[iBook] new iBook 12" - upgrade hard drive to 60gig?

[David M. Converse]

On Mar 9, 2005, at 1:51 PM, 
ibook-request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com wrote:

> At the time of purchase, I upgraded the RAM to 512. I am now wondering
> if I should have *also* doubled the size of the hard drive. Had I done
> it at the time, it would have cost £40 (around 75 $US).
>
> When it was stolen, my iMac was running OS X 10.3 and had nearly 10 GB
> of music in iTunes. As it stands, the new iBook with just the system
> software installed and not much else has taken up around 18 GB of
> space. So, in theory, just re-adding the music from my collection will
> bring it up to 28 GB.

The additional space is likely taken up by GarageBand and iDVD files 
which you can remove as needed. You can also trim things by removing 
unwanted languages with a utility such as Monolingual.

The question of swapping the machine out is a bit trickier. You 
essentially have three options if you need added storage.

1. Swap the machine and get the bigger hard drive. This keeps 
everything under warranty and lets you take all your storage with you 
easily, but you still have only one hard drive.
2. Keep the current iBook and buy an external Firewire (preferred) or 
USB 2.0 drive. This is an easy way to get extra space and you no longer 
have a single point of failure/loss if something goes wrong. Note that 
an iPod works beautifully both for storing that 10GB of music and as a 
backup drive, but of course is more expensive than a regular computer 
drive.
3. Buy an external case and larger notebook HD, and swap the internal 
drive into the case and the new drive into the iBook. This may void 
warranties but will likely be cheaper (and will DEFINITELY be more of a 
PITA) than the other two options.

Personally, if you have the cash, my suggestion would be to get an iPod 
for your music, separate from the decision about returning the iBook.

    DMC

David M. Converse
www.lumigraphics.com