Wooly thinking. The hard drive companies go through "cycles" of good and bad as technology improves and/or manufacturing processes change. The WD 120 8MB 7200 in my iMac purrs like a very quiet kitten and I couldn't be more pleased with it. But I have also heard "horror stories" about Seagate, IBM, Hitachi and Maxtor at various times, and high praise for those very same brands at other times.From: Mark Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The words 'Western Digital' bring a shiver to the spine of any good Mac engineer/enthusiast.
I recall a couple of years ago IBM changed from whoever was making their HDs for them to Hitachi. Suddenly there were glowing reports from happy IBM HD buyers all over the net, but I believe they have now switched (back) to Seagate and the euphoria has died down considerably.
OTOH, I keep hearing that Seagate is the absolute quietest drive you can buy.
Bottom line: things change, and it's unwise to hold a grudge against any one company forever these days.*
*except Microsoft. Feel free to go on hating them forever. :)
It's quite a bit of disassembly, but it's not actually difficult. IIRC, the one "hard" part came when I was trying to remove the outer shell ... I thought for sure I would break one of those plastic clips that hold it in place, you really have to tug on em.It's not all that hard as I remember. I read up on it as a 'just in case' a bit back.
I don't know myself what iMacs can and which can't boot from an external USB source. The ones previous to and contemporary with the B&W G3 (i.e. up to August 1999) can't I know for almost sure as my B&W won't boot off a USB drive and neither would my now deceased 1999 iBook.
This was discussed on this list not too far back IIRC. Check the archives. I can't recall what the consensus was, but I wouldn't even bother trying to boot off a USB 1 hard drive. Haven't got that kind of time.
I'm not sure there ARE any IDE drives that spin any faster than 7200 RPM. Today's efficient designs mean that 7200RPM drives (particularly with 8MB cache) actually run quite a bit cooler than the old 5400 RPM drives the iMac probably came with. I actually saw a DECREASE in temperature when I upgraded my drive in the fanless iMac/700.When choosing a hard disc to go in there, again, AFAIK it has to be 7,200 rpm or less due to heat build up inside.
I suppose somone is boud to say we have FireWire and USB 2.0 for that now bu there is a big gap in Apple's line from 1999 that can't boot from an external (unless they have a SCSI card). Seems a bit silly to me....
You think that's silly ... how about the original sets of iMacs that had no practical, fast way to make backups!
_Chas_
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