Looking to upgrade PowerBook Bronze hard drive to 12/16 gig. What brand and what size / rpm should I look for? Where (online) should I shop?

Thanks for the tips...

[seanyepez]

I have always liked IBM hard disk drives. IBM has recently come out with hard drives that hold 30 gigabytes, if I remember correctly. These drives spin at 5400 RPM, one of the fastest rotation speeds in the market - if not the fastest. Then again, the Fujitsu hard drive in my new Pismo is extremely quiet. If noise is an concern, don't go with the IBM, as they tend to make a little more noise than the rest. Also, the noise gets worse as it is used; the innards are warped by the searing heat, and end up making a horrible "whirring" sound.

Outpost.com is a great place to buy Macintosh hardware, as they usually have specials going on (free cases, and the sort...) and offer free, overnight shipping.

Then again, Buy.com will usually give you the lowest price of all.

To find a drive to your liking, check out Computers.com. You can select the drive of your choice, and find out which online store offers the lowest price.

[residentEvil]

5400 RPM is one of the SLOWEST drive speeds, not the fastest. more importantly seek and access time would be better numbers to look at if you are going to do any high disk i/o.

[This message has been edited by residentEvil (edited 06-23-2000).]

[seanyepez]

"residentEvil", I don't think you've understood. We're talking mobile drives. The standard rotational speed for mobile drives is 4500 RPM.

Before you flame another member (sorry if I have misinterpreted, that's the impression I got from the capitalization of "slowest"), please know the facts and consider your post carefully.

I merely responded to the original poster's questeion. "doolio" asked "What brand and what size / rpm should I look for? Where (online) should I shop?".

He went with the 12-gigabyte IBM drive, as I have heard from him via email.

[residentEvil]

nope, it was not a flam and i do read. the question was about mobile, you answered merely as ibm. assumption was mobile, but you said market and to me, thats all inclusive to all hard drives. if you took it personal, thats too bad, it wasn't my intention. as in the number games, for hard drives, in the market, 5400 is slow.

[Misha]

I dunno, I think that it was pretty clear that 5400 was in reference to mobile drives (I think 12,000 is the fastest for desktops?)... regardless, sean is right... 5400 RPM is the fastest you'll find in a portable drive. Then again, I can't notice the difference between 4500 RPM and 5400 RPM drives.

Seek and access times are usually directly related to the drive's rotational speed as well.

[residentEvil]

i wasn't saying anyone was right or wrong. i said 5400 is slow. man, people have a complex here. if you say 5400 isn't slow, deskptop or laptop, then the entire point was lost. get a life. don't take things personally. 5400 is slow. period.

[seanyepez]

You might backup your posts with facts, like the difference in speed between whatever and whatever.

If mobile hard disk drives were faster, with the technology we have today, they would overheat our notebooks, and last considerably shorter. How would you like Apple to have a 90-day warranty, and the hard disk drive dying after... say... a year?

I think it's safe to assume that the question was referring to mobile, since the forum is for PowerBooks.

I don't like your attitude...

[This message has been edited by seanyepez (edited 06-23-2000).]

[tooki]

While some of sean's claims above were wrong (specifically those about thermally induced noise), he is correct that 5400RPM is the fastest available for notebook drives (4200 is standard for 2.5" drives), and I agree that 5400 is not necessarily slow. Many of the fastest hard drives out there are NOT the fastest RPM available. Many other factors affect drive speed, including areal density, which is high in notebook drives. Access and seek times are also important.

It is, however, true that notebook drives are usually slower than desktop drives.

tooki

[seanyepez]

About the searing heat warping the innards, it turns out I was wrong.

Drives might require thermal recalculation, but their innards won't warp enough to make more noise.

[seanyepez]

Whoops, I guess we posted at the same time...

[residentEvil]

thank you for letting me rant. thats all i was getting at was it's slowness compared to other drives on the market. i made no claims other than to stick with seek/access times for the decision on what drive to get.

i'm moving on thanks for not deleting my account.

[seanyepez]

Delete your account?

That would be abuse of power. Most definitely.

I just became a moderator today, perhaps right after I said "I don't like your attitude."

Sorry for being a little harsh back there...

[residentEvil]

no harm, no foul. i'm easy going

[tedgrigg]

Getting back to the original question, I don't think the 5400 RPM drives are available yet. Are they?

I just installed an 18 gig Toshiba (standard 4,200 RPM) in my G3 266 Wallstreet and it did speed up the system a little from the original factory IBM 4 gig. It is quiet and the install took about 15 minutes. I used the latest version of Apple's Drive Setup to initialize it. After about two weeks of hard use, it has run flawlessly with zero corruption of data according to TT, NUM and Disk Warrior.

I can't vouch for durability yet, but it costs less than $400 and I am happy with it.

I think I read a report that confirmed IBM's latest 2.5" mobile drives have corrected the noise problem. Does anyone out there Know for sure?

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The Professor