Need a New Drive

Question

Level 2

393 points

Need a New Drive

My 5400rpm 80 gigger is about full. I want to swap it out and turn it into an external. So, my first question is what is a good enclosures. My only concern is that it be bus-powered and rugged. My second question is what would be faster and more reliable drive to put in the PowerBook a Seagate 5400RPM 160gb or a 7200RPM 100gb? Final question is, are their 2.5" 120gb 7200RPM drives out there? Any of these would have the capacity I need though 120 would be sweeter.

Revision B Powerbook 17 1.33mHz, dual 2.7 PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 7, 2006 7:09 AM

Reply

Answer 1

BGreg

Level 6

17,558 points

May 7, 2006 8:15 AM in response to RHPODOLSKY

OWC has a good selection of external enclosures here. If you can get one using any of the Oxford chipsets, they seem to be very reliable working with Macs (OWC says which enclosures use the Oxford chipsets). You also want to get an enclosure that uses Firewire, so you can boot from your external drive if you need/want to. Can't do that on USB.

For speed, a 7200rpm drive will trump a 5400rpm drive. I don't know of a 120gb 7200rpm 2.5" notebook drive out there today, but tomorrow is of course another story.... If it were me, I'd go with a 7200rpm 100gb drive. Unless you need the storage of a larger drive (which you said you didn't), the 7200rpm drive will make itself felt with crisper response and faster disk throughput.

The newer Seagates have a 5 year warranty, if that's an indicator of potential reliability.

Reply

Answer 2

RHPODOLSKY Author

Level 2

393 points

May 7, 2006 10:04 AM in response to BGreg

Great advice. I think OWC is the one-stop-shop for this upgrade. I have one their enclosures already and like them just fine. And while 100gb would do for now and for another year, I would love 120gb 7200RPM and feel they are just around the corner. I was also hoping that a large capacity 160gb drive runing at 5400RPM would be comparible in speed in to a smaller 7200RPM but the benchmarks do not support this - the 7200RPM is just going to be noticably faster cross the board.

Any experience/advice regarding performing a drive swap in a 17" powerbook? I am reasonably comfortable doing this kind of stuff but I have never been inside my PowerBook for anything other than installing RAM.

Thanks

Reply

Answer 3

BGreg

Level 6

17,558 points

May 7, 2006 2:20 PM in response to RHPODOLSKY

Any experience/advice regarding performing a drive swap in a 17" powerbook?

You may want to view a step-by-step guide at iFixit.

Reply

Answer 4

RHPODOLSKY Author

Level 2

393 points

May 7, 2006 3:34 PM in response to BGreg

Excellent. Thank you so much. I am going to wait 2 weeks to see if my hunch (wish) about the 120gb/7200RPM comes true.

I would like to pre-load all my data and confirm that it is a bootable drive before I install it. Any ideas on how best to do that would be most appreciated.

Reply

Answer 5

Hardy Geer

Level 4

3,166 points

May 7, 2006 3:39 PM in response to BGreg

The 160GB drive now costs less per GB than the 120GB at newegg.com.

Reply

Answer 6

Hardy Geer

Level 4

3,166 points

May 7, 2006 3:43 PM in response to RHPODOLSKY

If you are going to preload the 160GB make sure that the enclosure can handle over 128GB. Many can only handle 128GB or less.

Reply

Answer 7

May 7, 2006 6:48 PM in response to RHPODOLSKY

My situation is similar only I already bought an enclosure thing. but the pins don't fit... as a matter of fact some of the pins are bent now so I'll have to try and straighten that out when I get a new internal -> external kit.

any recommendations for one that will definitely fit a g3 powerbook hard drive: ibm travelstar 10 GB, 2.5"?

I wouldn't even need one but the old computer just won't power up...so I can't turn it into a firewire drive by using that "T" command.

thanks in advance for any info...

Reply