04-29-2004, 01:09 PM

I have a 600 with 256mb of RAM running 10.3. I was thinking of upgrading the hard drive to a 7200rpm, and bumping the ram to the max. I can only afford to do one now and the other sometime later. Which would give me bigger, noticable performance gains?

04-29-2004, 01:41 PM

Performance is always improved by increased RAM. And the only benefit bigger hard drive can offer is virtual memory use, which by its very nature is less efficient then RAM

04-29-2004, 03:04 PM

Originally Posted by witeshark

Performance is always improved by increased RAM. And the only benefit bigger hard drive can offer is virtual memory use, which by its very nature is less efficient then RAM

Isnt the drive inside the iBook 600, a 4800rpm drive? So upgrading to a 7200rpm drive with say a 8mb cache should help speed up high disk usage activites, such as bootup, photoshop stuff, ect? Or am I totally wrong?

04-29-2004, 04:30 PM

the faster harddrive would be faster, however, to see the most obvious power increase...do your ram first...ram will speed up your computer better than anything second to the processor....so do that first, then worry about your hardrive...

I just worried about ram, and not even thinking about my hardrive.

05-07-2004, 06:42 PM

I maxed out the ram the day I posted this thread. I used it like that until today. Today I decided to install a 7200rpm drive that I picked up at Fry's. I must say that it is not as difficult as the directions look and make it out to be. Currently, I am reinstalling 10.3 and all my apps. I will post back later with my opinions. Maxing out the ram made a noticable difference. . . . . .

7200 rpm drive install instructions:
http://uk.geocities.com/ibookupgrade/

http://homepage.mac.com/itiburon/cyb...Book500HD.html

05-07-2004, 10:59 PM

All I can say is wow. Anyone who is even thinking about doing this swap, do it. I recently upgraded my iBook to a 7200rpm drive from the basic [included from the factory] 4200rpm drive, as well as maxed out the ram in my iBook. When I first maxed out the ram, it booted faster, less lag when playing movies ect, less lag in general. But overall in disk intensive moments it would choke. Now my iBook boots *noticeably* faster, I can actually multitask, I have not been able to recreate the same lag as I was getting before in certain situations. I feel like I have a new computer -- this should hold me over until Apple releases some g5 laptops. . . . .

There are a couple things that concern me. The first is that my left palm rest is noticably hotter. I wonder if this will lead to any issues in the near future? Its not, hot, hot, but warmer. Secondly I noticed that my battery life has decreased by about 10-20 minutes. Could be because I have been reinstalling everything. . . . CDROM going like mad, hard drive chugging away, ect. Even if the battery life has decreased by 20 minutes the speed gained makes it well worth the upgrade. I will post more on this as I use the laptop through the weekend.

If anyone has any questions about the swap, ask away. The directions make it look and seem 10x harder than what it is. They also state that it takes 4-6 hours, I was finished in about 2.5. It was very straight forward -- the only tip I give is *MARK* the screws, you take out about 45.

05-10-2004, 10:13 AM

The heat you noted is due to the new hard disk you installed. I concern would be if the power supply can handle your updates.

05-10-2004, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by rman

The heat you noted is due to the new hard disk you installed. I concern would be if the power supply can handle your updates.

Others have done the same thing and I hear that it does make a difference. The downside is that there is more heat and less battery life, but they say that it is worth it anyways

I have not heard that there are any issues with the power supply after upgrading the drive. Only downside that I have heard is that mean failure rates on the faster 7200rpm drives is higher....

05-10-2004, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by lzasitko

Only downside that I have heard is that mean failure rates on the faster 7200rpm drives is higher....

Backups are your friend . . . . I will post an update should anything go wrong. Now I am onto new mod thoughts: I personally like the slot loading look of the newew ibooks, I wonder if its a direct swap to my 600?