(from the 6/12/2001 www.xlr8yourmac.com news page)
Yesterday's news had a reader report (see below) from the Drive Database here that noted good performance and literally silent operation from the new 48GB Travelstar drive (w/fluid bearings/sound absorbing housing). Another 48GB Travelstar owner copied me on an email to Transintl regarding the drive:

" Hello TransIntl,
I called, stopped by, and purchased the new 48GB IBM TravelStar this last Saturday (6/9/01). Thank you for answering the call (I happened to be up from San Diego). When I picked-up the drive I said I'd let you know how it works and how quiet it is.

You can safely tell your potential customers that this is the damm quietest drive I have EVER seen (and not heard). I have it in my PowerBook G4--replacing the noisy stock 30GB drive. There is the usual mild clicks of the head actuator, but that is difficult to avoid since the head must accelerate back and forth so quickly. The spindle though is dead quiet. As long as it lasts, and there is no reason to believe this drive to be any less reliable than other IBM TravelStars, I would say this is the best 2-1/ 2" drive on the market--period.
A bit pricey, but worth it to me this time around.
Regards,
Bill."

The 48GB drive sells for $549.

(from the 6/12/2001 www.xlr8yourmac.com news page)
As noted last week, Transintl.com was the first vendor I've heard of with the 48GB Travelstar (2.5") notebook drives in stock. One of this weekend's Drive Compatibility Database reports was from a PB G4 owner that just installed one. As mentioned in news items here, the 48GB Travelstar has fluid bearings and a special sound-absorbing housing for quiet operation.

" Powerbook G4 500, purchased with 10 GB cause I didn't see Apples prices for more disk or ram as good.

Bought the Travelstar 48GB yesterday, it's fast, reports of it being quiet are WAY understated, it is excepting an occasional head click, INAUDIBLE.

Speed? I am upgrading from a Travelstar 20GB (which is fast) but its faster (and noticeably so)

ATTO tools:
Reads to 2 MB (cache limit) 66 MB/s
Reads past 2 MB (disk...) 19.52 MB/s

Writes to 2 MB (cache limit) 42 MB/s
Writes past 2 MB (disk...) 16.72 MB/s

done with 8 samples, 8 MB max.

Getting all four rubber grommets lined up for install was a pain, but well worth it.
Randall"

BTW - To prevent the rubber grommets from falling out of the PB G4 housing when upgrading the hard drive, I applied a small amount of RTV (rubber-like) adhesive to the grommets. My 32GB Travelstar (5400 rpm/2MB cache like the 48GB, but without the fluid bearings and sound absorbing housing) in my PB G4/400 delivers close to those rates. With the disk about 1/2 full the sustained rates are about 16MB/sec (peaks are near your indicated rates also). Real world tests in a PB G3 firewire however showed performance was about the same as the 20GB model, except for random access. The 32GB drive makes a low volume fan-like noise as I noted in the PB G3 firewire install guide. However that noise was preferably to most other drive's whine at idle. (Even the originally silent 20GB travelstar after about 6 months of 16+ hour a day use developed a whine.) I'd love to have one of these 48GB drives.

Expansion Bay Kits:
Now that the 48GB Travestar drives are starting to ship (see report below), MCE has announced they have 48GB Expansion bay hard drives available for $799.
For previous owners of their Expansion bay drives/kits, Transintl has the bare 48GB drives available for $549 and my photo-illustrated install/build guide of the MCE Expansion bay case kit from last year is shown in this article.

Related Articles: See the IDE/ATA articles page for other notebook drive reviews, install/upgrade guides and more. For detailed specs on the IBM 48GB Travelstar - see their Travelstar 48GH product page.