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1 TB hard drive anytime soon?

TSE

TSE

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 25, 2007
4,092
3,740
St. Paul, Minnesota
Hey guys, my 250 GB HD is getting kinda full, I bet it is going to be full in about a year. Is a 1 TB 5400 RPM HD soon release going to come out soon or should I just get a 500 GB HD to replace it? Is there really a big difference between 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM HD? Thanks.
 
TSE said:
Hey guys, my 250 GB HD is getting kinda full, I bet it is going to be full in about a year. Is a 1 TB 5400 RPM HD soon release going to come out soon or should I just get a 500 GB HD to replace it? Is there really a big difference between 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM HD? Thanks.
Click to expand...

2.5" 1 TB drives are very unlikely soon.
The 7200 RPM is on average faster for most users if the platter sizes are the same.

I'd go ahead and get a 500 GB drive now.

Good luck!
 
the only 1TB notebook drives ive seen are SSD drives....which yeah,,,,,run quite deep into the wallets.

but id presume sometime in the next year atleast.


...but id also recommend offsetting to external solutions where possible.
i found the more stuff on a large drive the more risk of losing it all....just stating my 2cents ;)
 
mikes70mustang said:
Just look at how fast hdd sizes are going up, there will be a 1tb within a year if not sooner.
Click to expand...

You willing to be your 70 Mustang on that? If so, I can have me another car!

I bought a new 320GB HDD for my MBP about 8 months ago. The 500GB drives had just come out. What makes you think capacity will DOUBLE in the next year? The next step will be either 640 or 750, which is what the external 3.5" drives go to. It'll be quite a while before you see a 1TB 2.5 HDD. If SSDs catch on quick enough and get affordable enough, you might never see one. When someone can make a good SSD at 320 or more for less than $200, I'm done with disk drives on this mutha!
 
errm... 7200rpm 500 just came out, but previously they were there already. For about... say... April or May last year? And FYI, 3.5" goes to 2TB. If I'm not mistaken the next step is 750. Usually laptops with 640 are laptops with 2x320
 
ThunderRobot said:
Not sure what you mean by go to?

As an example, here's an external 1.5TB 3.5" 7200RPM HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150124
Click to expand...

it has to do with the platters.

more advanced HD's use less platters, basically because the area for storage is smaller. i honestly dont know where laptop HD's will go, but im guessing that 640gb and 750gb will be the next sizes. a 1tb HD is not likely for at least 1.5 years if not 2 years.

those 1.5tb hard drives are quite buggy :p
 
I'd give it a year before we hit 1TB. We currently have 500GB platters but they are for 3.5" disks it will be a while before they can squish that down to fit a 2.5" form factor. You need 2x500GB platters for a 2.5" disk or you can increase the height of the disk and use 3 platters (But this will make the Disk incompatible with a lot of Notebooks).

So yeah, timeframe 1 year from today.
 
Quu said:
I'd give it a year before we hit 1TB. We currently have 500GB platters but they are for 3.5" disks it will be a while before they can squish that down to fit a 2.5" form factor. You need 2x500GB platters for a 2.5" disk or you can increase the height of the disk and use 3 platters (But this will make the Disk incompatible with a lot of Notebooks).

So yeah, timeframe 1 year from today.
Click to expand...

i will set a reminder on my computer and PM you in a year, just to show you how wrong you are mwahahahahahahahahaha :rolleyes:
 
TSE said:
Hey guys, my 250 GB HD is getting kinda full, I bet it is going to be full in about a year. Is a 1 TB 5400 RPM HD soon release going to come out soon or should I just get a 500 GB HD to replace it? Is there really a big difference between 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM HD? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'd say that if you really are looking for more performance, take a look to the seagate momentum (320Gb / 500Gb, but the 500Gb is not considerable more expensive, so this one would be the one to buy,) WD also got a large 2.5" HDD (I think they got a 500Gb already not sure) the only thing that if you prefer WD go for the blue label,) however i think this one is 5400rpm so a bit slower than the momentum, in the plus side that means a bit less noise/vibration (probably not noticeable but can be there) and probably more power consumption (battery discharge faster)
One thing though, you could do what I have done so far, GET EXTERNAL HDD! you can share it among all your computers if you need to, the 3.5" are very cheap these day, you can get a 1TB Seagate 3.5 external HDD at bestbuy for $99.99 and it looks good alongside with the MBP since it is silver (there are more colors,) also you can go for a networked HDD, which are more expensive (probably in the 150-180 for 1TB) but you can connect it to your router and have all your info available wirelessly (which means that if you work in your house its like the 1TB was inside your computer!,) now I dont know how you access it, I think once I heard that it is like accessing FTP files (e.g. with a web browser) but that was a long time ago, I think that has changed anyway you can do a research on it) the last option is getting external 2.5" drives, I got me a 250Gb Seagate 2.5 drive for $80 with taxes., Is a great drive, silent, pretty and small, if I would need to move it fairly frequent I will definitely be easy to do so with that drive, put it in your pocket and voila!
 
I agree, the new 500GB 7200 rpm Seagate 7200.4 is what you want. It's got denser platters as mentioned, and has many power conserving features. I'm going to use one to upgrade a MBP with a 120GB 5400 rpm hard drive, the read/write speeds of the this new 500 GB HD are about 3 times faster than the 120 GB is. This is significant enough to warrant an upgrade, not to mention the 120 GB drive is filling up. Lastly, I'm going to get the G version that has the extra protection against falling/movement, from what I've seen it's $20 or so more and worth it IMO.


.........Curtis
 
relativist said:
Lastly, I'm going to get the G version that has the extra protection against falling/movement, from what I've seen it's $20 or so more and worth it IMO.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't if you're going to put it in an Apple notebook from the last few years. They all have Sudden Motion Sensors that will conflict with the G-sensor in the hard drive.
 
Would agree, do not get one with a Drop Sensor, it may not work properly when paired with Apple Laptops already having that feature in place.
 
Here's a quote from the seagate manual for the hard drives in question:

"
2.13.1 Free Fall Protection feature
The Free Fall Protection feature provides enhanced data protection against shock events that may occur while
the drive is operating. This feature is designed to decrease the likelihood of data loss by detecting a free fall
event and unloading the actuator before a shock takes place in falls of >8 inches (nominal). The drive uses a
0G sensor mounted on the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) to sense this event.
To enable the Free Fall Protection feature on ST9500420ASG, ST9320423ASG, ST9250410ASG,
ST9160412ASG, and ST9120410ASG models, use Set Features command 41h. To disable this feature, use
Set Features command C1h. Information about Free Fall Events that have occurred is available through SMART Attribute FEh.
Note. The Free Fall Protection feature is provided only on ST9500420ASG, ST9320423ASG,
ST9250410ASG, ST9160412ASG, and ST9120410ASG models.
"

The question is if the MB/MBP can send the commands to enable/disable this. Also it is an internal feature, if the MB/MBP have something else I doubt it would conflict with this feature.

BTW here's the link to the manual.

.......Curtis
 
Well, I did google it, but didn't find anything with this particular drive, that's probably since it's new. I did find descriptions of people having trouble with various brands of HD with motion sensors and MB/MBP. I did find an article where you could disable the MB/MBP motion sensor if you need to. I doubt if I would want to do that and depend on the hard drive, since the MB/MBP sensor can by used for other things. I'd prefer to shut off the motion sensor in the hard drive itself, the hard drive has that capability, but I'm wondering how it could be done. Seems like it should be possible. Also, just in case your wondering, why would I want the drive with a sensor if the laptop it's going into already has one, I prefer to get the best I can with computer hardware, because you never know when you need something. I've noticed that many drives are coming with sensors more and more often, it also could be that Apple will add support for this one day.
 
DoFoT9 said:
i will set a reminder on my computer and PM you in a year, just to show you how wrong you are mwahahahahahahahahaha :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

None of us know for sure. But what I can tell you is that 2.0TB Hard Disks are now on the market in 3.5" Form factors and we only just got 1.5TB a few months ago. And there is already talks of a 2.5TB disk (again at 3.5")

These are very high density disks and porting the same disk technology to a 2.5" form factor although difficult is not impossible and would give us 1TB disks in a 2.5" Form Factor by around 12 months time. (Feb 2010) I believe we will see a 750GB 5,200RPM 2.5" Drive by July-August this year.

Reasons:
- SSD is encroaching on the Notebook market in the high-end, Magnetic Storage companies want to keep this segment with 7,200RPM disks at high capacities with good prices.

- Laptops make for around 40% of all computer sales and are quickly overtaking Desktop sales in a number of areas (Low-Cost, Netbooks and especially in Mac product lines where the MacBook is the most popular Mac to Date) What this means is the Hard Disk companies cannot simply ignore this market and stagnate on density advancements, they also do not want to lose this very lucrative market to SSD.

- Low competition in the Notebook market. If you launch a 750GB 2.5" Disk it will be featured on every high-end Notebooks Build To Order options due to rarity and Notebook suppliers trying to differentiate product lines from lower-end systems that they sell and also there competitors Notebooks. All this means is that this market is waiting for the Products with open arms, if you increase the density they will sell, no marketing necessary.

Obviously the question is can they deliver 1TB inside of a year. I believe they can, that is my opinion based on my interpretation of the current market trends and observations from insiders within drive leaders like Western Digital and Seagate who have both been optimistic about forthcoming storage density. Notebook drives have been neglected in the past but with all the current factors in play I believe they are going to receive some welcomed leaps in the year ahead.
 
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