1 year on the 5400 RPM 80 gigger.

drainyoo · Jul 27, 2004, 09:00 PM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
I need a new hard drive for my now out of warranty Tibook 550. I'm looking at a 7200RPM 60GB Travelstar. It's a 9.5mm high drive. Will the drive work in my laptop, both from a heat perspective and from a size perspective? Can anyone point me to some docs on how to swap out the drive so that I don't break anything going in?

Thanks,

Scott

How do you know you need a new drive? Im asking cause Im having issues with my Powerbook and Im wondering if my drive is about to die.

Scotttheking · Jul 27, 2004, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by drainyoo:
How do you know you need a new drive? Im asking cause Im having issues with my Powerbook and Im wondering if my drive is about to die.

Because I have very little free space left, and when I move I won't have my desktop, so I need space to hold the programs that lived on the desktop.

drainyoo · Jul 27, 2004, 09:45 PM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Because I have very little free space left, and when I move I won't have my desktop, so I need space to hold the programs that lived on the desktop.

Oh you need a new drive cause you have no more space, not cause it died. Nevermind.

birdman · Jul 27, 2004, 10:06 PM

This thread comes just at the right time, as I am also considering a new PowerBook hard drive. I went from 512 MB to 1 GB in the RAM department, and so far the improvement hasn't been that noticeable (though I admit it's only been a day and I'm not quite sure what to test it with -- switching apps is a lot faster though, especially when clicking Photoshop's icon in the Dock).

Anyway, I thought perhaps a new hard drive would help matters, especially when it comes to Photoshop (which, as I understand, will benefit from a faster scratch disk). Most apps I run sound like they're accessing the hard drive when starting up, so I imagine a faster hard drive would improve speeds all around.

I'm debating between the 80gb 5400rpm and the 60gb 7200rpm drives at NewEgg. Currently I have a Titanium 1 GHz PowerBook with a 60gb 4200rpm hard drive. According to System Profiler, it's an ATA-4 bus. But everything at NewEgg is either ATA-5 or 6.

So to make a short story long, can I use an ATA-5 or 6 drive in my PowerBook that's using ATA-4? If not, where can I buy an ATA-4 drive? (I'm reminded of using PC-133 RAM in my iMac that used PC-100; the RAM still fits, it just runs at 100 instead of 133. Is this a similar deal?)

Thanks much.

-birdman

strictlyplaid · Jul 27, 2004, 10:10 PM

To add to Birdman's question a bit... are ATA-6 drives usable where ATA-5 drives once were used? I'm considering an upgrade, and it's easier to get an ATA-6 than an ATA-5 on newegg.

Thanks!

TailsToo · Jul 27, 2004, 10:52 PM

I have the TravelStar 80GB 5400RPM drive ((I think it was listed as ATA-5) in my PowerBook 1Ghz TI, and it works great!

Scotttheking · Jul 28, 2004, 05:43 AM

ATA5 and ATA6 will work just fine.
I got the 7200 RPM 60GB drive. No shipping notification yet. I know it'll be faster then this dinky 20GB 4200RPM drive I have now. I was more interested in the speed then the space. 60GB is plenty for me. I hope it doesn't wreak havoc on my battery life, but I've got 3 batteries, 2 of them barely used, so I should be ok.

Scotttheking · Aug 6, 2004, 06:58 AM

DAMNIT. The drive is audible

Oh well. Computer is definitely more responsive, although that could just be the fact that I did a clean install and haven't put anything back on yet.

buffalolee · Aug 6, 2004, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
DAMNIT. The drive is audible

Oh well. Computer is definitely more responsive, although that could just be the fact that I did a clean install and haven't put anything back on yet.

Hmm...I'll be looking to upgrade the drive on my Powerbook soon. Just for increasing it's true potential in speed and responsiveness.

How does it work so far?