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WD Scorpio Black or Blue for MBP?

S

Shivon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 2, 2011
9
0
Hey guys!

Almost all day I have been trying to figure out what the best upgrade is hard disk wise for my MacBook Pro 15 inch from 2012. My eyes keep falling on the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1 TB and the Western Digital Scorpio Black 750 GB. The Blue one being a 5400RPM drive and the Black one being a 7200RPM drive.

I have been reading so many mixed reviews on both drives. The one says this, the other says that. For me it's most important to have a fast drive. Battery life is not so important, although of course the quieter and less vibrant a hard drive is, the better. The 250 GB difference in space is not an issue for me. But I have been reading that the Blue is almost identical performance wise as the Black, but is a lot cooler and quieter. But some say the opposite. I cannot really get my finger around it.

Do you guys have any experience with these drives and can recommend me the best option out of the two? Is it really true the performance is almost identical? Cause if that is the case, the most logical option would be the Blue as you get 250 GB more space.

Thanks for helping me out! Much appreciated. :)
 
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Go for the Scorpio Black. However the noise will be noticeable over the Blue but I do not experience some of the vibration that others have reported. If you truly want speed, you need to get a SSD but that's expensive considering the storage amount you're looking for.
 
I have the 750GB scorpio black (no noise problems for me) in my 2010 MBP and it is a great drive, however, I think the performance difference is not great between it and the blue, and what I would do is add a small 128GB SSD for the OS and use the blue for storage. Adding an SSD did wonders to my 2010 15"MBP, with the scorpio black as storage it is the best of both worlds...
 
The Scorpio Blue is the 'greener' version. Its supposed to consume less power over the black.
In real world every day usage you would hardly tell the difference in speed between the two.
Go for the Blue.
 
I have the blue and black drive. I can tell you the blue drive is sloooow. It is useless in my opinion, especially compared to an SSD. I would def jump for the black (though personally i'd go ssd).

Under USB 3.0 my blue drive does 30/40 write/read, compared to the black under USB 3.0 which does 100/100 write/read.
 
I have a 500 gb Scorpio Blue in my 2010 MBP and it works like a dream. Its very quiet and plenty fast. I would have preferred the 1 tb one, but when I went to buy the prices for the TB were just insane and the 500 fit the bill just as well. Haven't run into any storage problems yet even with my giant music library and all the movies I have.
 
Thank you for all the information :). Think I will go for a Black one as that one seems to be the faster option and hopefully will not cause too much vibration, noise and heat issues. But I think from all the reviews and comments, it's a question of wait and see.
 
BlazednSleepy said:
I think you should give the seagate hybrid drive a try. I hear nothing but good things about it.
Click to expand...

From that one I hear a lot of bad stuff though. Saying the hybrid does not perform as well as it should and some problems mostly on Macbooks.
 
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I recommend you to go for the blue. I had installed one of these in my mom's ThinkPad T60, and it made a world of difference (the previous drive is a 80GB 5400rpm hard drive). Some sources have proved that the 1TB 9.5mm blue offers the same performance as a 500GB black due to the higher platter density. There is a reason why Apple is not offering 7200rpm drives in the 13 inch models (vibration, noise, and battery life). Either way, both of them are great drives :D
 
Blue

the 1TB Scorpio Blue is nearly as fast as the 7200 rpm black. The two platters give it actually a faster access and write time than one could normally get with the one.
 
I honestly doubt....

...that you will notice any real world difference in performance. I'd be more concerned about longevity and reliability.

Yes, some drives will copy or transfer files faster than others, however you are usually at the mercy of the Mac's and external's control bridge.

Any spin/platter internal drive in a 15" quad will perform similar, (or/as) a somewhat equal slug.
 
I went for the Scorpio Black and I have to say I am really positive on this hard disk. I do not experience any heat issues or vibration issues with it. Sure it has a little bit of it, but it does not shake your Macbook all over the place. And when you rest your palms on it, you won't notice a thing.

What is noticeable is the noise that comes from it. I would not call it bothersome, as it's still a very quiet hard drive, but you can definitely hear it spinning in a smooth way. But I expected this. This one is pretty much the fastest 7200RPM 2,5 inch drive you can get.

And yes, it is fast! Boot time has increased by double. Transferring files and such has been doubled in speed. Also programs open up a lot faster and it just feels more slick. I think this is the next best thing other then SSD. So I am really happy with it, besides for the little bit of noise it makes. This is all compared to the standard Toshiba drive Apple puts in.

It does make me curious how the Blue would have been :).
 
Shivon said:
I went for the Scorpio Black and I have to say I am really positive on this hard disk. I do not experience any heat issues or vibration issues with it. Sure it has a little bit of it, but it does not shake your Macbook all over the place. And when you rest your palms on it, you won't notice a thing.

What is noticeable is the noise that comes from it. I would not call it bothersome, as it's still a very quiet hard drive, but you can definitely hear it spinning in a smooth way. But I expected this. This one is pretty much the fastest 7200RPM 2,5 inch drive you can get.

And yes, it is fast! Boot time has increased by double. Transferring files and such has been doubled in speed. Also programs open up a lot faster and it just feels more slick. I think this is the next best thing other then SSD. So I am really happy with it, besides for the little bit of noise it makes. This is all compared to the standard Toshiba drive Apple puts in.

It does make me curious how the Blue would have been :).
Click to expand...

Thats good news! Get an SSD when you can. Trust me, its well worth it.
 
inlinevolvo said:
I have the blue and black drive. I can tell you the blue drive is sloooow. It is useless in my opinion, especially compared to an SSD. I would def jump for the black (though personally i'd go ssd).

Under USB 3.0 my blue drive does 30/40 write/read, compared to the black under USB 3.0 which does 100/100 write/read.
Click to expand...

Then something is wrong with your USB3 or your Blue drive.

I have a 5400rpm Blue drive in an external USB3 caddy and it gives me around the 100 read/write.
In fact Ive created videos in my YouTube channel documenting this. Uploading a new video later today with speed tests between different interfaces etc using a Blue drive also.........
 
Ifti said:
Then something is wrong with your USB3 or your Blue drive.

I have a 5400rpm Blue drive in an external USB3 caddy and it gives me around the 100 read/write.
In fact Ive created videos in my YouTube channel documenting this. Uploading a new video later today with speed tests between different interfaces etc using a Blue drive also.........
Click to expand...

You may be correct. It is about 4 years older than my black drive. Needless to say, I don't use it for anything id lose sleep over if lost.

Post the link when you do. I'm getting 100 on my black drive when testing via black magic. This drive is also my time machine setup, and even than I see write speeds of about 100.
 
inlinevolvo said:
You may be correct. It is about 4 years older than my black drive. Needless to say, I don't use it for anything id lose sleep over if lost.

Post the link when you do. I'm getting 100 on my black drive when testing via black magic. This drive is also my time machine setup, and even than I see write speeds of about 100.
Click to expand...

Not allowed to post links to my videos as it can be seen to be advertising them etc, which is understandable I guess.
I'll give you a shout when its up - should be later today ;)

Basically I installed the WD Blue 5400rpm drive into my MBP and performed a speed test using BlackMagic, to measure the highest possible speed from the drive.
I then placed the drive in a caddy, and tested the speeds using USB2, FireWire800, and USB3, to see how much faster USB3 really is and whether I could replicate the same speed as the drive was when internally installed......
 
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