"BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS"
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HOT DEALS on speed upgrades
Originally
posted 09/29/03 by rob-ART
morgan,
mad scientist Apple is shipping
the new 15" (and 17") Aluminum PowerBooks with the
Fujitsu MHT2080AT
(80GB, 4200rpm, 8MB cache) drive as standard
equipment. I thought this was the only brand of
4200rpm drive being shipped with the 15" and 17"
PowerBook but two readers informed me that their
15" Aluminum PowerBook came with the 80GN
IC25N080ATMR04
drive (80GB, 4200rpm, 8MB cache). So we got those
tested and this edition has those results as
well. For an extra
$125, you can order the optional Hitachi
5K80
(80GB 5400rpm 8MB cache) on your new Aluminum
PowerBook as a Build-To-Order (BTO)
option. Many of you are
asking which drive is the best choice for your
PowerBook. Some of you, like me, want to go faster
still. With the Hitachi 7K60
(60GB,
7200rpm, 8MB cache) drive dropping as low as $235
in recent days, it's tempting to order the cheapest
drive from Apple and replace it with the 7K60.
Others are
thinking they want maximum capacity. Maybe the 80GB
5K80 is fast enough. Maybe the stock 80GB drive is
sufficient, too. I decided to test
the 4200rpm, 5400rpm, and 7200rpm notebook drives.
I have posted results for those drives running
inside the 15" Aluminum G4/1.25 PowerBook, as well
as externally in FireWire 800 case kits. CONCLUSIONS The Hitachi 7k60
7200rpm drive is clearly the faster of the other
four drives and is my personal notebook favorite.
If the 7K60's 60GB is not enough storage, you can
always archive inactive stuff to an external drive.
The best performing external notebook drive would
be another 7K60 inside a FireWire 800 bus powered
notebook enclosure, as you can see from the graphs
above. The optional
Hitachi 5K80 5400prm offered on the Apple Online
Store does give an overall 22% gain over the
standard factory Fujitsu MHT-AT drive but only a 7%
gain over the Hitachi 80GN factory drive. You'll
have to decide if it's worth $125 more. The
only possible downside to this scenario is that
I haven't cracked open the 15" AlumBook case
yet. I hear it is not as easy as the TiBook when
it comes to replacing the drive. One drive
vendor told me they are looking into this issue
to see if they can generate illustrated
instructions. If you are fearful about opening
up your new PowerBook, then start sending email
to Apple asking them to offer the 7K60 as a
factory option. If you have an
older Titanium G4 PowerBook or G3 Pismo with a
small, slow drive, you can use the 7K60 as well.
The Pismo won't get quite as much speed as we got,
however. If you need maximum storage space, I'm
sure you will be happy with the Hitachi 80GN or
Hitachi 5K80 as well. DO THE FASTER
DRIVES USE MORE BATTERY POWER? No matter what
drive you choose, don't expect the Aluminum
PowerBook battery to last much more than 2 hours,
according to reports I'm receiving. The 4.5 hour
rating is mythical... I mean... theoretical.
;-) ARE FASTER
DRIVES MORE NOISY? The subjective
impressions? The 7200rpm drive makes a very low
level whirring noise that can only be heard in a
very quiet mountain cabin. The 4200rpm 80GN is the
quietest. I can't hear it at all. The only notebook
drives that ever made too much noise to suit me
were the Toshiba 40G and 60G GAX drives. Their
noisy actuator was more than I was willing to
endure. WHAT ABOUT
HEAT? WHERE TO
BUY The Firewire 800
bus powered enclosures are available from
Wiebetech
and FWDepot. Has Bare Feats
helped you? Say "thanks"... with a
donation.
Versus Other PowerBook
Drives
9/30/03 - Correction on Fujitsu drive (8MB buffer,
not 2MB)
and alternate standard factory drive (Hitachi
80GN)
10/1/03 - Test results for 80GN
If you
replaced the factory drive with the 7K60, you
can always use the slower 4200rpm factory drive
for archiving or overflow. But in that case,
there's little advantage to using a FireWire 800
case. A FireWire 400 case would be just as fast
and yet cheaper.
Again,
if it was me, instead of spending an extra $125
for the 5K80, I would save an extra $75 by
specifying the 60GB 4200rpm option. Then I'd
take the $75 that I saved plus the $125 I didn't
spend and invest that ($200 total) toward a 7K60
drive, which which is currently selling as low
as $269 with shipping.
The faster spinning drives do use more "juice"
during normal operation (2.3 and 2.5W vs 2.1), but
they also have sophisticated Adaptive Battery Life
Extender logic to help offset that. The only way to
tell for sure is if I did some kind of battery
drain test with three different drives installed.
(Yawn) I'll let one of you do that test.
I don't have a decibel meter but I can tell you
that the Hitachi drives all use Fluid Dynamic
Bearing motor technology and actuator dampers. The
average noise rating according to the factory
ranges from 27 to 33 decibels.
Again, I no heat measuring instruments, but
when I feel the bottom of my PowerBook, the only
heat generated came from the logic board area, not
from the 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive.
The Hitachi Travelstar 80GN, 5K80, and 7K60
notebook drives are available from Other
World Computing
and Trans
International.
Keep watching BizRate
and C/Net
Shopper
for lowest priced sources.
Refurbs? Think Small. SmallDog.com
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"BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS"
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