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Seagate 7200.3 vs. WD Scorpio Black in the new Macbook. Which one?

P

Philflow

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 7, 2008
1,276
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I'm still unsure what to pick for my Macbook. Seagate, WD or maybe even SSD.

According to this review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/7, the WD3200BEKT is quite a lot faster than the Seagate 7200.3

I have reason to doubt their results because I've seen other benchmarks where the Seagate 7200.3 is faster than the WD. However, non of these benchmarks were real life tests.

According to Tom's hardware there isn't much between the two drives in real world performance.

Did anyone do some real world tests with the Seagate 7200.3 and compare it to the stockdrive?

Did anyone find other reviews of the Seagate 7200.3?

Thanks in advance.
 
I can tell you I couldn't stand to leave the 320GB Scorpio Black in my alu Macbook for more than a day. It makes the entire unibody vibrate like crazy. The stock 250GB 5400 doesn't make any vibration and feels like I have an SSD. Unfortunately the Scorpio black is now an external drive.. kind of disappointing because I didn't have this problem when I installed it in my Macbook Pro. I think it has to do with the unibody being so stiff... any vibration gets transferred straight to the case. I'd recommend an SSD... hopefully early next year for me when the Intel X25 drops in price
 
It's Notebookreview. This is what he wrote:
Teacher said:
I installed a WD, Scorpio 320GB 7200 rpm drive in my new MBP 2.53 and on startup it sounded like a jet plane. Needless to say, I took it out and reinstalled the stock HD. It's quiet again!! Don't get this drive!!!!

Professor
Click to expand...

He seems to be from Texas too and had a WD in his MBP too :)
 
ahh ok thanks I'll check it out. I didn't have any problems with the sound from the drive.. it was excessive vibration. I wish I had ordered the 320GB Scorpio Blue at 5400 RPM or even the Samsung 500GB at 5400 RPM. Owell... I'm sure I can find a buyer for it. Would be cool if Newegg would let me exchange it.
 
I'm debating on this issue too. my understanding is that 7200rpm produces more heat, noise and vibration compared to 5400rpm. Anyone has any experience with their 7200rpm HD on Macbook? Any comments are greatly appreciated.
 
I put the WD 320 Black into my MB on friday. It does vibrate too much and sounds like a fan. I don't like it much after running with the SSD in my Air. :(

Wish there was a 300+ Gb SSD
 
TxMacAddict said:
ahh ok thanks I'll check it out. I didn't have any problems with the sound from the drive.. it was excessive vibration. I wish I had ordered the 320GB Scorpio Blue at 5400 RPM or even the Samsung 500GB at 5400 RPM.
Click to expand...

By the way, the WD5000BEVT is much better than the Samsung 500GB. Faster and more power efficient because it has two instead of three platters.
 
installed it in my mb

Installed wd 320 gig 7200 hd in my alum mb last night. Easy install, no more noise or vibration than the fujitsu had.

Boots noticeably quicker, applications launch faster, machine seems to pop.

Now looking for external hd enclosure for old hd
 
DaveOZ said:
I put the WD 320 Black into my MB on friday. It does vibrate too much and sounds like a fan. I don't like it much after running with the SSD in my Air. :(
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. No WD then. You're the third person to complain about it in a macbook.
I think the Seagate 7200.3 does better in the noise department.
 
statistics

I'm sure you could go to other message boards and hear people talking crap about any other sort of hard drive. An apple authorized reseller near my house, swears against WD as well. OTOH, I've never had a problem with them. BB's forums are full will people (inculding macheads) giving glowing reviews about the drives. With manufacturers making millions of hard drives each, some of them are going to be bad or substandard in quality.

That's why I went with a brick and mortar store with a return policy. It's also why I'm better about keeping receipts.

Good luck to you on your upcoming purchase and install. If you don't mind, I'd like to swap xbench stats on our systems and drives.
 
I have the 7200rpm 320GB WD Scorpio Black in my MacBook (alu) and it works great. No issues with noise or vibration. Actually seems a bit cooler than the stock 5400rpm HDD.
 
I guess its possible that some stock alu macbooks vibrate more than others... and when upgraded feel the same. For me if I can hold it and not be able to tell whether it has an ssd or platter then it's acceptable. If I can tell you then its too much.. I'm probably a little more picky than your average guy though too.
 
That's the best part about all this, we can get a decent spectrum of what people have tried and their experience with each item - I'm going to go for the 500GB £110 HDD for my white MacBook as I'd rather do that than 'waste' money on a non-firewire, slower MacBook, I've already maxxed the RAM although the allure of new is always high.
 
My Seagate 7200.3 vibrates a bit more than the 5400 drives I have had. Its not a lot and I am happy overall but it is a very small "hum" type vibration in the palmrest. As far as excessive noise or heat goes I have seen none. Its a very quiet drive that consumes (and produces) less power/heat than the older 5400 drives I had in the MacBook. Boot times, launch times and temperature have gone down while battery life has increased.

After owning several WD drives recently (desktop and laptop), I don't have a terribly high opinion of them.
 
I'm on this forum after having bought the 7200.3 Seagate - and taken it out of my MB an hour after putting it in because the virbration bugged me...

Seems there can be problems with both types of drives.
 
There may be a different problem with ATA/PATA IDE drives from the PPC Apple laptops, but I want to add that my WD 250gb laptop harddrive that was put in my PB g4 earlier this year was silent and gave no problems.

Same with the 100gb Travelstars.

I have had good luck with Travelstars in my lengthy Apple romance.

My second choice is the high cached Toshibas.

I returned a couple of new iBooks/Powerbooks when they came stock with Fujitsu because they only had 2mb cache and suck overall.

Have had moderate luck with Seagate.

Have a Toshiba stock drive in my al Mac Book and its very quiet.

When I upgrade, will probably be a Hitachi Travelstar.
 
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