The Complete and Utter Guide to PC Cards and Expansion Bays on the PowerBook Part 2: Expansion Bay Modules by Remy Davison In Part 1 of the Complete & Utter Guide, we looked at the various PCMCIA/CardBus cards available for the PowerBook. In this article, we shift gears and look at expansion bays, also known as media bays. Now, there are really only two major manufacturers of PowerBook media bays: MCE and SmartDisk/VST Technologies. If you go to Part 1 of this series, you'll find what media bay devices are available for your PowerBook model. But here's a quick update of what's available. Note that some of these products are no longer available new; however, many of these turn up on ebay or refurbished from MCE, VST or their distributors. VST MCE Expansion bay hard drive 190, 5300, 3400, Kanga, G3 Series Wallstreet, Lombard/Pismo CDRW 20x4x4 20x4x4 (bootable) Zip 100 190, 5300, 1400, 3400, Kanga, G3 Series NA Zip 250 Lombard/Pismo NA SuperDisk (120MB/1.3MB floppy) G3 Series NA Xcaret hard drive enclosure NA G3 Series currently available FireBay (for expansion bay devices) NA Supports all media bay devices Internal power supply 190, 5300, 3400, Kanga NA DVD-ROM kit Wallstreet, Lombard NA Hard drives Various capacities are available. 190/5300/3400/Kanga owners will find 800MB drives new or refurbished from VST and 1.4GB or 1.6GB on the second-hand market. While these four PowerBooks can use the same devices, only the 3400 and Kanga can take advantage of the drives' DMA (Direct Memory Access). This means the drives by-pass the CPU and access memory directly, resulting in much faster data transfers. Mobile video editors swear by them. Given the relatively lacklustre performance of the first iteration of FireWire on the pre-iBook 2001 PowerBooks (that means all of them), an expansion bay hard drive can outperform CardBus or PCMCIA FireWire for movie capture on PowerBooks. Floppy drives Apple is essentially the only supplier here, aside from the VST SuperDisk (120MB)/floppy route. All PowerPC PowerBooks come with floppy drives as standard up to the Wallstreet models. On the Duo 2300 (optional) and 2400 (standard), it's external. With the Wallstreet, the floppy was made optional. With the Lombard and later, the floppy option was deleted entirely. USB external is another option. An enterprising 3400 owner is currently trying to install Zip and 2.5" hard drives into the 3.5" floppy enclosures from the 190/5300/3400/Kanga. Damn good idea. It's probably the cheapest way to engineer a big hard drive into your expansion bay. The ATAPI connector's the same. If you're feeling enterprising, give it a try; I know I will as soon as I pry a PowerBook module from the hands of an unsuspecting owner. The Wallstreet is unique as you can install the floppy drive in either the left-hand or right-hand bay. Only 3.5" modules fit in the Wallstreet's left-hand bay. The Lombard and Pismo left-hand bays support batteries only; there's no ATAPI interface connector in the left-hand bay. CDRW The choice is yours here: two models, both identically configured, except that MCE claims theirs is the only bootable one on the market. Since there are only two on the market, it's pretty obvious what they're referring too. I've tried CDRWs and they're incredibly useful in the expansion bay and double as your CD reader. Frankly, I'd take one of these over a DVD any day of the week. For a quick exchange of huge files or sharing vast amounts of data with your desktop Wintel-toting friend, this is the way to go. Or just big backups on the road. Now you know why the iBook CDRW and Combo drive models are so popular. Zip 100/250 Identical to their external cousins and internal IDE relatives. The FireWire-bridged models apart, the expansion bay Zips run a bit faster than the external/IDE versions. Not much of a difference, but with the relative slowness of a Zip, any improvement is welcome. The Zip drives can also boot the PowerBook. Like the external/internal version, the Zip 250 is backward-compatible with the 100MB discs. Interestingly too, I've not come across the infamous 'click of death' in the PowerBook versions - although it may simply be because there are fewer of them. Again, very handy for dumping data to give to a printing bureau. Or for exchanging data with PC users or other Mac owners. Xcaret These are very similar to expansion bay hard drives (in fact, they are expansion bay hard drives). MCE offers them preconfigured or as an empty enclosure so you can slot your old drive in ($149). Like the VST hard drives, they take advantage of DMA. Simply open it up and install your 2.5" hard disc. You can order these for the Wallstreet, Lombard or Pismo (have you noticed we haven't mentioned the Titanium G4 yet?). Batteries Boring but essential. BTI are a major distributor of batteries for notebooks and can be cheaper than Apple. Older PowerBooks (except the 500 series) tend to have cheaper batteries. Wallstreet LiION battery prices have come down recently, but are still very expensive, considering they hold a 3-3.5 hour charge. 190/5300 NiMH batteries can be very cheap, as can 3400/Kanga LiIONs. The 190/5300 NiMHs work in the 3400/Kanga (albeit with reduced battery life); the 3400/Kanga LiIONs do not work in the 190/5300. 2400 batteries are getting hard to get, except in Japan, and they are getting pricey. Lombard/Pismo batteries are available from Apple and elsewhere for around $130, roughly the standard price you'll find. The 500 series, 1400, Wallstreet, Lombard and Pismo all accommodate dual batteries. Internal power supplies VST made these for the 190 and 5300. However, Apple's decision to keep the basic form factor for the 3400/Kanga models worked to owners' benefit: they work in the 3400/Kanga. Originally, they were reasonably popular because of the lousy AC adapters that plagued the 190/5300 series. However, the odd 3400/Kanga external power supply did go out to lunch permanently, so these make a good alternative to an external adaptor if you can track one down. FireBay MCE recognized that Apple's constant modification of the media bay's form factor quickly made older expansion bay modules obsolete. Of course, Apple deleted the media bay entirely with its 2001 PowerBook G4. To retain your investment in expensive bay modules, MCE developed the FireBay which accepts Lombard and Pismo modules only and then connects to an available FireWire port. MCE doesn't say it will accept VST modules, but I assume it does. This works out of the box with G3 Series 'Books with a FireWire port, TiBooks, iBooks - in fact, any Mac with FireWire. Back to Part 1: PCMCIA and CardBus cards.