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stevekstevek · Sep 16, 2003, 11:24 AM

Anyone know what the actual drives might be? What the performance increase is, and power consumption hit would be?

AssassyN · Sep 16, 2003, 12:00 PM

I'd jump all over it; systems going from a 4200RPM drive to a 5400RPM drive can honestly feel like a completely new system. On my 1.2Ghz Athlon box, I upgraded it's original 40GB 4200RPM drive to a 80GB 5400RPM drive and it noticeably increased in speed, escp. in key tasks like .mp3-to-.wav conversion, launching games & apps., opening/unzipping files, etc. The hard drive is one of the most difficult/tedious upgrades to make in a laptop in the future, thus I'd shell out now and get it put in at the factory.

BTW: Yes, it's a new BTO option that wasn't available before today on any of Apple's notebooks.

bewebste · Sep 16, 2003, 01:15 PM

I've been researching this myself and I have a question. Does anybody know what brand of hard drive Apple is shipping in their Powerbooks? Looking at some of the benchmarks on xlr8yourmac.com, it seems like the Hitachi drives fare better. There is also no mention of the amount of cache on their drives. I don't want to get the 5400 RPM upgrade only to find out it's some POS OEM drive with a 2 MB cache.

legionare · Sep 16, 2003, 01:27 PM

Maybe worth $30 tops in my books. Definitely not $100's worth. My 80gb 4200RPM Travelstar is much faster (and quieter) than my 32gb 5400RPM Travelstar. The 7200RPM drive OTOH is a different story.

DeathMan · Sep 16, 2003, 02:02 PM

Its cheaper than buying a whole new harddrive, and paying someone to put it in for you. If they are apple certified, does it still void your warranty to do that?

I'd say do it. (Assuming you find out detailed specs on the HD) Hard drive is a bottleneck, and even with 1 gig of ram, you'll be going to swap more than you'd like. Apps will launch more quickly, large files will open more quickly. Better all around.

Mr Ti · Sep 16, 2003, 02:17 PM

I'd also like to know of the power drain, especialy on the 17 inch.

I guess the 17 inch gets around 3 hours real life usage, if it dropped to much below 2.5 hrs with the 5200rpm drive IMO that's too big a trade off.

Anyone have a 17 inch, to comment?

Anyone upgraded a Ti with a 5200rpm drive? What impact was there on your battery life?

Thanks

wavegroom · Sep 16, 2003, 03:28 PM

It would be very interesting to know which model the 5400rpm is... A Hitachi, Fujitsu, Seagate?
Please post it....!

In another thread one of the first buyers mentioned that the 4200 Disk is a Fujitsu MHT2080AT.

In tecchannel.de the disk gets a bad rating.
specs:
max seq. transfer-rate: 28,0 MByte/s
middle seek time in the first 500MB: 11,29 ms

The good thing is that the disk should be quiet.

Here some specs from other disks from tecchannel.de
Seagate
40GB
Momentus ST94811A
5.400rpm
33,49 MByte/s
8,97 ms

Hitachi
60GB
Travelstar 7K60 HTS726060M9AT00
7.200rpm
38,12 MByte/s
7,57 ms

bewebste · Sep 16, 2003, 03:35 PM

Well, according to some XBench results posted at MacBidouille, the stock drive in the new Powerbook 15" is a Fujitsu drive. I did a quick search, and none of the Fujitsu laptop drives I found had more than a 2 MB cache, which can make quite a difference in performance. That still leaves the question of what the specs are on the 5400 RPM, but knowing Apple, I wouldn't presume it to be a souped up hard drive.

I think what I'm going to do is to just get the stock model and then buy a third party drive to stick in there when I'm ready to. I figure I can fetch around $200 (or probably more) for the old drive on eBay, so even if the new drive costs around $300, like the 7200 RPM Hitachi, it'll still be cheaper overall than doing it at the Apple store (plus I don't have to wait for BTO

)

stevekstevek · Sep 16, 2003, 04:17 PM

Originally posted by bewebste:

I think what I'm going to do is to just get the stock model and then buy a third party drive to stick in there when I'm ready to. I figure I can fetch around $200 (or probably more) for the old drive on eBay, so even if the new drive costs around $300, like the 7200 RPM Hitachi, it'll still be cheaper overall than doing it at the Apple store (plus I don't have to wait for BTO

)

I just ordered the 5400 rpm drive, so I'll post the details about what I get when it arrives.

(store says 3-5 days to ship, plus I got 2-3 day shipping, so [hopefully] worst case, that's 8 business days, or probably by next Friday).

AssassyN · Sep 16, 2003, 04:20 PM

Nice choice...be sure to post impressions & pics when it arrives!

bauhaus · Sep 16, 2003, 06:23 PM

There is only one 80GB 5400rpm 9.5mm drive on the market.... so guess what, that's the one Apple's using

company: HGST
Series: 5K80
Size: 80GB

stevekstevek · 07:01 PM

Originally posted by bauhaus:
There is only one 80GB 5400rpm 9.5mm drive on the market.... so guess what, that's the one Apple's using

company: HGST
Series: 5K80
Size: 80GB

Do you know where we can get specs on that?

Nevermind, it was easier once I figured out HGST == hitachi global storage technologies == IBM's old line

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/travel/tr5k80.htm

Specs:

Data Buffer: 8MB
Seek avg, t2t, full: 12/2.5/23ms
Media transfer rate: 450Mbits/sec
Power: start/seek/read/write: 5/2.6/2.5/2.5 Watts
Performance Idle: 2.0W
Active Idle: 1.3W
Low Power Idle: 0.85W

Hmm, now, to see how that compares with the fujutsu..

arekkusu · Sep 16, 2003, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by AssassyN:
BTW: Yes, it's a new BTO option that wasn't available before today on any of Apple's notebooks.

Wrong, the 5400rpm BTO option was available on the 667/800 Mhz TiBooks, because I got it.

It wasn't available on the first 12/17" run.

AssassyN · Sep 16, 2003, 07:00 PM

Originally posted by arekkusu:
Wrong, the 5400rpm BTO option was available on the 667/800 Mhz TiBooks, because I got it.

It wasn't available on the first 12/17" run.

I meant on the previous lineup of AlBooks.

nobitacu · Sep 17, 2003, 01:22 AM

Totally not worth the extra $100, might as well buy one of those 7200 rpm laptop HDs that we heard about a month or two ago that works with the Powerbooks.

Ming

neutrino23 · Sep 17, 2003, 02:55 AM

There is one entry for the new 15" Al PB at xbench. It lists the HD as
Fujitsu MHT2080AT

I looked this up with google:

http://www.fel.fujitsu.com/home/prod...D=347&INFO=dsc

It has two platters, 40GB/platter.
It has 2MB buffer.

The only difference I can see from the specs is that the Hitachi as lower avg. latency, 5.5ms vs. 7.14ms.

No telling how these two drives differ in real life. Probably the Hiachi drive is faster to a useful degree.

Having said that, we have no evidence the Hitachi drive is the one you get with the 5400ROM option. However, it would make sense to charge $100 or so extra if you are getting 6MB buffer as well as less latency.

By the way, the Hitachi 7200 RPM drives use significantly more power while idling than the Fujitsu drive and they "only" have a capacity of 60GB.

LeeG · Sep 17, 2003, 09:12 AM

It is a BTO, but not for all models, from the apple site:

Lee

SEkker · Sep 17, 2003, 01:47 PM

My biggest disappointment was no BTO option for faster HDs in this revA PB.

I replaced an old Pismo drive with a 5400 45GB drive, felt like a new machine in OS X.

Hope the 7200 rpm notebook drives start coming in 80GB+ capacity!

dennis88 · Sep 17, 2003, 02:16 PM

I'm glad I ordered a 15" 1,25ghz with 80gb 5400rpm drive

5400rpm is alot better than 4200rpm, and let's not forget about the 8mb buffer vs 2mb of the 4200rpm drive.

spalding12 · Sep 17, 2003, 02:55 PM

the apple store in tampa is holding my 17 inch STOCK model.
i was going to drive over there in 2 hours and buy it
HOWEVER.... this thread/which I started is scaring me.
the stock model has the 4200rpm drive
if i want the 5400rpm with the higher mb buffer... i will have to order it and wait

i know that i've waited months already
but now i'm antsy

so....
the concensus is:
WAIT FOR THE 5400 ??????

help
please

greg

bewebste · Sep 17, 2003, 03:04 PM

My opinion is that if you're OK with doing the installation yourself and taking care of selling off the old drive, you can do the upgrade yourself (to either a 5400 or 7200 RPM drive) for the same or less cost. If you don't want to deal with the hassle, then the upgrade is still worth it. I went ahead and got the stock model and am pleased with it thus far. I may upgrade sometime in the future, when perhaps there will be an 80 GB 7200 drive offered, or I may not. Right now this thing is so friggin' fast compared to my first gen TiBook, I don't think I could accurately judge if the hard drive was "slow" anyway.

ae86_16v · Sep 17, 2003, 04:21 PM

I wonder if it affects battery life? I am pretty sure it does, but by how much?

legionare · Sep 17, 2003, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by neutrino23:
There is one entry for the new 15" Al PB at xbench. It lists the HD as
Fujitsu MHT2080AT

I looked this up with google:

http://www.fel.fujitsu.com/home/prod...D=347&INFO=dsc

It has two platters, 40GB/platter.
It has 2MB buffer.

The only difference I can see from the specs is that the Hitachi as lower avg. latency, 5.5ms vs. 7.14ms.

No telling how these two drives differ in real life. Probably the Hiachi drive is faster to a useful degree.

Having said that, we have no evidence the Hitachi drive is the one you get with the 5400ROM option. However, it would make sense to charge $100 or so extra if you are getting 6MB buffer as well as less latency.

By the way, the Hitachi 7200 RPM drives use significantly more power while idling than the Fujitsu drive and they "only" have a capacity of 60GB.

Doesn't Hitachi's 80GN have 8MB cache, while the Fujitsu has only 2MB? Although the Fujitsu in the new PowerBook appears to be scoring higher in XBench Disk Test than the Hitachi 80GN in my Pismo 500 (70.xx vs 61.xx).

dennis88 · Sep 17, 2003, 04:37 PM

It will not drain much battery, someone said in another forum that the 5400rpm would drain about 4 minutes of the entire batterylife more than the 4200rpm...That's not much, and nobody would tell the difference in batterylife, but they will in speed.

stevekstevek · Sep 17, 2003, 06:55 PM

One thing I can't seem to find is a comparison of the sustained transfer rate between the fujitsu 4200 and hitachi 5400 rpm drives.

yticolev · Sep 17, 2003, 07:35 PM

Originally posted by bewebste:
My opinion is that if you're OK with doing the installation yourself and taking care of selling off the old drive, you can do the upgrade yourself (to either a 5400 or 7200 RPM drive) for the same or less cost. If you don't want to deal with the hassle, then the upgrade is still worth it. I went ahead and got the stock model and am pleased with it thus far. I may upgrade sometime in the future, when perhaps there will be an 80 GB 7200 drive offered, or I may not. Right now this thing is so friggin' fast compared to my first gen TiBook, I don't think I could accurately judge if the hard drive was "slow" anyway.

bewbsite, I wonder if you could describe in more detail what you notice about the the new AlBook being so much faster than the TiBook. As an original Ti500 owner, I am very curious. I think I can wait until Panther is preloaded but I am having a hard time. Benchmarks don't mean as much to me as subjective reporting by one who has owned both.

Thanks!

cing2x · Sep 17, 2003, 07:41 PM

this guy got a stock model and listed the model number using system profiler
here's the thread: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?threadid=177056

going to Fujitsu's website:
http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/products...fications.html
it says there's an 8MB buffer

now i'm glad i didn't fork over the extra $110 [decided to go for the superdrive for only a lil more than the HD upgrade=]

macbum · Sep 17, 2003, 08:13 PM

The Specs for this Fujitsu drive are different at the european site Fujitsu MHT2080AT

They list it as having 2mb cache and in the manual too Product Manual PDF download

bewebste · Sep 17, 2003, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by yticolev:
bewbsite, I wonder if you could describe in more detail what you notice about the the new AlBook being so much faster than the TiBook. As an original Ti500 owner, I am very curious. I think I can wait until Panther is preloaded but I am having a hard time. Benchmarks don't mean as much to me as subjective reporting by one who has owned both.

Thanks!

Well, it's pretty much just faster overall, but that's not exactly surprising considering the processor is over three times faster than my Ti400 was. I did a couple searches in the Finder, and those were much faster than my old computer, as is application launch speed. The graphics card blows my old 8 MB Rage 128 out of the water, although I haven't given it a serious workout yet. Let me know if there's anything in particular you want to know about.

bewebste · Sep 17, 2003, 11:26 PM

OK, I just looked at the system profiler report for my 17" 'Book, and the hard drive list is a Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04-0 model. A Google search revealed that this model number is an IMB/Hitachi 80 GN model (specs can be found here. This is a high density, high performance drive. Even though it is only 4200 RPM, its higher data density gives it a greater throughput than a normal 4200 RPM drive.

Take a look at the benchmarks that were run by XLR8 Your Mac on the Hitachi 7K60 7200 RPM drive. One of the drives they tested it against was the Hitachi 80GN, along with a couple 5400 RPM drives and the OEM drive from a Powerbook G4/800. While the 7K60 beats out the rest, notice that the GN 80 is competitive with the two 5400 RPM drives. There's also a separate review of the 80 GN model here.

Now I'm really curious as to what model of 5400 RPM drive comes with the BTO 17" Powerbook. Since there is a Fujistu drive in the 15" and a Hitachi in the 17", I wouldn't assume that the 17" has the same 5400 RPM drive as the 15". If anyone gets their hands on a 17" model with the 5400 RPM drive, I'd love to know what model of drive it is.

macbum · 04:52 AM

who else aside from Hitachi makes a 80GB 5400rpm drive?
It's bound to be the Travelstar 5K80. A very new model.

wavegroom · Sep 18, 2003, 02:11 PM

finally I found a performence test for the 5k80 on the hitachi site... they say that the performence should improve a litte bit (beta software in the drive)

look here http://www.hgst.com/hdd/travel/winbenchcomparison.htm

The chart is not really good :-( no indicators

It's really strange that there aren't any performence test for this drive.... I think I will go for it...

The problem is, that you will lose the warranty when you change the drive (yourself).

So again for the first 15 or 17 alubook owner with 5400 drive:
PLEASE POST SOME BENCHMARKS!!!!!

cing2x · Sep 18, 2003, 10:17 PM

i bothered to email Fujitsu and they cleared it up. the specs for Fujitsu Europe are wrong. so although it's 4200RPM it's got an 8 Meg buffer. hopefully it should be ok.

StiZeven · Sep 18, 2003, 10:40 PM

I think all 80GB notebook HDs have an 8MB cache. At least Hitachi's, Fujitsu's and Toshiba's all have the 8MB cache. I prefer the Fujitsu because they are the quietest. The Toshiba HDs are way too noisy for me and unfortunately Apple uses all brands at random - including Toshiba.

vancenase · Sep 18, 2003, 11:07 PM

other than "it's not as portable" ...

why not get the stock 80GB drive in the PB ...

and buy an external 7200 RPM drive (either 2.5 or 3.5 drive via FW400 or FW800 ... or USB2.0)?

that way for "about" the same price you get twice, if not more, of the storage space?

bewebste · Sep 18, 2003, 11:14 PM

Originally posted by vancenase:
other than "it's not as portable" ...

why not get the stock 80GB drive in the PB ...

and buy an external 7200 RPM drive (either 2.5 or 3.5 drive via FW400 or FW800 ... or USB2.0)?

that way for "about" the same price you get twice, if not more, of the storage space?

The internal drive on the Powerbook is used for virtual memory as well as normal storage. Of course, having as much RAM as possible is best, but inevitably you get to the point where your machine needs to start paging stuff out, and when that happens, having the faster hard drive for swap space can make a lot of difference in the overall speed of the machine.

wavegroom · Sep 23, 2003, 12:47 AM

I think someone should have a new powerbook with 5400 Drive....

PLEASE POST SOME BENCHMARKS!!

wavegroom · 11:22 AM

I couldn't wait. I ordered a 15" with the 5400 Drive :-)
So perhaps I will post the benchmarks by myself :-)))) If not somebody is faster......

h00ligan · Sep 23, 2003, 09:03 AM

See for me i would think the 7200 rpm 60 gig would be the way to go with an external 80 or so.. I want speed INSIDE the powerbook whereas the storage space can be external.

I think i am going to buy the new 7200 rpm for my tibook and stick the stock in an external firewire case...

of course, byt he time i get around to buying it they may have an 80 or more out.. nice@@

ctishue21 · Sep 23, 2003, 10:41 AM

I'm waiting for benchmarks too. Once someone has some it will make my decision on whether to BTO, wait, and pay higher tax rate in my state OR run down to the local Apple store near where I work and pick up a stock config, paying a lower tax rate.

wavegroom · Sep 23, 2003, 11:30 AM

I wanted the 7200....
but I get this laptop for work, so I can't break the warranty and put a faster harddsik in this beauty... and when you open it, there is always a big opportunity to scratch it.

(I have done this with my ibook + overclocking.... I never will do it again.. )

So I only could order the 5400 Drive, if I want a faster harddisk :-(
please apple put the 7200 as CTO option!!!!

mainemanx · Sep 23, 2003, 12:20 PM

While Apple may try to void your warranty/AppleCare if you've been playing around inside, it is YOUR machine. Onus should be on Apple to show that your mod did cause your (future) problem.

However, in the real world, the onus may be on you to show that your mod did not cause your (future) problem.

Consequently it's always safest to return it to normal before you put on your dumb face (not hard for me :-) and take it in to the AppleStore.

OK, having said all that, looking at the new PB dissection pictures posted on this site, a hard drive switch looks like it would be pretty straightforward, vis a vis the Dual USB iBooks.

All IMVHO.

ctishue21 · Sep 23, 2003, 12:30 PM

I'm leaning towards swapping hard drives myself if I don't like the performance of the 4200rpm, but doesn't Apple have some sort of seal that they can tell you broke upon opening the powerbook?

mainemanx · Sep 23, 2003, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by ctishue21:
I'm leaning towards swapping hard drives myself if I don't like the performance of the 4200rpm, but doesn't Apple have some sort of seal that they can tell you broke upon opening the powerbook?

Actually ... it's not a seal but a walrus!

'Sorry, it's an Apple Corp. thing ...

stevekstevek · Sep 25, 2003, 12:53 PM

OK, so it finally got here.

Currently, I've re-partitioned it (so I can test alternate OSes) and am almost done re-installing Jaguar.

I'll do the Xbench thing and post specs soon..

ctishue21 · Sep 25, 2003, 12:57 PM

Originally posted by stevekstevek:
OK, so it finally got here.

Currently, I've re-partitioned it (so I can test alternate OSes) and am almost done re-installing Jaguar.

I'll do the Xbench thing and post specs soon..

WOOOO! Congrats! Post battery life estimates too!

stevekstevek · Sep 25, 2003, 01:17 PM

OK, here's the Xbench results for the 5400 rpm drive:

Disk Test: 77.39
sequential
4k write: 93.10 37.06MB/s
256k write: 81.08 31.65MB/s
4k read: 134.11 21.23MB/s
256k read: 78.63 31.77MB/s
random
4k write: 57.24 0.82MB/s
256k write: 67.71 15.27MB/s
4k read: 68.81 0.45MB/s
256k read: 75.62 15.56MB/s

ctishue21 · Sep 25, 2003, 01:26 PM

Just for comparison, here is PeterKG's results with the 4200rpm in his new 15"

Disk Test 70.28
Sequential 77.77
Uncached Write 74.58 29.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 68.96 26.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 111.08 17.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 68.88 27.83 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 64.11
Uncached Write 79.11 1.13 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 57.32 12.93 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 59.07 0.39 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 65.02 13.38 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...now to decide.

stevekstevek · Sep 25, 2003, 01:26 PM

http://barefeats.com/al15.html says:

We haven't tested the optional 5400rpm 80GB drive yet but we will soon. I did run Xbench 1.1.1 drive test on the stock Fujitsu 4200rpm 80GB (2MB cache). It measured 26MB/s sustained read/write (256K blocks).

So, the 5400 rpm drive got me 31MB/s with 256kB blocks; that's 20% faster.

Not bad.

It's also pretty quiet. I can't hear it at all, but I'm in a noisy office.
If you listen real close, you can kinda hear seeking..

ctishue21 · Sep 25, 2003, 01:28 PM

How is your battery life reading? Oh and does system profiler confirm this is the Hitachi 5400rpm 80GB?