[IGrokSpock]

I have an 80gb hard drive, and I want more space. Im hearing that external drives fail if used constantly, and is not ideal for backup. A co-worker/expert suggested replacing the internal with a bigger one.

does anyone know what to get or how to do it, or what my options are?

or am I just better off with the LaCie 250GB d2 Triple Interface Drive that looks so sweet...

thanks

[larkost]

Unless you have the right thermal paste on hand, and have some experience working inside laptops (the job is similar), I would not suggest going into a "iLam" style iMac.

I would suggest buying a good external FireWire drive (the whole thing in one box.. not a kit). The biggest reason HD's die is overheating, and many of the kits come with inadequate or nonexistent cooling, and people purchase big drives that run hot and them stick them in the kits... hmm.. wonder what is going to happen then...

Executive summary: buy the LeCei (or something similar).

[Kissargi]

ye, a good firewire hard drive will be a much safer option, with little or no compromise on performance.

[IGrokSpock]

thanks, thats what I thought. LaCie, here I come!!

[OldManMac]

I've got a Lacie 160GB external on my 800 iMac, and it works fine. I use it for video stuff.

[tooki]

There's no problem with external drives. The hard drives inside them are exactly the same models you'd be installing internally!

The only possible rationale for that is 1) the cheap power supplies in some el-cheapo external cases, or 2) external drives could be subject to more physical abuse, causing them to fail sooner.

In practice, millions of such drives have been used for decades without problems.

tooki

[kokkao]

www.xlr8yourmac.com has a picture article showing how to take apart the Mac G4. It looks a quite daunting process!

[atlcane]

I got an LeCie and have never been happier. 150 GB. It will take me years to fill it up.

[heresiarh]

External Hard drive is a better choice but if you really want to expand the internal one, i suggest get it done professionally from apple, or else just get a dvd burner for back.

[lockhartt]

I have a first-generation LCD iMac (800/15"/60GB/SuperDrive), and quickly outgrew the drive once I started playing with digital video. I replaced the stock 5400rpm 60GB, with an IBM DeskStar 7200rpm 120GB, and have been more than pleased with the results. I also repaced the original SuperDrive with a Pioneer DVR-105... and now a Pioneer DVR-107.

That being said, I will definitely agree that playing inside an LCD iMac is no picnic, and I've spent pleny of time inside a wide array of machines, both Mac and PC. If you haven't a knack for this sort of thing, this isn't the place to start... but if you're so inclined, it is definitely do-able.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'll need to be opening the top half of my iMac soon, as the LCD has just started to exhibit a strange sort of progressive pixel decay over the past three days... anyone have any tips/caveats?

[tooki]

I'm pretty sure you installed a DeskStar, not an UltraStar -- the latter is the line of 10000RPM SCSI and FibreChannel drives.

tooki

[lockhartt]

Yup, thanks for the catch. DeskStar 120GXP it is... I have server on the brain at the moment as I've been spending way too much time on the eServer trying to get WO Monitor/wotaskd to behave.

Tore the head of the iMac apart only to find out the LCD is basically glued into the white plastic frame (the one that holds the LCD, power LED, and mic) and I can't (or dare not) tear it apart without the likelihood of doing more harm than good.

Meanwhile, what looked like little dribbles of dead pixels starting to pour down my LCD every two inches has almost completely coalesced into about a 1.1" circle.

Click here to see what it looked like earlier today
Click here to see what it looks like now

It's as though there were either air or liquid that managed to get in between the layers of the LCD. Yuck...

Originally posted by tooki:
I'm pretty sure you installed a DeskStar, not an UltraStar -- the latter is the line of 10000RPM SCSI and FibreChannel drives.

tooki

[heresiarh]

whoa, that looks bad.

[lockhartt]

If it wasn't my computer, and I didn't know that the stupid service part for the LCD costs an arm and a leg, I'd think it was kind of interesting... alas, interesting is not my word of choice at the moment

Had hoped they were smart enough to use the same panel assembly as in the 15" TiBook, but having now peeked inside I think it's safe to say that the two displays are definitely not readily interchangeable.

Originally posted by heresiarh:
whoa, that looks bad.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by lockhartt:
Yup, thanks for the catch. DeskStar 120GXP it is... I have server on the brain at the moment as I've been spending way too much time on the eServer trying to get WO Monitor/wotaskd to behave.

Tore the head of the iMac apart only to find out the LCD is basically glued into the white plastic frame (the one that holds the LCD, power LED, and mic) and I can't (or dare not) tear it apart without the likelihood of doing more harm than good.

Meanwhile, what looked like little dribbles of dead pixels starting to pour down my LCD every two inches has almost completely coalesced into about a 1.1" circle.

Click here to see what it looked like earlier today
Click here to see what it looks like now

It's as though there were either air or liquid that managed to get in between the layers of the LCD. Yuck...

I must say that's quite odd. I have never seen an LCD panel do that. One thing you might want to check--just to make sure that no one is messing with you--does it do that when you boot up holding down the option key? There is the theoretical possibility that someone installed some hack on your machine that they wrote just to mess with you. It's not likely, but it's possible. I've never seen any sort of LCD on any type of device do anything even remotely like that.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that there may be a hairline fracture along the top of the panel. Unfortunately, that kind of problem makes repair prices go up as it's something that can't be "fixed."

[lockhartt]

I had the same hope briefly about it being some sort of programmatic trick when it first became prominent. It, however, reacted when I ran my finger across the screen... I knew that occasionally "massaging" a misbehaving LCD pixel can bring it back to life, but this actually made the affected area grow when I tried it (much to my horror).

I also quickly discovered that the affected areas were visible when the computer was off
See more here, I moved the thread to keep things on topic ...so much for hoax or virus.

Since I had yet to see an LCD fail, I wasn't sure what kinds of behavior to expect... as a certified tech, your response leads me to believe this was NOT a normal failure.

I basically concur with the hairline fracture diagnosis, though I still can't tell what the foreign substance might be... especially since it seems to be stable now, with the exception of the appearance of being affected by gravity in that it seems to still be drifting downward very very very slowly.

In the meantime, I'll consider it the computer equivalent of a partially detached retina... and consider myself lucky that it's the machine and not me.

Originally posted by Detrius:
I must say that's quite odd. I have never seen an LCD panel do that. One thing you might want to check--just to make sure that no one is messing with you--does it do that when you boot up holding down the option key? There is the theoretical possibility that someone installed some hack on your machine that they wrote just to mess with you. It's not likely, but it's possible. I've never seen any sort of LCD on any type of device do anything even remotely like that.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that there may be a hairline fracture along the top of the panel. Unfortunately, that kind of problem makes repair prices go up as it's something that can't be "fixed."