iBook SOS
 

Dear friends,

I'm finally bidding so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen and adieu to my WebTV internet terminal and am about to purchase an Apple laptop. My hopes of getting a 15" Powerbook were dashed when I discovered I had an allergy to anodized aluminum so I'll be ordering a 14" iBook with SuperDrive.

I'm unsure how much to upgrade the iBook's 60 GB hard drive. Is there a benefit to maxing out with 100 GB or is 80 GB sufficient? And what do you recommend for a reliable and quiet external hard drive?

Grateful thanks for your suggestions.

Dorothy

I think 60/80/100 either of these would be fine but if you're keeping all your work on external firewire, probably wouldn't need to upgrade.

Or maybe you could upgrade to a faster RPM drive. I'm not sure if Apple provides faster RPM drives, but there's places out there that'll do it...

I recommend a G-drive for a quiet and reliable external drive. Mac Mall usually has good prices on them, and they are available with FW400/USB 2.0 or FW800, depending on what your iBook has.

You may very well benefit from upgrading the drive if you are going to install lots of software. Final Cut Studio has file libraries that take a huge amount of space, and they are things you probably want to keep on your system disk if you are using a laptop. But if you are only going to install an NLE and other typical programs then it may not matter. My Mac at home is a PowerBook with a 60GB drive (and a G-drive, of course), and it does fine for me, but I don't have Soundtrack Pro or anything else with huge libraries installed.

You might want to have a look at this thread where different macs were discussed at length:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=49208

I don't personally think you need more than a 60GB internal drive since you should keep all your video on an external. I have no idea what the quietest external drive is, I have generally bought according to price and what was available locally. Just make sure it is firewire and not USB, and that it's a 7200 RPM mechanism. Personally I find that firewire 400 works fine.

There may be issues with capturing to an external drive, especially if you have a Canon camcorder unfortunately. One advantage of the powerbook is that you can put a firewire PC card into the slot, but of course this option isn't available on the iBook.

I assume there's a reason you're buying a laptop instead of a desktop, right? Just be aware that the performance gap is pretty substantial and laptops don't give you the best bang for the buck.

Also, be aware that if you buy from the Apple Store and you customize the machine in any way (adding RAM, larger hard drive, etc) then your computer will NOT BE RETURNABLE. If you buy a stock configuration then there's a return/exchange policy. Be sure to read all the fine print on Apple's store site.

Good luck with the new computer, and let us know how it works out.

i'd get the bigger internal hard drive. i have an older 15'' powerbook with a 60 gig HD, and i am bumping up against its limits with only FCP, FCE, iLife, and Microsoft Office loaded on it. i also keep my music library on it, because it is much easier than switching between hard drives to access it.

i have 3 canon cameras and have never encountered capture problems on an external drive, except for once, when i tried to capture to a DiskGo Edge hard drive, which evidently was slower than 7200.

with a 60 GB hard drive, i am frequently having to clean house to keep some space available.

Hi Justin,

Thanks for your thoughts! Not sure I'll be keeping all my work on an external hard drive and don't wish to farm out any upgrades to a third party, so I'll probably increase my iBook's 60 GB hard drive and order an 80 GB hard drive for 45 bucks more. Hey, the price is right!

Dorothy

Hi Zach and thanks for your feedback and recommendations!! I'll read up on G-drives. Will their new and improved model be called the G-Whiz-drive? Dorothy

Thanks, Meryem! It seems like a prudent investment and good insurance to purchase another 20 GB of hard drive for $45. Dorothy

Boyd, thanks for referencing that discussion. I've already written down your recommendation for a FW400, 7200 RPM external drive from a past thread! ;-))

The only camcorder I own is a Canon ZR85. While patiently waiting for Canon to add an upgraded GL to their canon, I've been learning digital photography. If capture problems are an issue and the GL3 is still MIA, I'll probably get one of the new Sony HDs.

Actually, I'll be getting an amazingly big bang for my bucks with an iBook. A portable laptop is perfect for me to shlep to my neighborhood Apple Store (more like a theme park!) which offers a dazzling array of lectures and other learning opportunities for a computer novice like me.

My reluctance to pay a 15% restocking fee is why I wouldn't take advantage of Apple's return policy.

So thanks for your good wishes and for all the neat suggestions in this thread.

Dorothy