Hard drive update for my iMacdv400

nofeer

what do you recommend in terms of size and manufacturer?? How much would it cost including installation? what speed drive?

imac dv400 640 ram, os10.2.6 i'm trying to get more life out of it, i want to keep it at least a year. will get new laptop before christmas probably a pb 12 or 15

have any of you installed it yourself? and how do i get the old data to the new drive, or should i go external if external can you designate this as your primary drive and install everything on it?

opuscroakus

Maxtor and Western Digital hard drives seem to be the two most popular brands around here. Whichever you get, get a 7200 RPM drive. That series of iMac's hard drive bus is either ATA-33 or 66, though just about anything new is ATA100/133. These drives will work fine, but they will be on the slower bus.



I would get (depending on what you do) a 80+GB drive. I know you can get a Maxtor drive with 8MB cache, which would be good if you are wanting to do some disk intensive stuff.



To just install the drive without any software work, any reputable place won't charge you more than 1/2 hr. of labor. If you are handy with a screw driver, this series of iMac is pretty easy to swap the drive out. Try doing it yourself and save some cash.



As for the data, either the shop could transfer it for you or you could get an ext. firewire case (I would. FW800 if possible) If it is the stock drive it is probably a 10GB 5400RPM drive. Too lite for a boat anchor, but good for keeping the indoor wind from blowing papers off your desk. Put the 10GB drive in the FW case and get your data off, or leave it on. Use it until you buy a new Mac with a superdrive, then pitch the 10GB drive and buy a fast CD/RW and put that in the ext. case, or buy a big fat new hdd and stick that in.