[mattmarshall]

hey all...

I've just spent some time reading the forums about upgrading the HD inside an iMac. So many different opinions!

I want to replace the 10 gig drive inside my summer 2000 dv iMac.

i want the biggest, fastest, quitest, most reliable/durable drive in the world. what drive is this?
are there any clear winners?

oh. any experiences upgrading the summer 2000 imac would be much appreciated...succeses, failures, warnings, etc


thanks!!

-matt

[ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: mattmarshall ]

[aaroncsmith]

I just upgraded mine two weeks ago with a 40 GB Maxtor drive at 5400 rpm.

I chose Maxtor because that seems to be the popular choice among Mac users, for whatever reason.

The only installation problem I had was that the six tiny screws that hold the metal grill shielding in place are easy to drop into the guts of the computer. Just be careful getting them out once unscrewed. You need small fingers to grab them.

As for the drive itself, I bought a 5400 rpm because I was worried about heat issues, but in retrospect I was maybe being too cautious. The extra speed would have been nice, even though I notice a non-trivial speed increase already due to faster seek times on the new drive.

As for noise, that was a disappointment. The clicking of the write heads is MUCH softer, almost silent. I was afraid the drive was DOA at first because I couldn't hear it clicking during the formatting procedure. HOWEVER, the annoying high pitched whine of the original drive has remained the same. I think this is a shielding problem with the iMac design more than a drive problem. They just didn't put enough noise shielding into the case.

The whole "silent" no-fan computer is a myth, in my experience. The grating sound of the hard drive is much more annoying than the soft white noise of the fan. Oh, well.

I just bought a new 60 gig hd for my Ruby iMac 450 mhz. It works great. I originally had a 20 gig, but upgrading made everything work better. I bought a Maxtor.

The place i'd look for is Pricewatch. I looked there for mine and i got it for pretty cheap (94 bucks).
Here is a link to the one i bought: http://www.buyaib.com/60eid5451buf.html

Hope this helps!

[xyber233]

I would look at pricewatch.com. I would recommend Maxtor. Thats what I bought and I am very happy with it.

[nyarlaho]

Same here, Summer 2000 Imac. I got a 40 GB Maxtor 5400. Cheap with rebate at comp USA (50 or 60 bux, I believe). Works perfect. Be sure to have small philips head screwdriver when installing.

[supernature]

It's a consensus. Maxtor. I always buy Maxtor too because it's always consistently cheap. I think that's why people buy it. There are better drives out there I suppose, but I only had one HD crash all because a charge came from the speaker jack of my G3 when I unplugged it. Comp took a nose dive and my HD came crashing down. It wasn't a Maxtor, so I guess that's a good thing.

FYI, usually the faster the RPM you get, the noisier it is. So you may want to keep that in mind before you go get a 7200RPM. The iMac doesn't exactly have much noise padding, mostly because there's not much noise.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by mattmarshall:
<STRONG>i want the biggest, fastest, quitest, most reliable/durable drive in the world. what drive is this?
are there any clear winners?</STRONG>

Seagate Barracuda IV.
Maxtor/Quantums are nice and reliable too...

But the Barracuda is the quietest drive you'll ever hear (or not hear), it's damn fast, and extremely reliable...

I have 4 Seagate HD's, each of which has been absolutely awesome; two of them are 5 years old. The other two are newer (one about a month old - a Barracuda IV).

[CaseCom]

My 30-gig Maxtor is still humming along nicely.

Check out user reports at xlr8yourmac.com.

[malvolio]

I installed a 40 GB Maxtor 5400 RPM drive ten days ago. The installation procedure for my Spring 2000 slot-loading iMac was very much like what aaroncsmith described. Just be careful with those tiny, hard-to-access screws!
I do not notice any whine with the new Maxtor drive. It's incredibly quiet, and the seek times are definitely faster than the stock Quantum Fireball HD, even though the RPMs are the same.
Count me as a satisfied Maxtor customer!

[xyber233]

I would stick with Maxtor since most people on these forums have had good experiences with them. Plus they are inexpensive and you can pick them up anywhere such as a local Best Buy or CompUSA.

[mattmarshall]

just an interesting counter-opinion that i found.....which only makes me more confused!


i was reading over at 2-pop.com, and stmbled upon this opinion in a how-to article:

"We suggest 60 or 75 GB (soon to be 80 and 120 GB) IBM ATA-100 or 80 GB Barracuda which are 7200 RPM drives since they are field proven, have the best microcode for controlling the drive, and the best electronics allowing longer cables than other brands.

We avoid certain brands of disk drives such as Western Digital and Maxtor due to their heavy failure rates and errors, as reported on video forums such as www.2-pop.com and DV-L. Certain Quantum drives work well. Note that Maxtor and Quantum recently combined, and it is our understanding that Quantum drives are built under higher standards than Maxtor. Also note that not everybody has trouble with these drives. However, for most people their data is very important. We stay with tried and proven components as insurance.
"

(http://www.2-pop.com/article/mainv/0,7220,31938,00.html)


ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[vmarks]

I've had older maxtors fail. others have had success.

I've had great success with IBM drives.