A Very Quiet Notebook Drive
From Lukas:
Hello,
I just read your comments on suitable hard drives for the
Pismo in the Miscellaneous Ramblings
Mailbag of 2007.05.21 [7,200 RPM
Drive Too Hot for Pismo?]. Having bought a hard drive for a
Pismo myself last month, I thought I'd throw my 2 cents worth
in.
Just as Martin Jungowski, I was looking for a drive as quiet as
possible. I ended up buying a
Fujitsu MHW2080AT. This is a fairly new drive which was
introduced this spring. I highly recommend this drive. [Editor's
note: This is a 4,200 RPM hard drive with an 8 MB buffer.
dk]
I selected the drive based on the tests in the German c't magazine. The c't
magazine measures hard drive loudness using the "Sone" unit (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sone),
which expresses the subjective loudness of a drive more accurately
than the dB unit.
The MHW2080AT was rated at 0.1 Sone and is thus the quietest
2.5" drive currently on the market. (1.8" drives are even quieter.)
Other drives aren't much louder (e.g., Toshiba MK2035GSS:
0.3 Sone), but if one is looking for a drive as quiet as possible,
the MHW2080AT is the way to go.
The loudness of a drive depends not only on the speed with which
the platters turn, but also on the number of platters. The hard
drive manufacturers are currently moving to a new recording method
called PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), and this method
allows the MHW2080AT to store 80 GB on a single platter. The
previous Fujitsu drive generation, called "MHV" (e.g., MHV2080AT),
needed two platters to store 80 GB.
In practice, the hard drive is barely audible. You do hear it
when you sit in front of the Pismo in a totally quiet room, but as
soon as you walk two steps away from the machine, you can no longer
tell whether the hard drive is spinning or not. It's really
fantastic.
After putting the drive in the Pismo, for the first time ever I
noticed that you hear a quiet static noise from the Pismo's
speakers. Whenever you hit a key or move the mouse cursor around,
you can hear this from the speakers. I never noticed this before
because the hard drive (the factory installed Toshiba MK2016GAP)
was so loud.
Another advantage of the MHW2080AT is that it is designed for a
lifetime of 5 years, whereas other hard drives (e.g., the
predecessor MHV2080AT) are designed for only 3 years. This is
because according to the specifications, Fujitsu designed the
MHW2080AT primarily for embedded applications (like navigation
systems in cars or digital video recorders), rather than
notebooks.
One thing to keep in mind when selecting a drive for the Pismo
is that the built-in "Key Largo" ATA controller only supports
ATA/ATAPI-5 (aka Ultra DMA 4, UDMA-66). For drives with more than
128 GB, ATA/ATAPI-6 is required! I guess if you put a drive with
more than 128 GB in the Pismo, you will only be able to use 128
GB.
As for performance, ATA/ATAPI-5 only supports 66 MB/s. Given the
data density of modern hard drives, this does become a bottleneck.
In my opinion, it makes no sense at all to use a 7,200 RPM or 5,400
RPM drive in the Pismo. The data throughput of a modern 4,200 RPM
drive already surpasses 66 MB/s most of the time. The seek time
does decrease of course with a 7,200 RPM drive, but I doubt that
this will be noticeable in practice.
Best regards,
Lukas
Editor's note: See How Big a Hard Drive
Can I Put in My iMac, eMac, Power Mac, PowerBook, or iBook? for software
solutions to the 128 GB problem. dk
Hi Lukas,
Thanks for the interesting and informative report.
The Fujitsu MHW2080AT sounds great, so to speak. Silent computing
is a long-term quest of mine. The quietest notebook drive I've ever
encountered is the 20 GB IBM drive in my G3 PowerBook. Well into
its fifth year of service, it's still virtually inaudible if there
is any background noise at all.
I have a 5400 RPM HD in my Pismo, and I never
noticed an dramatic increase in performance over the 4200 RPM OEM
drive (both units are Toshibas). You may have explained why.
Charles
7200 RPM Drive Not Too Hot for Pismo
From Greg Walker:
I read the entry from Martin Jungowski today, and I just wanted
to mention that I've had a 7200 RPM 40 GB hard drive in my Pismo for quite a long time (3 years? 4
years?), and I've never had any problems with it; the fan doesn't
come on, it doesn't get very hot, and the sound doesn't bother me
or seem that loud (your mileage may vary). I've done full-HD
backups to an external FireWire drive, and the fan never comes
on.
The only times that the fan has ever turned on in my Pismo have
been when I've had it running some processor-intensive task for
hours on end, such as the time I had it decode a 1 GB+ 7zip file
while sitting in a closed cupboard (oops).
I don't remember the manufacturer of my hard drive, but I got it
at mcetech.com. I definitely
think it's a worthwhile upgrade - the speed improvement is
noticeable!
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the report. Your experience squares
with mine with the 5400 RPM Toshiba drive in my Pismo. The fan
never comes on, and it never feels especially hot.
That said, I've been working with a 5400 RPM
Seagate 100 GB drive in a metal FireWire housing this week. It's
whisper quiet and nicely responsive, but I was surprised by how hot
the external housing gets to the touch.
You're right; in my experience it's processor
activity that lights the fans in my 17"
PowerBook (which has a 4200 RPM drive).
Charles
Pismo Fan Rarely Kicks In
From Martin Jungowski:
Hi Charles,
Thanks for your reply. Now
that you mentioned the fan, I'm actually quite worried since I
haven't heard my fan for a very long time. Other Pismo owners told
me that they can actually hear their fan quite frequently in
OS X 10.4, but now that you mention you haven't ever heard
your fan cut in I'm relieved.
Anyhow, on the hard drive question. I'm still considering it -
the 4,200 rpm drives runs quite cool, and I can barely hear it.
I'll probably try the 7,200 rpm drive, and if it's too loud or too
hot I'll just put it into an external USB case. I'll let you know
how that works out
Thanks again
Martin
Hi Martin,
I would say go for it. I did have fan activity in
my 550 MHz G4 Pismo after installing Tiger until I installed
Daystar's processor cover with the copper heatsink in it. Easy to
install and not very expensive. The fan has not cut in since it
went in nearly two years ago.
Note that you won't be able to boot from any drive
in an external USB case, and for USB 2.0 support, you're going to
need a PC Card adapter in the Pismo, which also contributes to
heat. I recommend FireWire - fast and bootable.
Charles
Hi Charles,
There would be no need for booting from a USB drive, since I'd
use it as data storage only. As for external bootable hard drives -
I have a 20 gig iPod that I can boot from (and already had to
once). I also already have an external 2.5" USB 2.0 case (currently
holding my old 20 gig drive) and a Mac OS X compatible USB 2.0
PC Card, so that wouldn't be a problem. I might even replace the 20
gig drive in my iPod with the 40 gig drive; we'll see.
My hope was that in case I would actually replace the 40 gig
drive with a 100 gig drive, there would be no need for an external
drive for me to take with me to Detroit. Excess baggage, if you ask
me (FYI, I'm currently living in Munich, Germany, and intend to
return after said year at WSU, hence I'm very limited in my choice
of techy items I can take with me). On the other hand, if it'll get
too hot and too noisy, then 40 gig might not cut it in the end, and
I might have to go for a bigger 5,400 rpm drive; that's the
thoughts I'm having on this issue right now.
However I have decided that I am going to give it a shot. I
walked by a store selling a 100 GB 7,200 rpm drive for 95€
and am probably going to purchase it next week or the week after
that. I'm guessing that I'll be okay with it, since I started to
notice a very quiet yet audible hum coming from my current hard
drive . . . it has been in use for quite a while now, so
that's okay. You should hear my old 6 GB drives - sound like
chainsaws, yet are still as reliable as the daily sunrise. Hence, I
figured that till August the quiet and almost not audible hum might
turn into something a lot worse and even more disturbing, so it's
time for a new hard drive anyway.
Oh yeah, and what I almost forgot. I don't have a copper
heatsink but the standard aluminium (?) heat sink. After several
hours of word processing, surfing the Web, and writing emails in
the library today it was warm to the touch (both the heatsink
attached by the heatpipe and the aluminium plate right on top of
the CPU itself) but not hot. So I'm guessing it's okay for the fan
not to cut in, since there seems to be no need at all.
Thanks again for your help and insights. I'll let you know how
things turned out as soon as I'll have time to finally replace the
hard drive.
Greetings from rainy Germany
Martin
Hi Martin,
Cool; I'll be interested to hear how you make
out.
Since you already have a USB enclosure, that
certainly makes sense for you. I have three external hard drives,
and two of them are USB 2.0, while the third is FireWire. They're
all very useful, but I do find the FireWire one extremely handy as
an auxiliary boot drive, especially for troubleshooting, running
disk maintenance utilities like Disk Warrior and Drive Genius, and
so forth.
Booting from an iPod is handy in a pinch, but my
daughter ruined the drive in her first iPod by using it as a boot
drive too frequently. At least that's her provisional explanation
for its premature demise.
As you've noted, hard drives can get atrociously
noisy and still just keep on working fine. The only hard drive
failure I've ever had was a 6 GB Fujitsu, and it failed
completely and quietly when it had less than 25 hours on it. OTOH,
I have a 4.6 GB Fujitsu pulled from a Lombard that sounds like a
chainsaw, as you put it, but still works jolly well.
Charles
WallStreet Wireless Failure
From John Galle:
Good Evening Charles,
This is Jack Galle from Virginia Beach. I've written to you
several times and always appreciated your input. I "googled" your
name the other day and saw that you are using a WallStreet. My daughter had a
WallStreet, and now it is mine. I agree with you that it is a great
computer. I don't think I've had a laptop that had such a nice feel
to the keyboard.
About two years ago I bought a Roam About Wirelesss LANs card
(802.11 DS High Rate) by Cabletron for the WallStreet. I was able
to get the wireless card working one time, but somehow I changed
the settings and can't get the wireless card to work. I am pretty
sure I messed up the TCP/IP settings. Could you tell me what those
settings should be? Is there anything else I need to do to connect
wirelessly? Is it possible the card went bad, although I have not
used the card more than 3x in the past two years since I can't seem
to find anyone who is familiar with the TCP/IP settings.
The WallStreet is a great computer, and I would use it much more
frequently if I could only get it to work wirelessly. I have a
Epson Stylus CX 7800 which does not recognize OS 9.2, so anything I
want to print I need to send from the WallStreet to my newer Mac
laptop, which uses OS X. It's a convoluted way, but Epson only
lists downloads for OS X, nothing OS 9.
Thanks for continuing to be a voice for Apple.
Jack Galle
Hi Jack,
Great to hear from you again.
Actually, the WallStreet has been my wife's
computer for the past 18 months, although I do get on it from time
to time, and the keyboard is still unsurpassed.
I've never set up a wireless connection from OS
9.2, although it's mindlessly simple with OS X on my G4 PowerBook.
However, I trolled around a bit with Google, and
found some links that might be helpful for setting it up.
Of course, it's possible (albeit unlikely) that
the wireless card is defective.
Wegener
Media has a couple of WiFi cards that support the WallStreet,
but they both require OS X. That's one option you might
consider, since the WS is supported up to OS X 10.2.8. Make
sure you have enough RAM (I suggest 512 MB) if you decide to go
that route.
Charles
Upgrading a Lombard from Mac OS X 10.1
From Travis Jay Patocka:
Charles, once again I call on your Mac advice see WiFi PC Card for OS X Lombard] to help
me with yet another question about upgrading the Lombard laptop.
I am currently running [OS X] 10.1.8 and want to upgrade to
10.2. If I purchase a full install version of 10.2, will the
computer take whatever files it needs to upgrade to 10.2, or will
it reinstall the OS overwriting my currently existing OS? I have
seen "upgrade" versions of OS 10.2 for sale on eBay, so I don't
know if an upgrade version ever existed or if 10.2 was sold as a
standalone OS.
Finally, since my Lombard only has a CD-ROM, does 10.2 come on
CD or DVD?
Thanks for all of your help!
-Travis
Hi Travis,
Wow, still running OS X 10.1. You're in for a
pleasant performance enhancement with a version upgrade.
First, I strongly recommend moving up to OS X 10.3
Panther, which is significantly faster, has more features, and is
still supported by a lot of software that has abandoned 10.2
support.
Panther should run fine on your Lombard and ships
on CDs, not a DVD.
It's been many moons since I ran a Jaguar install,
but there are several installation options, including a clean
install, importing your settings and preferences from the old
system, and an erase and install, which wipes the destination drive
or partition. Click the Options button in the installer dialog.
There has never been a full version updater for
any OS X version. You need to do a new install from an install CD,
although, as noted, you can import settings from the previous
OS.
Hope this helps.
Charles
12" PowerBook G4 Durability
From Ed Hurtley in response to Looking for a Durable Laptop:
I have to disagree.
My 12" PowerBook G4 has been dropped onto hard surfaces twice
(once during a foiled car robbery, once falling off a cabinet) and
still works like a champ. I upgraded to a MacBook Pro for
performance reasons, but if I hadn't needed the upgraded computer,
I would happily still be using my first
generation 867 MHz 12" PowerBook G4.
My wife uses it now, and in spite of the numerous dents, it
still works perfectly. The difference between the aluminum and
polycarbonate computers is that the aluminum ones get dents in
severe drops, the polycarbonate ones shatter. (Admittedly, the
polycarbonate ones can probably take more of a hit before they
shatter than the aluminum can take before it dents; but I'd rather
have a dented but working computer than a shattered computer.)
Hi Ed,
I don't disagree with what you say. However,
polycarbonate machines will indeed take an awful beating and come
back for more. I've flipped a PowerBook
1400 off a laptop stand on a bed onto a hardwood floor, open -
about a three foot drop. No discernible damage. A friend of mine
dropped his 1400 onto concrete (it fell out of its slipcase) with
only minor scuffing. One of my kids booted (literally) a Lombard
across the room from a chair it had been sitting on by tripping
over the power cord. The AC adapter plug was mangled beyond repair,
but the computer was fine.
I shudder to imagine how my 17" AlBook would fare
in any of those instances. The original clamshell iBooks were amazingly
tough as well.
I don't doubt that it can happen, but I've never
encountered a shattered Apple 'Book case.
Charles
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