It seems that next to RAM, the most important thing for a music machine is disk speed and 4200 is ridiculouisly slow, isn't it? I mean, for let's say a 7 minute song with y'know, 10 tracks or whatever, and a few softsynths, will an iBook with 512 end up queuing audio onto the hard drive and slow to the point of uselessness?

It's too bad the iBook doesn't come with a 5400 hard drive option; I'm left with a jump from a $1000 laptop to a $1600 one, and it's depressing because I really wanted to get a mac too. But the iBook has everything I need except that. Maybe I'm wrong, is the HD really that important after all?

try OWC www.macsales.com,
get an external firewire 7200rpm HD, much better for audio than even the 5400....
run your apps from the ibook, keep the audio files on the external drive.
very speedy.
OWC is good stuff and not so expensive.

the one I bought has firewire 400 and 800 ports,
and has an 8mb buffer. 120gb, maybe about $175 US.

you can put video on these drives as well. no problems with mine.
(and it is quiet).

Well, I don't mind waiting for audio files to save, but I'm worried about the speed lost when DAWs swap audio to the hard drive - which would be a better investment, $200 in more RAM or an external hard drive?

I think a general rule of thumb is to always get as much RAM as you can afford,
whether you are working with audio, photoshop or just about anything else.

But as far as the speed of a HD reading and writing audio, or swapping audio with a DAW as you say,
I think a 7200rpm external FW drive (with a large 8mb buffer) is going to be faster than any internal drive in
the current Apple laptops, iBook OR Powerbook.

Though I have a PB G4 now,
I recorded for about 2 years on a 700mhz G3 iBook with 640 mb ram.
Though it did ok by itself, (only small projects of course) ....
after I got the OWC ext. fw drive you'd be surprised how much that little iBook could
handle. track count, speediness, more plugins, everything.
Now with the PB, the ext drive is even more of a workhorse,
using the FW800 ports.

Also, regarding buying a new puter, check the Apple refurbished deals on their site.
They come with the same warranty as a new one.....
quite a bit cheaper.

hope some of this helps.
....Stiil learning about this stuff myself........

Hm, how quiet is the OWC? I'm going to be recording for example piano in a rather small room, so it's a little significant.

This post has been edited by ambivilant: Mon 15 Nov 2004, 01:04

Take a look on Hitachi's 7k60 hard disk... it's an 7200rpm internal HD avaliable for iBook/Powerbook with excelent performance and very efficient power/heat management.

According Hitachi:
" Increasing the spindle speed to 7200 RPM, (...) , will improve the data rate by 71% over 4200 RPM drives and 33% over 5400 RPM drives. Latency will be improved by 42% and 25% respectively."

I think external firewire restricts a lot in terms of portability... any way they still offer bigger capacity and lower cost compared to notebook HDs.

Yeah, but replacing the internal hard drive on the iBook means taking apart every screw in the entire thing, no? And it voids the warranty.

This post has been edited by ambivilant: Mon 15 Nov 2004, 17:39

Plus it takes about four hours to replace the iBook HD. As opposed to 10 minutes for a PowerBook.

I paid for a service in exchanging my last iBook's HD, it was fast and cheap (around 30 dollars in my country's currency)

I put a travelstar 40GNX, 5400rpm and the performance boost was clear.

ok, it will void warranty (unless made by an apple servicer) but mine had already expired...

afaik a drive with 5400 is the only option you have
because a drive with 7200 could produce thermal problems
(an maybe your ibook runs over the table like a washingmashine when dry-tumbling)