Space

From memory, I think when you get a new iBook approximately 13gb is already used by OS X and the applications it ships with. This leaves about 24gb (as a formatted 40gb HD has about 37gb usable space).

I reckon you can cut down on that by a good few GB, as you might not need all the applications that come preinstalled. The internal hard drive is upgradable at any time.

Hi FooFoo,

Apple does not install upgrades. If you would like to get an upgrade from Apple, you probably would have to break your hard drive first.

I don't usually suggest upgrading your hard drive for a couple of reasons. One being that it puts it elevates the risk of future problems with the iBook. If you (or your friend) would like to no more reasons why I don't suggest upgrading as well another option, let me know.

If your friend really would like to upgrade your hard drive, you may want to look into PowerBookResQ. They do both upgrades as well as troubleshooting. Look into it, their services come with a 90 day warranty as well as extended warranty options.

I would love to share some techniques that I know on how to free up space if you would like to know. Just let us know.

Jon

PS Usually the installed software takes up ≈8 Gigs, but I don't really remember.

Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All) , Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook , G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight..

A 40 gig hard drive is actually really about 37.25 gigs (due to the way hard drive size is figured). 1 GB is 1024 MB. 1 MB is 1024 KB. 1 KB is 1024 bytes. So if you have a "40 GB" drive, it is really 40,000,000,000 bytes. 40,000,000,000 bytes ÷ 1024 = 39062500 KB ÷ 1024 = 38146.97265625 MB ÷ 1024 = 37.252902984619 GB (in actuality).

So, you've already "lost" 2.75 GB before any OS or applications go on it.

The way to upgrade the hard drive is to special-order it upgraded when you buy it.

The only way to upgrade later is by totally dismantling the iBook. It's better to have Apple do it at the start or order it from Small Dog Electronics where custom-builds are also available (with about a two-week wait, I believe).

Unless you're planning on installing huge applications or on having an extensive iTunes and/or iPhoto library, you shouldn't have any worries. If you are planning on having any of those things, pop for the biggest hard drive you can afford right up front.