Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MB Hard Drive Questions

S

shurgie

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 16, 2008
114
0
LI
I am going to be purchasing a Macbook within the next week or so and will be upgrading the RAM and HD hopefully.

I am looking into getting a 300-400GB HD 5400 RPM.

I am wondering about some information regarding:
1. heat
Is there a certain HD that will keep the MB cooler and less likely to burn my lap.
2. size
I have heard that some HD's are a little bit different size wise and will be hard to fit in the MB.
3. space
Will 120GB in a 160GB hard drive run slower than 120GB in a 320GB hard drive? (basically my main reason for purchasing the HD)
4. noise
Which will keep the noise from getting too loud, I notice from my PB now that it will get a little noisy when running too many apps.

Thanks in advance.
 
shurgie said:
I am going to be purchasing a Macbook within the next week or so and will be upgrading the RAM and HD hopefully.

I am looking into getting a 300-400GB HD 5400 RPM.

I am wondering about some information regarding:
1. heat
Is there a certain HD that will keep the MB cooler and less likely to burn my lap.
2. size
I have heard that some HD's are a little bit different size wise and will be hard to fit in the MB.
3. space
Will 120GB in a 160GB hard drive run slower than 120GB in a 320GB hard drive? (basically my main reason for purchasing the HD)
4. noise
Which will keep the noise from getting too loud, I notice from my PB now that it will get a little noisy when running too many apps.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

1) There really isn't going to be a big difference in heat between drives unless you move up to a 7200RPM
2) You have to make sure to get a 2.5" 9mm tall SATA drive
3) 120GB in a 320GB drive will run faster than 120GB in a 160GB drive
4) I haven't tried enough different drives to know which are quieter.
 
shurgie said:
I am going to be purchasing a Macbook within the next week or so and will be upgrading the RAM and HD hopefully.

I am looking into getting a 300-400GB HD 5400 RPM.

I am wondering about some information regarding:
1. heat
Is there a certain HD that will keep the MB cooler and less likely to burn my lap.
2. size
I have heard that some HD's are a little bit different size wise and will be hard to fit in the MB.
3. space
Will 120GB in a 160GB hard drive run slower than 120GB in a 320GB hard drive? (basically my main reason for purchasing the HD)
4. noise
Which will keep the noise from getting too loud, I notice from my PB now that it will get a little noisy when running too many apps.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

1. The HDD will probably be the least tempered object in your MB
2. All 2.5" HDDs will fit in except WD Velociraptor whose depth is a bit larger than normal
3. The largest capacity till date is 500GB by Seagate and Hitachi!
4. Since 2.5" drives run at 5400RPM (most of them) and their platters are smaller and lighter, you'll hardly hear anything!

Hope that Helps
 
Thank you very much, my last question is how does this all effect Applecare/ warranty with Apple?
 
The hard drive, like the RAM, in the MB is a user-replaceable item. You're responsible for the new drive of course (Apple won't replace it if it fails) but everything else will still be covered, unless you break something while replacing it, which is unlikely, unless you're a total klutz.

Still, you should probably keep the older one around to put back in if you need to use AppleCare.
 
Would you recommend installing another hard drive if just for the fact of the ability to store more music while keeping the computer fast.
 
shurgie said:
Would you recommend installing another hard drive if just for the fact of the ability to store more music while keeping the computer fast.
Click to expand...
Sure. The bigger the better. Before I got my Mac and embraced the digital lifestyle, I had a half filled 40GB drive in a PC. Now, I've almost filled a 500GB drive and I'm not finished yet. I'll have to upgrade to 1TB within a few months. I'm thinking of a Drobo so I can just plug in a new drive when I need to.

Larger hard drives tend to be faster at the same RPM, so 500GB at 5400rpm will be faster than 160GB at 5400rpm. But you're not going to notice any difference unless you run benchmarks.

Remember though that your drive is going to fail sometime, no question about it, so try to implement some kind of backup policy, like burning your music to DVD and keeping the DVDs somewhere else (like at work, or with family, or friends).
 
shurgie said:
Would you recommend installing another hard drive if just for the fact of the ability to store more music while keeping the computer fast.
Click to expand...

No! I'd recommend you to add more memory (RAM 4GB) for that!
It basically that the CPU has a cache which fills up with processes (think work files that the CPU has to complete) Once the cache fills up, then the RAM starts filling up and then the HDD (what you call virtual memory)

So whats the harm in filling up HDD instead of cache... putting in lay man's terms, the CPU will have to walk a step to get the files from the cache, walk a thousand steps to get it from the RAM and a billion steps to get from the HDD.

Would you rather have a large HDD now or a large amount of memory which will minimize the amount of 'files required to be stored on the HDD'?
 
Apple Ink said:
No! I'd recommend you to add more memory (RAM 4GB) for that!
Click to expand...
Depends on what you're doing with your Mac. Most people won't notice the difference between 2GB and 4GB RAM - the biggest gain is from 512MB or 1GB to 2GB. I'm a pretty heavy user (Java programming with Tomcat and eclipse etc running, as well as all the consumer-oriented media manipulation using iPhoto, iTunes etc) with 2GB RAM, and I never see any swapping to disk unless I run Parallels or VMWare.

If I were a Photoshop user, I would want more RAM.

For most people, 2GB RAM + the largest HDD they can afford is the best option.
 
Apple Ink said:
1. The HDD will probably be the least tempered object in your MB
2. All 2.5" HDDs will fit in except WD Velociraptor whose depth is a bit larger than normal
3. The largest capacity till date is 500GB by Seagate and Hitachi!
4. Since 2.5" drives run at 5400RPM (most of them) and their platters are smaller and lighter, you'll hardly hear anything!

Hope that Helps
Click to expand...

Sorry to be picky but the Hitachi is 12.5mm thick so wont fit in a MB but will in a 17'' MBP,and have Seagate released a 500GB or did you mean Samsung ?
 
Well no matter what I plan on upgrading the RAM as I will be using Photoshop, and some other programs that will push on the memory of the computer.
The upgrading of the hard drive all depends on if I pick up the black book or white book tonight at the store.
 
Neil321 said:
Thanks for the link, but i thought samsung was the first to release a 500GB notebook drive with their m6, like the idea of two platters though pitty i have a samsung already
Click to expand...

Nope... it was Hitachi first (with 3 platters though) and then Samsung and now Seagate! Soon WD will also launch it!
 
Neil321 said:
Ok, just gets confusing when they all say " first to announce or release " any idea how many platters the WD might have? as i've used their drives for years and rate them
Click to expand...

Seems Hitachi was desperate (and foolish) to release such a product!
WD will definitely be a 2 platter!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back