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verdee

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 28, 2008
32
1
I'm looking to upgrade my MBP (March 08, multitouch) to a 500 GB hard drive, and I am not sure which one to go with. I am looking at either the WD scorpio blue or the seagate momentus 7200.4. I am curious if there are any people who have had experience with both and could comment. I like that the seagate is 7200 rpm, but I have heard the WD is almost as fast and is possibly more reliable. This is replacing the OEM 200 GB 5400 rpm drive. I thought about a 320 gb drive, but would rather go big and only have to upgrade once for the lifetime of my computer.
 
I've had experience with both and will not buy another Seagate drive. I've had too many of them fail on me (desktop internal & external, notebook internal). I owned the Seagate Momentus 2.5", but only for three days. It failed and I sent it back in exchange for a WD Scorpio blue that has worked flawlessly for several months now. The WD is also significantly quieter than my Seagate unit was, although both were noisier than the stock drive.

Based on my experiences and those of several friends, Seagate drives seem to have a pretty high failure rate. I consider WD a much safer bet.
 
I've got the western digital blue 500GB and it's working a treat, very quiet, no vibrations ad fast enough for 99% of user's needs.
 
I have this drive Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500gb and to be honest its quiet and fast

if u do get this drive dont get the one with the G-Force Protection, it causes problems with macs (freezing).

ST9500420AS - Good
ST9500420ASG - Bad
 
I also have the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200.4 drive. There is no vibration and its very quite on my MBP. I love it--can't compare it to the WD though.
 
I have just recieved my CTO 3.06 MBP from Apple and it has the ST9500420ASG in it. I don't think Apple would be shipping Laptops that are going to freeze.

By the way, the laptop is noticeably quicker than with a 5400 drive. There is no drive noise and it huge in capacity.


I have this drive Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500gb and to be honest its quiet and fast

if u do get this drive dont get the one with the G-Force Protection, it causes problems with macs (freezing).

ST9500420AS - Good
ST9500420ASG - Bad
 
I'm looking to upgrade my MBP (March 08, multitouch) to a 500 GB hard drive, and I am not sure which one to go with.
Forget the "name brand" when it comes to hard drives. Go with the cheapest one you can find which comes with a good warranty. The parts for all hard drives in the world come from the same Taiwanese scrap yard and are assembled by only 3 people. (Each earning less then 15 cents per hour I might add).
 
Really interesting. I'm looking for a hard drive myself. Does anyone reach over 500 GB space? If yes what more would you need?
 
There are several threads here on MR and many more comparisons if you Google for them. I have the Scorpio Blue and I love it. Quiet, cool and fast.

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
Scorpio Blue WD. I also have one and love it. Just a FYI, WD is faster than the Seagate in tests due to Access times.

Many how many topics are we going to have on HDs today. LOL!
 
I had several seagate momentus drives (one of which died) before sticking a wd scorpio blue 500 in my whitebook. After losing a lot of pictures to the seagate dying (and not backing up for a month) - I actually bought 2 500gb WD drives and every few days use carbon copy to clone one to the other.

I couldn't believe what a difference the WD made to the feel of the machine. Felt about 3 times faster. A much better improvement than when I bumped the RAM from 512Mb to 2Gb.

I had bought the WD by chance - wasn't too surprised when months later i read on this forum how good people think it is.
 
do the WD Passport drives come with scorpio drives in them? Like say i wanted to buy the Passport so that when i switch drives i can put my old drive in the case and use it as an external?
 
not sure about that - but you could always buy an oem scorpio plus a usb case for a few quid off fleabay. just make sure it is rated up to the size of drive that you are going to put in it...
 
do the WD Passport drives come with scorpio drives in them? Like say i wanted to buy the Passport so that when i switch drives i can put my old drive in the case and use it as an external?

External USB cases are cheap, cheap, cheap

I wasn't planning to get one, but when I bought my Scorpio Blue, it was a "suggestion" by Amazon, so I bought it
Works great with my old HD

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
All manufacturers have failure.

Over the past 5 years, I have sent in 7 Western Digital drives for warranty replacements (all for home use). I have also sent in a Seagate drive.

At home, I currently have Western Digital, Seagate, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Samsung drives.

I still buy Western Digital drives for desktop computers. My main PC has a WD Raptor II 300gb 10,000rpm as the system drive, and my two NAS RAIDs are housing 8 WD GP 1tb drives.

For notebooks, it is a toss up between Western Digital and Fujitsu for notebook drives for me. My new MBP came with a Seagate 7200rpm 320gb drive. Seems fine.

If the community here seems to recommend the WD Blue, go for it. Why not, it is obviously compatible and better than picking blindly. However, drives are cheap. Data recovery is not cheap. Buy two (or three) and backup regularly.
 
All manufacturers have failure.

Over the past 5 years, I have sent in 7 Western Digital drives for warranty replacements (all for home use). I have also sent in a Seagate drive.

At home, I currently have Western Digital, Seagate, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Samsung drives.

I still buy Western Digital drives for desktop computers. My main PC has a WD Raptor II 300gb 10,000rpm as the system drive, and my two NAS RAIDs are housing 8 WD GP 1tb drives.

For notebooks, it is a toss up between Western Digital and Fujitsu for notebook drives for me. My new MBP came with a Seagate 7200rpm 320gb drive. Seems fine.

If the community here seems to recommend the WD Blue, go for it. Why not, it is obviously compatible and better than picking blindly. However, drives are cheap. Data recovery is not cheap. Buy two (or three) and backup regularly.

Agreed!

I am astounded by the people who have no backup and then are shocked when their drive fails (all drives/brands fail). Even then they "can't afford" an external drive to try and recover their data!

You said it... drives are cheap, data recovery is not!

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
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