[zign]

I was thinking of upgrading HD on my 12" iBook (1.2 Ghz, 1.25GB Ram, 30GB HD). The question is however - Can I upgrade to a 7200 rpm HD or not? If yes, would I notice a speed increase?

[ghporter]

There's nothing about a hard drive's rotational speed that would keep you from installing it in ANY computer. However, considering how many darn tiny screws are involved in getting at the drive in a G4 iBook, you may want to reconsider...

Anyway, yes, you CAN put a faster hard drive in your iBook, and you may actually see programs that hit the disk a lot speed up noticably. You probably will notice when the computer shifts data back and forth from the drive to RAM, as in when you switch from one running program to another. This should be noticably faster.

[cleanup]

Wouldn't the iBook get a lot hotter?

[Colonel Panic]

..and the battery would likely drain a good bit faster.

[cmeisenzahl]

Yep, no free lunch. A trade of speed for battery life.

Chris

[production_coordinator]

Originally Posted by cleanup

Wouldn't the iBook get a lot hotter?

Not really. It's not like a faster CPU.

[cleanup]

Originally Posted by production_coordinator

Not really. It's not like a faster CPU.

Spinning drives, especially fast spinning drives, generate heat. Just ask my iMac's fans.

[tooki]

That is not entirely correct.

For example, a 7200RPM desktop drive from today generates the same or less heat than a 5400RPM drive from 5 years ago.

In notebook drive design, they know that heat and power are big concerns, so 7200RPM notebook drives do not heat up more or draw much more power.

tooki

[anothergene]

Originally Posted by zign

I was thinking of upgrading HD on my 12" iBook (1.2 Ghz, 1.25GB Ram, 30GB HD). The question is however - Can I upgrade to a 7200 rpm HD or not? If yes, would I notice a speed increase?

I just did the upgrade in question to my 800MHz 12"ibook. Put in a Hitachi 7k60. Doesn't feel any hotter to the palms resting on the case. Fan doesn't come on any more often then it did before. I havn't really run it on batteries yet to see how much quicker the bateries die.

WAY faster. boots to the log in screen in about 30seconds from power on. Login is lickity-split, even with file-vault on. Safari launches in 2 bounces.

One piece of advice. Track down one of the Apple service manuals on the net. I would not have wanted to attempt this with out it as it is a royal pain to take apart. Also keep very close track of what screws come from where as there are about 3 different lenghts. Give your selfe at least 3 hours too.

Good luck.

[zign]

Originally Posted by anothergene

I just did the upgrade in question to my 800MHz 12"ibook. Put in a Hitachi 7k60. Doesn't feel any hotter to the palms resting on the case. Fan doesn't come on any more often then it did before. I havn't really run it on batteries yet to see how much quicker the bateries die.

WAY faster. boots to the log in screen in about 30seconds from power on. Login is lickity-split, even with file-vault on. Safari launches in 2 bounces.

One piece of advice. Track down one of the Apple service manuals on the net. I would not have wanted to attempt this with out it as it is a royal pain to take apart. Also keep very close track of what screws come from where as there are about 3 different lenghts. Give your selfe at least 3 hours too.

Good luck.

Thanks! Tell me about the battery life when you test it I really want to max out my ibook and with 7200rpm there would be nothing else to update