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Mac Pro Hard Drive Recommendations
- Thread starter mister880
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mister880 said:
Right now the 320GB drive is the best value. Anandtech does a good comparison of two drives [one from Seagate and one from Western Digital]
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2803
Western Digital Caviar
Mine came with a Western Digital Caviar 250Gig and in the new XBench test that compares a dual 2MHZ G5 to it, the hard disk tests killed it. I have had great luck with Barracudas and ordered an 80gig drive fo $60 to see if it makes a big difference. With this drive and 1 gig of RAM using Photoshop and GoLive together is a painful experience. I have another gig of RAM coming tomorrow (there is only so much money I can throw at this thing) which should help a lot. I also was using my firewire external Maxtor 300gig as a scratch drive and it kept spinning down while I was using Photoshop, you can imagine what fun that is. I will compare the two drives when the Seagate gets here and post the results.
Mine came with a Western Digital Caviar 250Gig and in the new XBench test that compares a dual 2MHZ G5 to it, the hard disk tests killed it. I have had great luck with Barracudas and ordered an 80gig drive fo $60 to see if it makes a big difference. With this drive and 1 gig of RAM using Photoshop and GoLive together is a painful experience. I have another gig of RAM coming tomorrow (there is only so much money I can throw at this thing) which should help a lot. I also was using my firewire external Maxtor 300gig as a scratch drive and it kept spinning down while I was using Photoshop, you can imagine what fun that is. I will compare the two drives when the Seagate gets here and post the results.
If you're willing to trade capacity for speed, there aren't any SATA HDs faster than Western Digital's Raptor line.
There are currently three 10K RPM, 16MB cache models available:
150GB (WD1500ADFD) for about $250
74GB (WD740ADFD) for about $160
36GB (WD360ADFD for about $110
They come with a 5-year warranty and are supposed to be reliable, since they're built with enterprises in mind. I plan on getting the 74GB model to run my games off of when I get my Mac Pro, and, eventually, the 36GB model to use to run OS X and Windows off of (and use the HD that comes with the Mac Pro to hold my Users folder). I anticipate a considerable speed boost from those drives.
There are currently three 10K RPM, 16MB cache models available:
150GB (WD1500ADFD) for about $250
74GB (WD740ADFD) for about $160
36GB (WD360ADFD for about $110
They come with a 5-year warranty and are supposed to be reliable, since they're built with enterprises in mind. I plan on getting the 74GB model to run my games off of when I get my Mac Pro, and, eventually, the 36GB model to use to run OS X and Windows off of (and use the HD that comes with the Mac Pro to hold my Users folder). I anticipate a considerable speed boost from those drives.
I put a 150gb raptor in my G5, this drive definitely offers a speed benefit. I could only image a few of them in a RAID stripe.
Its pretty quiet too, not any louder than other drives I have had in the past.
Its pretty quiet too, not any louder than other drives I have had in the past.
The Inevitable said:If you're willing to trade capacity for speed, there aren't any SATA HDs faster than Western Digital's Raptor line.
There are currently three 10K RPM, 16MB cache models available:
150GB (WD1500ADFD) for about $250
74GB (WD740ADFD) for about $160
36GB (WD360ADFD for about $110
They come with a 5-year warranty and are supposed to be reliable, since they're built with enterprises in mind. I plan on getting the 74GB model to run my games off of when I get my Mac Pro, and, eventually, the 36GB model to use to run OS X and Windows off of (and use the HD that comes with the Mac Pro to hold my Users folder). I anticipate a considerable speed boost from those drives.
MacProGuy said:
XBench is inaccurate. It just gives a general idea; I'd say it's probably performing pretty close to identically.
If your expecting a considerable speed boost you may well be disapointed. The Raptors were it a few years ago, but the newer 7500rpm drives have really caught up in performaance. Also know that the Raptors will considerably increse the db comming out of your system. Fast they are, quiet they are not. If not knocking them, I have a 74GB (8 MB cache) on my windows box and have not had any problems. I just think that there are better options out there today.The Inevitable said:I anticipate a considerable speed boost from those drives.
TedSlawski said:
Got the 'cuda and it's definitely faster but not by enough to jump up and down. These drives sure feel faster than the ATA in my dual 800 quicksilver, I think Xbench is out to lunch. I think there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done to the system to have one of these fly. The times that stuff takes varies a lot, I expected never to see a beach ball in the finder but sometimes widows are slow to re-draw, stuff bounces in the dock, they definitely went for the "get it out the door" and if you look at it that way, it's pretty damned impressive. I should have been more patient. The next OS release with a native Adobe creative suite, cheaper RAM prices, Oh well, sometimes you just have to act on a whim.
my mac pro arrived last night and i installed this barracuda 7200.10. this thing doesn't make a sound and it seems much faster than the wd250 that came with the machine but i don't have any numbers to back that up so....
anyway, there's my recommendation, i'm ordering two more and i'll take out the wd250 and set it up as an external.
anyway, there's my recommendation, i'm ordering two more and i'll take out the wd250 and set it up as an external.
Additinal Drive for a new Mac Pro
Hello Kevin,
Normally when you ask for advise on these forums you get more confused as at the end of email link you still dont know what you should do. I am sure you agree with me on that one.
Well I am in same situation as I have a brand new Mac Pro also. I wonder what have you decided.
I was wondering why nobody mentioned the overheating issue on 750 GB drives. Is that an issue of past?
Well I will be curious to know what you have decided.
- Stoaka
Hello Kevin,
Normally when you ask for advise on these forums you get more confused as at the end of email link you still dont know what you should do.
I am sure you agree with me on that one.Well I am in same situation as I have a brand new Mac Pro also. I wonder what have you decided.
I was wondering why nobody mentioned the overheating issue on 750 GB drives. Is that an issue of past?
Well I will be curious to know what you have decided.
- Stoaka
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Just my 2 cents here... I am going to outfit my mac pro with 4 750gb we se16 drives nice compromise of speed and size and price
Just my 2 cents here... I am going to outfit my mac pro with 4 750gb we se16 drives nice compromise of speed and size and price
Hey Thanks! That was great. So you will take out the drive it came with and re-install operating system? My Apple OS is zero. I have been a PC User all my life.
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That's right. Installing the os on the 750gb drive is a pretty easy process. Just boot from the included DVD with the option key or c key and follow the prompts
stoaka said:
That's right. Installing the os on the 750gb drive is a pretty easy process. Just boot from the included DVD with the option key or c key and follow the prompts
Qpid! Have you added/upgraded your DVD Writer? And the 750 GB drive you mentioned earlier by WD is called Cavier? Thanks!
I left the DVD write alone and the drive is called the caviar also, I have some pics of them here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/345781/
I just got my Caviar 750HD. Now I need to install it and re-install OS.
Hope I wont have any problems.
Just use superduper to clone the original disk to the new one and you are all set. No reinstall required and you keep all your apps and settings.
Cheers,
yeah a bunch of people have done this. You can get that insert card that connects them, but it won't be hot-swappable:
Get one of those and you can connect your eSATA hard drives to it.
yeah a bunch of people have done this. You can get that insert card that connects them, but it won't be hot-swappable:
![221009A.jpg]()
Get one of those and you can connect your eSATA hard drives to it.
Thanks! Don't really care about hot swapability, just a fast connection. I should get the same speeds as I would if I put in a PCIe card, right? Upto 3.0Gbps? I am asking this because I am about to invest in external storage (Raid 5 setup) and only have one PCIe slot left which is going to be used very soon, so I will have zero PCie slots...I still don't know how I am going to run out this port multiplier. I wish the ATI card didn't take two PCI brackets...
As far as I know, it's the exact same thing as an internal drive. The system doesn't know the difference, it just knows a drive is connected to a SATA port.
Get 3 500GB Seagate drives, they are super cheap, and excellent drives, I have that on my mac pro, for normal users (Video editing, sound editing) Raid is not necessary, and increse the risk of data lost. If you do HD (Native) you will need a Raid, so in that case, get 1 500GB modelm and 2 750GB model to put them in raid. And get a Raid controller card, because the Software Raid is not near as fast.
Good luck.
(Dont get 10.000k drives, they are too small and not that fast)
Good luck.
(Dont get 10.000k drives, they are too small and not that fast)