500gb drives now available!

[thenewguy]

You can read about it here

9.5mm 500gb 3 platter HDD from samsung. $299 MSRP, not sure what it'll go for from 3rd party sellers.

pretty exciting!

 

[markrivers]

soon the 1TB will be out.
so don't spend too much on the 500GB, wait for the prices to go down.

don't you want an external HD instead?
something that you can swap with a MacPRO, or attached it to your camera/ videocam?

i mean for me having a 200-250 HD installed on the MBP is enough.
i always carry an external instead.

 

[sushi]

I prefer HD space in my MBP so that when I am on the road, I don't have to carry an external.

Then at home, I can connect a 3.5 inch FW800 HD for speed and extra storage space.

With 500GB out now, I wonder how long it will be before we see 1TB drives? Maybe by New Years.

 

[NIPRING]

SATA I assume. If only i could put that in my PB

 

[tersono]

You can read about it here

9.5mm 500gb 3 platter HDD from samsung. $299 MSRP, not sure what it'll go for from 3rd party sellers.

pretty exciting!

Yeah, but will it fit? The drives fitted to the current range are 9mm height - this is 9.5.

I think I'm gonna wait for someone else to try it first

 

[Cave Man]

9.5mm 500gb 3 platter HDD from samsung. $299 MSRP, not sure what it'll go for from 3rd party sellers.

pretty exciting!

Old news.

 

[Luis]

Yeah, but will it fit? The drives fitted to the current range are 9mm height - this is 9.5.

I think I'm gonna wait for someone else to try it first

Huh? The drive in my MBP right now is close to 9.7 mm in height?

 

[thenewguy]

Yeah, but will it fit? The drives fitted to the current range are 9mm height - this is 9.5.

I think I'm gonna wait for someone else to try it first

I think you're a little mistaken there. The current drives are 9.5mm. The problem was with the Fujitsu 500gb drives that came out at 12.5mm, a non-standard size that required the laptop to be built around the new drive. These new Samsung drives should fit all the MBP and MBs.

 

[squeeks]

yeah theres not much difference between 9 and 9.5 in mm

 

[wgilles]

I'll wait for someone else to try it first also...

 

[waywardsage]

yes, but is it 7200RPM?

 

[Shotglass]

This is very nice, but will it blend?

 

[Cave Man]

yes, but is it 7200RPM?

No, like always the first are slower (5400 in this case). But plenty fast, especially after 200 gigs.

 

[Neil321]

yes, but is it 7200RPM?

It'll probably be as fast as any smaller 7200 due to the density of its platters

 

[burningrave101]

I prefer HD space in my MBP so that when I am on the road, I don't have to carry an external.

Then at home, I can connect a 3.5 inch FW800 HD for speed and extra storage space.

Can you boot from the FW800 external drive as your primary drive on a MBP??

 

[mashinhead]

yes, but is it 7200RPM?

along side this (and i don't know why it's not in any of the reports) but they also released a 250gb 7200 rpm drive.

 

[sammich]

Does anyone know if there any other manufacturers are producing 500gig+ drives? LIke WD or Seagate? I'm definitely looking to upgrade VERY soon.

Can you boot from the FW800 external drive as your primary drive on a MBP??

Yes you can. As long as you have OS X installed on that drive you can select it in System Prefs > Start up Disk, or by holding down Option when you start up the computer.

If you need to install OS X, just conenct it and insert the disk, select it from the Install Destination from the installer (as long as it is formatted corrected).

 

[chrmjenkins]

It'll probably be as fast as any smaller 7200 due to the density of its platters

This is a three platter drive, while the ones currently available are dual platter. 500/3 is 166, so it will be about the same speed as the 320GB dual platter drive if I had to guess.

 

[basesloaded190]

looking to upgrade my hdd in a year or so. only have about 35gb left on mine, so i think by the time i really need a new internal i could pick up a 500gb for the prices i can for a 320 or 250 size

 

[sushi]

Can you boot from the FW800 external drive as your primary drive on a MBP??

I would assume so.

Currently I only have an external FW400 drive. It is formated with the Apple Partition Map. My MBP15 HD is formated with a GUID partition map. On the external FW400 drive, I cloned my MBP15 internal HD using Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC). The external boots with no problems.

I am in the process of getting an external FW800 drive so I cannot personally verify, but would expect that I can boot from it as well.

 

[Neil321]

This is a three platter drive, while the ones currently available are dual platter. 500/3 is 166, so it will be about the same speed as the 320GB dual platter drive if I had to guess.

Ah Ok,didn't know that,shame though as it would have sipped along,the 32OGB are speedy enough
and are neary as fast as the 7200 with some data on them

 

[Stridder44]

You can read about it here

9.5mm 500gb 3 platter HDD from samsung. $299 MSRP, not sure what it'll go for from 3rd party sellers.

pretty exciting!

$299? HA! That'll drop soon enough. If nothing else, it means the 320 is going to drop in price.

 

[sushi]

$299? HA! That'll drop soon enough. If nothing else, it means the 320 is going to drop in price.

Agree.

My guess is by summertime, we will see 500GB for around $250 or less and 320GB for $120 or so.

 

[mrsollars]

sidenote to the thread: was reading about the newest hubble improvements in popular science........on board to record data.....1 Terabyte SSD. wow.

 

[tmoney468]

I just bought and installed the 320GB version by Samsung and I have to say it's a great little drive. I came from a 100GB 7200RPM Hitachi and the new Samsung is unbelievably silent compared to my old one (the Hitachi would always make these seeking noises when loading files).

Moreover, I ran XBench before and after the install and I have to say that the new drive actually outperforms the old one in every category except one, where they are basically equal in speed.

Hitachi 100GB 7200 RPM:

Disk Test	28.79	
		Sequential	45.66	
			Uncached Write	56.63	34.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	65.75	37.20 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	23.83	6.97 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	78.30	39.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	21.03	
			Uncached Write	6.89	0.73 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	50.50	16.17 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	67.22	0.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	95.19	17.66 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Samsung 320GB 5400RPM:

Disk Test	41.89	
		Sequential	59.93	
			Uncached Write	80.88	49.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	76.61	43.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	30.40	8.90 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	118.55	59.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	32.20	
			Uncached Write	11.25	1.19 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	100.95	32.32 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	61.39	0.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	109.70	20.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]

I would think that since my Samsung uses the same platter density as the 500GB one that the performance would be pretty close.