Quiet hard drive for iBook?

Biff

Biff

Thinking Different
My iBook gets a lot of use and I upgraded the hard drive from 10 GB to a 20GB IBM Travelstar HD when I first bought it. Things were going great until recently. The drive is so noisy now that I cannot stand it. I can hear it loud and clear from 20 feet away. It sounds like the bearings are starting to get old. It is also is loud when it is resting and ocasionally it squeaks like a mouse. So I am thinking it is upgrade time.

Can someone suggest a very quiet hard drive that will stay quiet after 6 months?

PS My friend has a 3 year old IBM Thinkpad with the exact same drive in it and it is about 10 times quieter.
 
The drive isn't still under warranty, is it? Because that's definately something that should not happen after only six months, I'm guessing your drive is defective or at the very least needs to maintained. Of course, they could be just as expensive to do as it is to get a new drive ... sorry this post wasn't much help.
 
It is still under warranty but IBM told me that it was perfectly acceptable for a drive to become noiser after 6 months of use. They told me their warranty does not cover wear from usage. In the end it would probably be easier to get a new one. The one I am using now does not have fluid bearings.
 
Ahh thats good to know. I'm planning on upgrading my 'book's hard drive as soon my 1 year Apple warranty is up (August) and I definately don't want it go be 'lawnmower loud.' But I also want a butt-load of space. I hate having to rely on this 20 gig FireWire drive that sits on my desk ... as and it is, I only have 813 mb left on my internal HD. SUCKS!

I can't imagine how clamshell users handle only 3 gigs .. they must not rip music into iTunes.

I digress, anyone out there know of what we should be looking for in quality, quiet, and laptop-sized harddrives?
 
I just went out and bought the new 60gig travelstar from IBM, I dropped it into the drive space on my TiBook 400mhz and slapped the cover back on, powered up the drive and was convinced that I'd forgot to hook it up. It's silent, I mean really silent (except for head chatter when it's doing something), the actual rotation of the drive makes no noise.
One of the PEECEE chaps at work bought the 48g drive and his is silent too. Impressive.

The drive I replaced was a 20g Travelstar and that was a noisy bastard, verrrrry loud.

I got the drive from www.transintl.com, fast service and great price.

Simon
 
The iBook can only use a 9.5 mm high drive. I looked into the 5400 RPM travelstars but I believe they are all 12 mm and ontop of that very $$$$.

I already bought a new one. The 30 GB travelstar with fluid bearings so that should make the world of a difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top