Upgrade hard drive or get an external?

I have an iBook G4, and apparently I only have 30 GB on my hard drive. Would it be more cost efficient for me to get an external hard drive for some of my files, or should I upgrade the hard drive I have?

The answer depends on a couple of things.
How much you depend on your iBook (and the files) as a portable device, and whether it would be a burden to carry around another hard drive to manage those extra files;
Whether most of your files are "active" (ie, they're part of your iTunes/iPhoto library, or are files that you use frequently) or if they can be archived off the drive.
Bear in mind also that internal hard drives aren't expensive, but they are fiddly and time-consuming to install. If you have to pay a technician to install it, you may end up paying a lot for the time. On the other hand, moving your internal drive up to 100GB or more would give you a lot of breathing space for future expansion.
If you need to stay portable but still decide on an external drive, you can get a small Firewire drive that doesn't require additional mains power (it's powered directly through the Firewire connection). If you're happy leaving the drive in one location, you can go larger at the cost of having to use a separate power connector.
Hope that helps inform your decision.
Matt

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