$100 Seagate XT

[calaverasgrande]

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[Richard1028]

I know a lot of folks love these drives. I am on the fence about getting one of these, or a 640gb or 750gb 7.2k drive. SSD isnt an option for me as I need lots of storage.

What's your question?

 

[calaverasgrande]

</>od til the 5th or so.

 

[gr8tfly]

not a question, a heads up for anyone who wants to save $20 on the price of a seagate XT. I know a lot of kids around here consider them to be the ideal comprimise between a SSD and a big effin hard drive.
I have reservations due to what I have heard about the firmware issues, sleep modes, and seagates QC.
But hey, for you guys that want one, coupon code is in the first post. I think its good til the 5th or so.

Just fyi - the latest firmware (SD24) seems to have taken care of the previous version's issues. I've had the drive running in my Early 2009 17" MBP for a few weeks with no issues (actually with either version firmware (it shipped with SD23), though the latest is quieter (virtually silent) - with improved performance).

 

[Richard1028]

not a question, a heads up for anyone who wants to save $20 on the price of a seagate XT.

Oh, ok.

Personally, I don't miss 7200rpm drives. 5400 does just fine and I barley notice any difference. Not as noisy and they use just a tad less juice.

Also, if I were going to forego the SSD for traditional storage, I wouldn't consider anything less than 1TB myself. They're just so damned affordable.

But that's just me.

 

[hzxu]

Just fyi - the latest firmware (SD24) seems to have taken care of the previous version's issues. I've had the drive running in my Early 2009 17" MBP for a few weeks with no issues (actually with either version firmware (it shipped with SD23), though the latest is quieter (virtually silent) - with improved performance).

How about the power consumption? I bet the quietness and improved performance are caused by disabling the APM of the HDD, which makes the disk head never stay idle in what they called "ramp", thus there is no parking/unparking sound(ie quieter) also it saves the time to become active from idle(improved performance). The drawback of this is more power consumption and the risk of sudden motion when the head is on disk which makes data loss, but since Mac has sudden motion sensor so this one can be eliminated, only the power issue.

 

[gr8tfly]

How about the power consumption? I bet the quietness and improved performance are caused by disabling the APM of the HDD, which makes the disk head never stay idle in what they called "ramp", thus there is no parking/unparking sound(ie quieter) also it saves the time to become active from idle(improved performance). The drawback of this is more power consumption and the risk of sudden motion when the head is on disk which makes data loss, but since Mac has sudden motion sensor so this one can be eliminated, only the power issue.

No change in battery life that I can discern from what I had with my WD Scopio Black 320GB.

 

[hzxu]

No change in battery life that I can discern from my WD Scopio Black 320GB.

What if compared to previous firmware, for the same HDD?

 

[NickZac]

What if compared to previous firmware, for the same HDD?

Hard drive firmware would have a very nominal impact on battery performance, if any. Even the most efficient Solid State Drives (SSDs), which has no moving parts and no motor, only makes a moderate gain in battery performance. While getting one of the better HDDs are more: secure, faster, reliable, larger, cost effective, etc, overall battery impact is not huge, especially if you do not use your computer for more read/write intensive tasks while on battery power.