Urgent - New hard drive for MacBook Pro

Hi everyone,

I need to upgrade my 500 GB HD in my early 2011 15" MBP as soon as possible in order to dual-boot a good-sized chunk of Windows so that I may run my school-specific engineering programs on it, and install all my space-hungry games as well. They are all Windows-only.

I've used about 210 GB of this current drive and I do not have Bootcamp installed currently - I had to get rid of it because my HD was starved of space.

I'm stuck between a 750 GB Western Digital Scorpio Black and a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint drive. The 7200 RPM of the WD sounds interesting to me, as I do game on Steam and Microsoft FSX occasionally and I feel like the 7200 RPM will make a difference, but the larger space of the Samsung is also attractive as I am constantly importing heavy photos and videos, and downloading large programs for school, and add-ons for my games.

However, I have heard rumors that the 5400 RPM 1 TB may actually be faster due to the data being localized on the drive, assuming I have ample free space available. I don't know how partitioned drives react to this though. I'm just repeating what I've heard, I wouldn't be knowledgeable myself, haha.

Also, do I need to get an external enclosure to transfer all my data from my current hard drive? I heard the procedure is to connect the new drive, format it as Mac OS X Extended Journaled via Disk Utility, install ML on it, and it gives me an option to restore the contents of my current drive onto the new drive. Is this true?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Orlandoech.com said:

The WD Black.

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Thanks for the reply. Will the increased RPM increase battery drain?

Any and all opinions much appreciated!

Appreciate the replies from everyone, thanks a lot!

Dark Void said:

Have you considered the Seagate Momentus XT? It's also a nice competitor pre-SSD conversion. There is a 750GB variant iirc.

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I've heard mixed reviews on this drive, but in my personal experience, Seagate has been nothing but trouble. I have had to RMA my desktop Seagate drives 3 times in one year I switched over to WD and have had no issues since.

Leaning towards the WD Black now. I have heard that it is a bit noisier and vibrates more than comparable drives but for the added speed, I think it is something worth compromising on.

One final question - How does the 750 GB Black compare to the 1 TB WD Blue in terms of performance, smoothness, and quietness?

Sorry for asking so many questions. Thanks again!

Orlandoech.com said:

The WD Black.

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Dark Void said:

They aren't very noticeably different in any category really. Anything like temperature difference, performance (depending on the task), or quietness will be basically the same. Obviously not exactly the same since they are different drives and the numbers are different here and there but my point is it's not entirely noticeable during day-to-day tasks. However, to provide an example, if you may notice a couple of seconds difference in boot time between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive, but like I said you wouldn't really notice - only if you busted out a stop watch.

If you need the extra storage, perhaps go with the WD Scorpio Blue.

Also, regarding the Momentus XT - I have heard horror stories about that drive, but others report great success. I was just wondering if you had considered it, it was a drive that came into play a lot about a year ago due to it's storage capacity, price, and hybrid capabilities. It was knocked due to scores being the same, but real-world performance is the only thing that will account for its SSD cache. Perhaps stay away from that though if you have had bad experiences with Seagate - I would still recommend a WD drive as they are solid products.

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I went ahead and got the WD Black and an external enclosure. Thanks for all your suggestions! What a great place to get help.

Now to get all my data over. I know I need to boot into Disk Utility and format the new HD as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled).

Should I use Migration Assistant or Carbon Copy Cloner? I'm leaning towards the latter....