Best replacement for a slow hard drive?

[AL1630]

My iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 are pretty slow, even with the RAM maxed out, and leopard tuning tricks. I'm thinking that it's probably the ancient hard drives, they both have the stock hard drives which IIRC are 4200 RPM, at least in the iBook. My level of trust in 14 year old drives isn't very high, and i'm looking for better performance, which, looking around, seems to be available with a:

• SSD and IDE adapter
  
• Compact Flash or SD Card with adapter
• Faster Spinning hard drive (Probably not)

What do you think is the best option? SD or Compact Flash seems to be the cheapest, but I've heard that they can wear out quickly, especially the CF cards.

 

[1042686]

msata is another option to you. You could use something like this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/mSATA-SSD-...673614?hash=item285883060e:g:k2QAAOSwigRa3WPr

I have one in my 17" powerbook. Works much better than the old spinner that was in there.

 

[bobesch]

My iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 are pretty slow, even with the RAM maxed out, and leopard tuning tricks. I'm thinking that it's probably the ancient hard drives, they both have the stock hard drives which IIRC are 4200 RPM, at least in the iBook. My level of trust in 14 year old drives isn't very high, and i'm looking for better performance, which, looking around, seems to be available with a:

• SSD and IDE adapter
  
• Compact Flash or SD Card with adapter
• Faster Spinning hard drive (Probably not)

What do you think is the best option? SD or Compact Flash seems to be the cheapest, but I've heard that they can wear out quickly, especially the CF cards.

I'd suggest an mSATA with IDE-converter too.
This is the one I use in my Books...
https://www.amazon.com/Ableconn-IID...SY340_QL65&keywords=msata+ide+converter&psc=1
Those mSATA-converter combinations run on a higher temperature than the spinning-drive.
No problem with Clamshell, iBook and 15/17"G4-PowerBooks. But the 12"G4-PowerBook tends to get pretty warm inside and the fan's start to run constantly, since temperature management is set to a threshold of about 40°C for the drive. With G4FanControl you can set thresholds to a higer level to keep the little SteamBook silent at a steady state of 60-65°C CPU/GPU/Drive-temperature.

 

[AphoticD]

mSATA SSD in an IDE adapter is the way to go for sure;
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/post-your-ssd-cf-sata-pata-powerpc-benchmark-results.2063361/

I have used this combo with the following portables;
iBook clamshell (366mhz)
PowerBook G3 Pismo (400Mhz)
PowerBook G4 Titanium (867mhz)
PowerBook G4 12” (1.5ghz)
PowerBook G4 17” (1.67ghz SLSD)

For similar performance, at a higher price tag, I put an OWC IDE SSD (Mercury Legacy) in my PowerBook G4 15” (1.5ghz). This was before I knew about the mSATA option.

They all perform great and in my experience have all remained cool. I haven’t seen any general rise in operating temperatures as others have reported.

 

[AL1630]

All right. mSATA seems like the best option. Thanks for the help!