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dlefebvre · Nov 12, 2004, 12:14 AM

I'm about to buy RAM to upgrade my 1.5Ghz Alu Powerbook and I'm wondering if I might as well upgrade my hard drive. I curently have a 80Gb 4200rpm drive and I would like to know if I would benefit from a 80Gb 5400rpm drive or a 60Gb 7200rpm drive. I guess the 7200 is much faster but it must reduce battery live.

phantomac · Nov 12, 2004, 04:01 AM

Get the 7200. It's really worth it. And it's urban legends that it uses more power or does get any hotter.

urrl78 · Nov 12, 2004, 08:57 AM

I am waiting for the 100 gig 7200 RPM drives:

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2169,00.html

Should be right around the corner.

benwhanlee · Nov 12, 2004, 09:28 AM

i upgraded my titanium with a 60 gb 7200 hard drive and there was literally no difference in power consumption.

burdendds · Nov 15, 2004, 01:51 PM

I just upgraded my 12" PB Rev C to a 60GB 7200RPM drive ( Hitachi Travelstar 7K60). I was very disappointed in the performance increase with my usage. I'm sure some users would notice an increase if they were working with large files, etc.

The drive is also considerably louder at idle than the stock Toshiba drive (which makes sense dues to the 7200RPM).

I have since switched them out and am returning the drive unless anyone here would like it?

Ruahrc · Nov 17, 2004, 03:17 AM

Please could you let us know how difficult it was to replace the HD on an al-powerbook? I have heard that it was a great pain and that it was a risky proposition because you have to remove like 30 screws and get all 30 back in the same hole they came out of, etc...

I downloaded a AlPB service manual and looked at the procedure for replacing the hard drive it did not seem that overwhelming, but then again I have not looked at the parts in person so I can't say...

Or did you have a 3rd party do it? I would almost prefer this method not because I don't think I can do it myself (I'm confident I could do it with little trouble) but because I would want to still have some kind of warranty covering my powerbook in case it broke down later on.

Ruahrc

burdendds · Nov 17, 2004, 09:15 AM

I used the guide at this site: http://pbfixit.com/Guide/53.0.0.html

It wasn't that difficult. I was very careful to keep each screw in it's appropriate pile while working and all went well.

benwhanlee · Nov 17, 2004, 09:33 AM

just be careful. unlike the titaniums, it's been reported that replacing your hard drive yourself on the aluminum powerbooks may void your warranty...it might be worth it to have an authorized apple service place do it.

audvidsvs · Nov 27, 2004, 12:20 PM

I was at a Best Buy today and the had the 100g Seagate 7200rpm drive sitting there on the shelf.
Somehow it knew my name and was wispering to me.
I naturaly brought it home and now I am trying to decide if will be worth trying it in my 1 day old Al Book?

There seems to be no real agreement about the extra speed or potential extra heat.I could use the extra space for sure but not if there are downsides.

Anyone care to comment? Please.

kalani79 · Nov 27, 2004, 01:47 PM

Yeah, I actually saw the 100gb 7200 rpm Seagate drives in Best Buy about a month ago, that was the first time we got them in. We didn't keep them in stock very well because we got a shipment of one about every other week.

I've since quit; I put in my two week notice so that I was done right before Black Friday. Thank you, thank very much.

kastegir · Nov 27, 2004, 03:18 PM

I had my local Apple service center/dealer put the 60GB 7200rpm Hitachi in my rev. C 12" Powerbook about 6 months ago. It's been great, hasn't reduced battery life noticeably and is as quiet as the stock 60GB drive. I highly recommend this drive. I've run one in a TiBook as well and saw a definite increase in performance in both cases.

Having a dealer do the install was well worth the $50 they charged me, as it didn't void my AppleCare warranty.

SEkker · Nov 28, 2004, 01:30 PM

The 100 GB Seagate notebook drives at BB are actually a 5400 rpm model -- this was well documented at xlr8yourmac.com recently.

Seagate admitted this was a packaging issue -- 'sorry'! I'm amazed they have kept shipping them with the incorrect packaging.

I went with a 7200 60GB drive in my AlPB17, this was a great upgrade. Paid $40 to keep my AppleCare intact. Everything from the finder, web surfing to video editing is noticably faster, going from a stock 4200 rpm HD.

There was no increase in heat or decrease in battery life going to the 7200 rpm drive.

yoyoman · Nov 28, 2004, 02:01 PM

Originally posted by audvidsvs:
I was at a Best Buy today and the had the 100g Seagate 7200rpm drive sitting there on the shelf.
Somehow it knew my name and was wispering to me.
I naturaly brought it home and now I am trying to decide if will be worth trying it in my 1 day old Al Book?

There seems to be no real agreement about the extra speed or potential extra heat.I could use the extra space for sure but not if there are downsides.

Anyone care to comment? Please.

Im calling best buy they are taking for ever. How much is it and is it 2.5 inch. Also bestbuy.com doesn't halve it. can some one help me look for it online. I would like to order one asap.

audvidsvs · Nov 28, 2004, 02:30 PM

Well I sure wish I did not know this now!

What a SCAM!!!

I checked and sure enough it is a 5400 not 7200. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Taking it out is unlikely unless I get an actual 7200 replacement but they evidently are not shipping yet,just the boxes are.

The new drive is faster than the stock Toshiba and it seems to run cooler and much less noisy too. But now my glee is tainted by knowing the truth.How can they continue shipping like this?!??!?

Anyway the drive was $200.00 and would be a fair deal if I had known beforehand. I likely would have bought it anyway but still this just is not right.

On Monday I will call Best Buy and Seagate and see if either give a crap and offer to make it right.
I am not expecting much.

kalani79 · Nov 28, 2004, 03:50 PM

Wow, this is very weak.

Don't give up with Best Buy or Seagate. You are the customer and you were wronged. I'm sure one of them will help you out.

yoyoman · Nov 28, 2004, 04:16 PM

Do it. I want answers now. I wnat a 7k 100gig. I new it was 2 good 2 be true. I haven't seen any 80 gig 7k drives yet so yea. Ho much longer do you think till the 7k drive ships.

Originally posted by audvidsvs:
Well I sure wish I did not know this now!

What a SCAM!!!

I checked and sure enough it is a 5400 not 7200. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Taking it out is unlikely unless I get an actual 7200 replacement but they evidently are not shipping yet,just the boxes are.

The new drive is faster than the stock Toshiba and it seems to run cooler and much less noisy too. But now my glee is tainted by knowing the truth.How can they continue shipping like this?!??!?

Anyway the drive was $200.00 and would be a fair deal if I had known beforehand. I likely would have bought it anyway but still this just is not right.

On Monday I will call Best Buy and Seagate and see if either give a crap and offer to make it right.
I am not expecting much.

yoyoman · 06:16 PM

called segate march at earliest. That is so gay. Hopefully another company will have one before them or a 80 gig at 7200 at least.

tramahound · Dec 2, 2004, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by benwhanlee:
i upgraded my titanium with a 60 gb 7200 hard drive and there was literally no difference in power consumption.

what kind of results did you notice?
I should be getting the hitachi travelstar 60gig 7200rpm drive for xmas for my old tibook 400. i'm thinking it might be overkill for the system. would the 7200rpm drive even translate into any increase in performance on the old ata/66 interface? i'm thinking there are other bottlenecks that keep it from helping out too much. i'd love to be dead wrong, but that's my thinking anyway. are there any kinds of benchmarks i can run and time before and after to see for sure about any improvements?

iREZ · Dec 3, 2004, 01:29 PM

You'd be surprised. Not that I've seen any results myself, but lot's of users talk about increased performance when installing the travelstar in their 'books. Here's hopin you get a revamped book when installed.

benwhanlee · Dec 3, 2004, 04:11 PM

Originally posted by tramahound:
what kind of results did you notice?
I should be getting the hitachi travelstar 60gig 7200rpm drive for xmas for my old tibook 400. i'm thinking it might be overkill for the system. would the 7200rpm drive even translate into any increase in performance on the old ata/66 interface? i'm thinking there are other bottlenecks that keep it from helping out too much. i'd love to be dead wrong, but that's my thinking anyway. are there any kinds of benchmarks i can run and time before and after to see for sure about any improvements?

i occasionally clone my hard drive, wipe it clean, then clone it back. doing stuff like that seemed to take 1/2 as long as it used to. anything that involves really big files (i do graphic design kind of stuff at times, and audio & video editing) also seems to happen much, much faster. don't really have any way to quantify the difference except to say it was much more than noticeable. it wasn't as apparent though, with small, everyday kind of stuff.