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MBA Rev.A with 5mm PATA-zif 160 Gb. HD

G

Gone Native

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2009
4
0
End of September Toshiba started to produce a 160 Gigabyte single-platter 1.8" harddisk, with a (regular MBA) height of just 5 millimeter and a P-ATA zif interface, named model MK1634-GAL. Unfortunately it looks that the whole production was ordered by Apple for the iPod classic.
From the end of November a few of these MK1634-GAL's are offered on Ebay by a seller from Hong Kong for 195 US$ and 20 dollar worldwide shipping cost.

I can confirm that such a 160 Gigabyte Toshiba MK1634-GAL harddisk works in a MBA, -Revision A-, because at present one is nicely running in my MBA, with SL and Windows 7
For those for whom storage space of 160 Gigabyte in the MBA, Revision A is more important than the extra speed offered by the 128 Gigabyte Runcore SSD, at present this might be a good solution. And there is a price difference ...
 
Spanky Deluxe

Spanky Deluxe

macrumors demi-god
Mar 17, 2005
5,285
1,789
London, UK
Gone Native said:
End of September Toshiba started to produce a 160 Gigabyte single-platter 1.8" harddisk, with a (regular MBA) height of just 5 millimeter and a P-ATA zif interface, named model MK1634-GAL. Unfortunately it looks that the whole production was ordered by Apple for the iPod classic.
From the end of November a few of these MK1634-GAL's are offered on Ebay by a seller from Hong Kong for 195 US$ and 20 dollar worldwide shipping cost.

I can confirm that such a 160 Gigabyte Toshiba MK1634-GAL harddisk works in a MBA, -Revision A-, because at present one is nicely running in my MBA, with SL and Windows 7
For those for whom storage space of 160 Gigabyte in the MBA, Revision A is more important than the extra speed offered by the 128 Gigabyte Runcore SSD, at present this might be a good solution. And there is a price difference ...
Click to expand...

That's great to know that it works well! You should also find that the drive is faster due to the higher density. In fact, chances are it will outperform the 120GB HDD in the entry level Rev C for exactly this reason.

However, if I were to be considering this upgrade, I'd just get an iPod Classic and strip it. Why pay $215 for just the HDD and wait ages for it to ship and risk import duties when you could just get a current get 160GB iPod Classic from Amazon for $229.95 shipped. Yeah it costs $14.95 more but you *may* even be able to put your 80GB HDD in there for an 80GB iPod. If not then you could probably sell the left over iPod parts on eBay.
 
I

itou

macrumors regular
Jan 16, 2008
222
0
Spanky Deluxe said:
That's great to know that it works well! You should also find that the drive is faster due to the higher density. In fact, chances are it will outperform the 120GB HDD in the entry level Rev C for exactly this reason.

However, if I were to be considering this upgrade, I'd just get an iPod Classic and strip it. Why pay $215 for just the HDD and wait ages for it to ship and risk import duties when you could just get a current get 160GB iPod Classic from Amazon for $229.95 shipped. Yeah it costs $14.95 more but you *may* even be able to put your 80GB HDD in there for an 80GB iPod. If not then you could probably sell the left over iPod parts on eBay.
Click to expand...

i asked about this earlier as i was thinking about doing the same thing. sadly, nobody has been able to confirm whether or not it works. it'd be great if it does!
 
G

Gone Native

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2009
4
0
I live in the Netherlands, where the regular price for the iPod Classic is 229 euro's.
The euro stands roughly 1.5 times a dollar.
So for me 215 US$ is 150-160 euro's.

You can also make the seller a lower offer than 195 dollar. (Search for 'mk1634gal' on Ebay.) The auction is still open for six days (until 21th of december).

Furthermore I am not sure whether you will find in the iPod Classic 160Gb a Toshiba MK1634GAL. In the Netherlands the iPod Classic 160Gb model has been longer on the market than end of September, when Toshiba started producing these 5mm small 1.8" PATA-zif harddisks. You might find some older 8mm sized model.
 
X

xparaparafreakx

macrumors 65816
Jul 29, 2005
1,273
1
Can you take a screen shot of the System Profiler window in the ATA menu. 160 GB on my Air would be great for my iTunes collection.
 
G

Gone Native

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2009
4
0
Here a screenshot of the ATA section in the System Profiler.
It is in Dutch, but that shouldn't be a big problem, being mostly technical data:


System Profiler MK1634GAL.jpg
 
G

Gone Native

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2009
4
0
Yes, if you look, you can see half hidden by the blue padding the label "MK1634GAL" and around the drive is some small bracket probably intended for the iPod Classic.
There is not much price difference between iFixit and the Ebay offer, but shipment by iFixit within the US might be cheaper. Unfortunately is the iFixit offer out of stock.
 
X

xparaparafreakx

macrumors 65816
Jul 29, 2005
1,273
1
Holy *hit. Your running Windows 7 also on your Macbook Air Rev. A.

Everything checks out so good chance ill be picking this one up. I just want a machine to hold my music.

BTW, not getting a Macbook Pro 13", 15" or 17".
 
K

klausner

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2009
1
0
MBA Rev.A with 5mm PATA-zif 160 Gb. HD

Is the "iPod Classic 160GB," mentioned in this thread, with the MK1634GAL the same as what is sold as the 7th Generation iPod Classic?
 
C

crx7

macrumors newbie
Aug 21, 2010
11
0
Just picked one up myself. XBench results on Rev A 1.86GHz:


Results 58.99
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F569)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir1,1
Drive Type TOSHIBA MK1634GAL TOSHIBA MK1634GAL
CPU Test 121.54
GCD Loop 201.49 10.62 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 101.21 2.40 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 82.92 2.74 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 166.47 28.99 Mops/sec
Thread Test 122.03
Computation 121.44 2.46 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 122.63 5.28 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 130.88
System 118.75
Allocate 148.35 544.81 Kalloc/sec
Fill 101.85 4952.06 MB/sec
Copy 114.90 2373.28 MB/sec
Stream 145.76
Copy 136.73 2824.09 MB/sec
Scale 138.75 2866.61 MB/sec
Add 158.62 3379.04 MB/sec
Triad 151.12 3232.76 MB/sec
User Interface Test 122.05
Elements 122.05 560.16 refresh/sec
Disk Test 19.04
Sequential 74.08
Uncached Write 74.85 45.96 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 73.46 41.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 71.20 20.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 77.05 38.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 10.93
Uncached Write 3.23 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 44.10 14.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.41 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.97 14.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
C

crx7

macrumors newbie
Aug 21, 2010
11
0
BTW, no success yet getting my old 80gb HDD to work in the scratched up 160gb Ipod I bought. Firmware doesn't seem to like the drive. I do a restore and it just locks after that. Oh well, I guess I have a 80gb pocket drive now.
 
Scottsdale

Scottsdale

Suspended
Sep 19, 2008
4,473
283
U.S.A.
crx7 said:
Just picked one up myself. XBench results on Rev A 1.86GHz:


Results 58.99
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.4 (10F569)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir1,1
Drive Type TOSHIBA MK1634GAL TOSHIBA MK1634GAL
CPU Test 121.54
GCD Loop 201.49 10.62 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 101.21 2.40 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 82.92 2.74 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 166.47 28.99 Mops/sec
Thread Test 122.03
Computation 121.44 2.46 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 122.63 5.28 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 130.88
System 118.75
Allocate 148.35 544.81 Kalloc/sec
Fill 101.85 4952.06 MB/sec
Copy 114.90 2373.28 MB/sec
Stream 145.76
Copy 136.73 2824.09 MB/sec
Scale 138.75 2866.61 MB/sec
Add 158.62 3379.04 MB/sec
Triad 151.12 3232.76 MB/sec
User Interface Test 122.05
Elements 122.05 560.16 refresh/sec
Disk Test 19.04
Sequential 74.08
Uncached Write 74.85 45.96 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 73.46 41.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 71.20 20.84 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 77.05 38.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 10.93
Uncached Write 3.23 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 44.10 14.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.41 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.97 14.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Click to expand...


Actually, you are confused about what you have. The original MBA, what you have v 1,1, is a 1.8 GHz Merom Core 2 Duo CPU (20W TDP). The v 2,1 MBA uses a 1.86 GHz Penryn Core 2 Duo CPU (17W TDP). Just thought I would inform you so it's easier for others to understand your computer and not get confused when you talk about having a 1.86 GHz CPU, as only the rev B/C v 2,1 has that CPU.

Congrats and good luck with your new MBA.
 
J

jonasdalhoff

macrumors newbie
Nov 27, 2008
6
0
i have installed the 160 gb drive, but unfortunately it seems to have slowed my computer down considerately.

Especially at start up.

I might be another issue with my computer so if anyone has installed it without any issues please let me know.

The performance of the drive looks quite similar to crx7¨s

please help me because it is very annoying.

33.25 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
23.14
13.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
9.77
2.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
22.98
11.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
8.69
Uncached Write
3.04
0.32 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
20.35
6.51 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
19.43
0.14 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
32.67
6.06 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
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