[greg-er]

Last May I picked up a used Pismo G3 500 GHz for $200. I got it to use as a work computer, mainly with DayLite, some web surfing and other light work usage. But may use it for more demanding tasks in the future.

I like the form factor of the G3 series and the expendability of the Pismo and intend to upgrade it as funds become available. I upgraded the RAM to 640mg and I have now purchased a new battery. So those necessities are out of the way. I next want to upgrade my hard drive to something bigger and faster than the stock 12 gig drive in it now. I’m thinking that 40 to 60 gigs would meet my needs but would consider more if the price were right.

I’d like to hear from other Pismo users who have upgraded their hard drives.

Don’t know much about which speeds to consider 5400RPM, 7200RPM?

What about Data Buffers? What should I be looking at? More is better?

I think I need an ATA/5 drive and ATA/6s don’t work, is that correct?

Any brands and models to recommend or steer clear of?

Price isn’t an issue until I have enough info to make an educated purchase choice.

Thanks for your help.

[CanadaRAM]

Seagate Momentus 5400.2 5400 RPM 8 Mb cache would be awesome. 5 year warranty.

Edit: Hmmm the 5400.2 is an ULTRA IDE/100 drive, which means it supports ATA/6, DMA Mode 5. The specs also says it supports DMA modes 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4

"These drives use the industry-standard ATA task file interface that supports 16-bit data transfers. It supports ATA programmed input/output (PIO) modes 0–4; multiword DMA modes 0–2, and Ultra DMA modes 0–5."

So: not having tested it in a Pismo, I would say that the specs infer that it would be compatible with an ATA/5 machine.

[tooki]

Essentially all ATA devices are backwards and forwards-compatible. Hard drives certainly are.

Any notebook ATA drive (not SATA) on the market now will work in a Pismo.

Higher RPM has a big effect on speed.
Larger cache has a small effect -- don't base your decision on this.

I happen to like Seagate at the moment -- it's a good brand, but above all, they have a longer warranty than anyone else, which also implies that they don't expect their products to fail quickly. But the other brands are in no way bad.

tooki

[tigas]

I'm going to upgrade my Pismo's HD in a moment (early September) and I think I'm going to a Seagate Momentus 7200.1 80GB (one year late, but they're here!). I'm using a Toshiba 5400rpm 40GB unit and even thought it's very silent and was a great kick in the pants compared to the original drive, Tiger is now starting to thrash a bit. I should also bite the bullet and do a clean install (I've been Archiving since 10.3), but I also need the extra storage and then I can Clean Install and migrate applications and users during installation from my Toshiba.

[Kyle Dreaden]

I'm planning on doing the same to my Pismo 500 soon as well. Question, though.. How do you plan on doing the migration, etc. from your toshiba drive to the new drive when you can only have one HDD in the computer at a time? I'm probably just missing what you meant, and I know this is simple, but I've been wondering what to do.

I've thought of doing a backup to my PowerMac over firewire, and then migrate back from that once the new drive is in. Any suggestions?

Kyle

[tigas]

With a FireWire external box, obviously. I don't intend to throw the Toshiba away, you know? When Tiger asks if I want to migrate, I'll plug the Firewire enclosure and presto!

[phuture]

I replaced the stock 6gig hard drivein my Pismo with a Fujitsu 60gig in July. It's a 4200rpm drive. I figured go with the 4200rpm model cuz I run my Pismo on battery power mostly so it'll be easier on the juice. This drive is super-quiet, even more so than my old 6gig.

Just remember to check for those jumper plugs when installing your new hard drive. A jumper plug was on my new hard drive, and after installing the OS and formatting and all that other fun stuff, every time I'd put my Pismo to sleep, it would have a hard time waking up... I'd get the spinning lollipop for three minutes!!! Tech Tool and Disk First Aid said everything was A-OK. In all, I re-formatted three times before pulling the hard drive out again and realizing that the jumper plug was at fault. I pulled it off and now the drive works like a champ!

So yeah, check for that when u install your new hard drive. Good luck!

[greg-er]

Thanks to all who responded. Good info and a help to getting me on the track to an upgraded HD.

I'm leaning toward a Seagate 5400.2 drive or a reasonably priced 7200RPM drive if I can find out what "reasonably priced" is and where to find one. Not in a big hurry so will look around some more.

[CanadaRAM]

Ain't no reasonably priced 7200's, not yet.


Whatever you get, make darned sure you're getting a retail drive with the full manufacturer's warranty, not a 'pull' or OEM drive with zero to 1 year.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

[jimzim66]

if all ATA drives are back and forwards compatible, why are ATA-6 drives not compatible with the pismo? if i were to upgrade mine, which type SHOULDNT i look for?

[tooki]

They ARE compatible. The only theoretical problem is that the bus in a Pismo doesn't support 48-bit LBA, so the maximum drive size is 137GB -- but they don't make notebook drives that big anyway.

tooki

[legionare]

Fujitsu is said to be making 160GB vertical writing 2.5" HDD (SATA?) later this year.

Also, on a OWC page, there's a note about 80GB and bigger Toshiba drives not being compatible with PowerBook G3s. Typical Toshiba crap.