Powerbook hardware (hard drives)
Now I know there are a billion topics concerning whether the new powerbooks (now or later) will have a G4 or a G5, but rest assured this is not about that.
My question is what kind of hard drves will be available? Currently, there are 4200 (ghastly) and 5400 (better but still slow) ATA/100 hard drives in the powerbooks. By the next revision (or later or never?) is there any word on either 7200 speed hard drives or serial ata connections? Considering that the hard drive rotation and connection speed is a huge influence on how fast the laptop itself operates, that would interest me more than a speed boost. Any chance at all?
My question is what kind of hard drves will be available? Currently, there are 4200 (ghastly) and 5400 (better but still slow) ATA/100 hard drives in the powerbooks. By the next revision (or later or never?) is there any word on either 7200 speed hard drives or serial ata connections? Considering that the hard drive rotation and connection speed is a huge influence on how fast the laptop itself operates, that would interest me more than a speed boost. Any chance at all?
Comments
I would be very surprised if Apple stuck with a 4200/5400 configuration in their notebooks. The ATA/100 should go too. 7200 with serial ATA seems like the way they would go. These are supposed to be top end pro notebooks, anything less than 7200/serial ATA should be unacceptable.
How were you able to get a 7200 RPM drive in your PB.
Originally posted by ByteMe
Hey, How?
How were you able to get a 7200 RPM drive in your PB.
http://www.computerhouse.com/cgi-bin...Ectx=20HDZZ602
You just have to look, and bring your second mortgage, you will need it.
5400 RPM will suffice.
Not sure how long that price will last. I did a check on pricegrabber and it was the cheapest. I have bought many things from mwave and have had no problems (well so far).
In terms of the next gen HD's for notebooks, I think you will have to wait a while. the 7200RPM Notebook HD just came out. Serial ATA is pretty much new for desktops as well. It will be a while before that trickles down to Laptops. The soonest I see Serial ATA on notebooks will be late Q4 2004. 10,000 RPM serial ATA is stuck at 74 GB's for desktops. I don't see 10,000RPM drives for notebooks until mid 2005. Hard drives are the limiting factors in computers these days.
Originally posted by DMBand0026
Thanks Mike, I think he already knew that.
I would be very surprised if Apple stuck with a 4200/5400 configuration in their notebooks. The ATA/100 should go too. 7200 with serial ATA seems like the way they would go. These are supposed to be top end pro notebooks, anything less than 7200/serial ATA should be unacceptable.
well, considering few, if any, 7200 RPM drives can max out an ATA100 channel, it seems silly to use "performance" as a motivator here. Also, as far as I know, there aren't yet any true SATA notebook drives on the market. In fact, there are very few 3.5" SATA drives on the market. most of them are just PATA with bridges on the drive, negating any protocol advantage to SATA, possibly even slowing the drive down.
Moving to SATA could have other benefits for application to a laptop though. the smaller (round) cable might make airflow slightly better. Of course, with large enough buffers, and implementation of SATA II native command queing, there could be real performance benefits (both speed and power-saving)
I had been thinking about this recently, and was bouncing around the ideas of having two 1.8" drives in a hardware RAID. the power req's would be about the same, possibly a little lower, and the performance should be at least on par with a 4200RPM 2.5". also, the lower rotational speed, the spreading of total heat, and thinner/smaller drives could help a lot with the design/layout.
of course, the obvious problem is data integrity. in order to get performance on par with a 4200-5400RPM 2.5" drive, you'd have to stripe the drives (RAID 0) which means if either drive fails, all data is lost.
i still think the idea is cool.
Thats my biggest concern...
Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch
How's battery usage on a 7200 rpm drive compared to a 4200/5400 rpm drive?
Thats my biggest concern...
I compared IBM's GNX 5400 with IBM/Hitachi's 7200 and they are almost identical, i wouldn't worry about that, BUT....
operating temperatures are way different, 7200 has to operate in much lower temperatures (this may be a reason why it is not being offered as an option by apple). That being said, i've upgraded my stock 80GB 4200 to 60GB 7200 in my 15" ALbook, and never had any problems. And it is faaaast.
SATA NOTEBOOK DRIVE
They are (as far as I know) still one of Apple's main suppliers.
Very interesting
Originally posted by fred_lj
Or did they switch to someone else with the Aluminum PowerBooks?
Fujitsu and Toshiba are the main suppliers for hard drives used in Aluminum Powerbooks. At least mine's is a Fujitsu.
Originally posted by maninmac
Well that was not hard to find...the #1 hit on a google search.
SATA NOTEBOOK DRIVE
"The drive will sample in the first quarter, with volume production expected in April. Fujitsu did not announce pricing but said the drive would initially carry a premium over its similar parallel ATA models."
Like I said, I don't know of any SATA notebook drives on the market. ???
thanks!
Shorebird 8)
On a side note, I wish that I could tell OS X (or heck, Windows since that is the OS that I use 97% of the time) to keep the contents of a particular folder in memory (saving changes to disk of course). This would eliminate alot of the HD access problems that can come up because I generally am doing alot of work on the files in a specific folder. Come on OS X! Give us power users some options!
Originally posted by T'hain Esh Kelch
How's battery usage on a 7200 rpm drive compared to a 4200/5400 rpm drive?
Thats my biggest concern...
The time on my 17" is a little shorter but not much at all!
Mike
Originally posted by piwozniak
I compared IBM's GNX 5400 with IBM/Hitachi's 7200 and they are almost identical, i wouldn't worry about that, BUT....
operating temperatures are way different, 7200 has to operate in much lower temperatures (this may be a reason why it is not being offered as an option by apple). That being said, i've upgraded my stock 80GB 4200 to 60GB 7200 in my 15" ALbook, and never had any problems. And it is faaaast.
piwozniak, you say a 7200RPM HD needs a lower operating temp. What temp do the fans come on then? How long are they on for when they do come on?