PureGin.org

So, the MacBook is back from repairs, the USB system has mysteriously fixed itself, and I've replaced the stock 80GB 5400 RPM Toshiba drive with a Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM, 160GB drive. I was worried that this drive might draw more power than the one it was replacing but it turns out to draw only 620 mA, compared to the 1A that the original drive draws. Sweet! Bigger capacity, better performance, and better battery life.

In fact, the Macbook is noticeably zippier. It boots up in about 19 seconds, as opposed to about 25, applications seem to open with a bit more pop, and a typical backup using rsync, to an identical Seagate drive in a SATA-USB2 enclosure (after the initial backup) shows sustained data read and write rates of 60MB/s and more. The second invocation of rsync on my boot disk (which would examine every file, but copy essentially none) ran in 50 minutes, on just under 80GB of data.

I feel slightly more vibration when the drive is running than with the original disk, but it is essentially inaudible.

The two drives plus an StarTech InfoSafe 2.5" SATA to USB enclosure set me back about $470 after taxes and all.