Whats More Important

So you are getting a iBook but you are on a limited budget which is more important to upgrade;

The HD or the SDRAM??

All help appreciated

Sam

RAM, no question about it. 256MB does not cut it.

that is a difficult choice and depends on what you are going to be using your computer for. if you are going to load it up with mp3's and tons of movies then HD space is really important. if you are going to be editing video both RAM and HD space is very important. if you are going to be doing sound editing RAM is a little more important than HD space.

in my opinion it all depends on what you are doing and with these two it might just be easier to wait a few more weeks, make a few more bucks and get a large HD with a lot of RAM

-chris

Hiya,

I will be using it to do the following:

Internet and Email
Microsoft Office
Store my MP3's (Not loads only about 800)
Store LOADS of documents

No video or sound editing,

Thanks,

Sam

Ohh and sorry just one thing;

At the mo I am specing it at a 80GB H/D with 512 of SDRAM but the other option is 60GB H/D with 768 of SDRAM.

Sam

numacuser said:

Hiya,

I will be using it to do the following:

Internet and Email
Microsoft Office
Store my MP3's (Not loads only about 800)
Store LOADS of documents

No video or sound editing,

Thanks,

Sam

Click to expand...

well, in that case i'd go for the bigger HD.

From a usage perspective, it's more important to have memory. Working with too little memory is extremely frustrating.

From an upgrading perspective, it's much easier to upgrade memory than a HD. Especially in an iBook; memory is under the pop-open keyboard, but the HD is a bear to get at. So I'd order it with a drive big enough for my future needs, and upgrade the memory myself later.

I would personally say that the RAM is more important for the machine, but at the same time its easier to upgrade the ram than the hard drive, if you replace the hard drive that would also leave you with a redundant hard drive, the other option would be to get a decent size external hard drive for storing all your files on.

I have the 60GB iBook G4 with 768MB of RAM and an external 120GB hard drive, I use the external hard drive primarily for movies and photos (I have a LOT of photos), my music is stored on the iBook HD and my iPod (20GB). But at the end of the day you have to think about what you need.

My iMac came with a 250GB (actual capacity is only 232 GB) hard drive and at the moment I have 200 GB free space. Those 32 GB hold currently all of the apple included software, 350 songs on iTunes (Plus the 350 copies that I have yet to delete when I transfered them onto the Mac, so a total of about 700 files) , several videos (about 4 GB worth), a DVD project, some images, and a boatload of software I have added since I got it.

So a 60GB HD would have an actual capacity of around 55GB, the 80GB drive would actually hold ~74GB. If I had the 60GB model, I would still have over 20GB of free space. If you have more than 20GB worth of documents, you must have some sore fingers and eyes!

That being said, if you opt for a bigger drive now, you can upgrade the RAM at a later date. Just pop a new stick in. Upgrading the HD would require you to backup all of the files from your old HD, get the new HD installed and loaded with OS X and then transfer the backups back onto it.

It would really be up to you. Do you think you will need the extra hard drive space? If so, I would get that now because it is easier to add RAM later. If you think that 60GB is plenty, which what you described it use would be seems likely, then you should get the RAM which would benefit you now.

If you were going to upgrade anything, the RAM would be the smartest choice IMO. You can always get an external HD down the line if you outgrow the 60 GB. I myself have never filled the 60 GB in my eMac, and am nowhere near filling the 40 GB in my iBook.
256MB of RAM is barely enough to run OS X effectively. 512 MB is a better minimum amount to have. If you can go for the 768MB or even 1 GB of RAM I would say do it. I have 512 MB in the eMac and 1.25 GB in the iBook. Both are 1 Ghz G4's and while the eMac has the faster HD, the iBook smokes it with the increased RAM, even though it has a slower HD.

get a bigger HDD and later when u have the money get a memory chip.

u can always add more memory later, but adding HDD is not very easy and practical. an alternative would be an external hdd but that would mean something extra to carry.

with a CD or DVD burner, hard drive space isn't as important. Go with the Ram

Are you buying new?