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500GB / 7200RPM Hard Disks in MBP's - Quiet? Issues?

M

MacAndy74

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 19, 2009
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Australia
I've read a few posts about people fitting their own 500GB / 7200RPM Hard Disks into the MBP's and some of those posts / threads are making me anxious.

I was planning on buying the upgrade to 7200RPM HDD from the Apple Store and I'm just wondering if there are any people here that did just that - upgrade to 7200RPM and what their experiences are. Is the HDD reasonably quiet? Does it vibrate? No heat problems?

Thanks :)
 
I literally just said the same thing in another thread but here goes:

I have the seagate 500GB 7200rpm drive installed in my MBP and it is extremely quiet and has less vibration than the stock drive. I love it and this upgrade should last me until I'm ready to jump on board with the Unibody MBPs.

I researched this drive prior to purchasing and found most problems that people had with excessive vibration and noise had not installed it properly. Those experiences concerned me, and so I paid extra to have the drive I bought installed at an apple authorized service center and its seems that was a good move.
 
Others have vibrations from 7200rpm drives. See other post above this. I would stay with a 5400 rpm one and get one that has fast access times like the WD blue model. It beats them all.
 
MacAndy74 said:
Thanks. Not feeling so anxious now. :)
Click to expand...

I have the 500 GB drive installed in a MBP Alum 2.2 C2D. no problems with heat or vibrations. very quiet even when I am copying big files.

It's nice to have a large drive like this. I have boot camp running Windows 7 and still have plenty of space for everything else.
 
nizmoz said:
Others have vibrations from 7200rpm drives. See other post above this. I would stay with a 5400 rpm one and get one that has fast access times like the WD blue model. It beats them all.
Click to expand...
just tried the WD scorpio blue, and it is not as quiet as my Hyundai 7200rpm, which is a real beauty. then again, I have just installed a OCZ Summit SSD - a quantum leap. makes any computer a different machine. I am typing in complete silence.....:)
 
antskip said:
just tried the WD scorpio blue, and it is not as quiet as my Hyundai 7200rpm, which is a real beauty. then again, I have just installed a OCZ Summit SSD - a quantum leap. makes any computer a different machine. I am typing in complete silence.....:)
Click to expand...

And I can't hear mine with my WD Blue 500GB. :D
 
I paid to have mine upgraded to 7200RPM in my new 2.8 MacBook Pro which will arrive on Monday.

I have heard a lot of people on both sides of the fence but it does appear incredibly subjective. I am not worried... :p

Originally Posted by antskip
just tried the WD scorpio blue, and it is not as quiet as my Hyundai 7200rpm, which is a real beauty. then again, I have just installed a OCZ Summit SSD - a quantum leap. makes any computer a different machine. I am typing in complete silence.....
Click to expand...

Would have loved to afford an SSD but not sure about the gains (ie I literally don't know how much better they are). What are the benefits?
 
Brand new MBP - 500GB 7200rpm BTO. within minutes of starting up and going through initial ste up - "click....beep". Hard drive issues = Genius appointment and hard drive swap likely needed.

June 2009 Apple support thread on users with similar issues here.
 
Here is my conclusion from reading a lot of posts .....

1) People who read about vibration will feel it. After all they read it was there.

2) People who read about noise will hear it. After all they read it was there.

Now for some deeper thought ....

OPINION: Noise and vibration are subjective and no two people will react the same to the same noise/vibration stimulus. You either have to concur or believe that drive manufacturers have terrible Quality Control. Why else would some have issues with a specific drive and others would not???

I have yet to hear a notebook hard drive that was louder than the average ambient noise in the environments I operate the notebook in.

Having said all of that, I installed a 500GB 5400 Western Digital Scorpio Blue, I've read several reviews and have had the chance to see the drives in action.

If you do nothing but run benchmarks and want to see higher scores, by all means get a 7200. It will win in one or two areas. If you use your computer for general purpose work, I bet a 5400 would suffice.

Go to www.techreport.com and seek out the test and review of 500GB HDD's they did. They even tested a 7200 against the 5400's! I was surprised at the results. I figured the 7300 would be the runaway winner! ;)
 
harcosparky said:
Here is my conclusion from reading a lot of posts .....

1) People who read about vibration will feel it. After all they read it was there.

2) People who read about noise will hear it. After all they read it was there.

Now for some deeper thought ....

OPINION: Noise and vibration are subjective and no two people will react the same to the same noise/vibration stimulus. You either have to concur or believe that drive manufacturers have terrible Quality Control. Why else would some have issues with a specific drive and others would not???

I have yet to hear a notebook hard drive that was louder than the average ambient noise in the environments I operate the notebook in.

Having said all of that, I installed a 500GB 5400 Western Digital Scorpio Blue, I've read several reviews and have had the chance to see the drives in action.

If you do nothing but run benchmarks and want to see higher scores, by all means get a 7200. It will win in one or two areas. If you use your computer for general purpose work, I bet a 5400 would suffice.

Go to www.techreport.com and seek out the test and review of 500GB HDD's they did. They even tested a 7200 against the 5400's! I was surprised at the results. I figured the 7300 would be the runaway winner! ;)
Click to expand...


While I tend to agree that you start hearing things once you are told about them or read about them, I heard an abnormal sound within one hour of powering on my new MBP 15 for the first time. The other threads talking about this problem all seem to be the same noise that is documented and does not occur under other operating systems, i.e. winxp on bootcamp. There is some interaction with the OS & HD that is not tuned correctly and the drive is not behaving in the expected silent manner. Hard drives will be heard at some level no matter how quiet they operate, but the random click + beep I hear I do not believe is a normal sound. Just my $0.02.

See also:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2042490
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/727453/ (including youtube video and wav attachment)
 
Adding into the mix is Seagate's announced 640 GB 2.5" Hard Drive. I'm betting the density on that would give anything 7,200rpm a run for its money.
 
I love my Scorpio Blue

I have found it to be quiet, cool and fast

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
wessto said:
While I tend to agree that you start hearing things once you are told about them or read about them, I heard an abnormal sound within one hour of powering on my new MBP 15 for the first time. The other threads talking about this problem all seem to be the same noise that is documented and does not occur under other operating systems, i.e. winxp on bootcamp. There is some interaction with the OS & HD that is not tuned correctly and the drive is not behaving in the expected silent manner. Hard drives will be heard at some level no matter how quiet they operate, but the random click + beep I hear I do not believe is a normal sound. Just my $0.02.

See also:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2042490
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/727453/ (including youtube video and wav attachment)
Click to expand...

The 'click and beep' is associated with the 7200 drives, is that correct???

I have a new 15" MBP ( Pre WWDC ) and ran the stock drive in it for 2 weeks before installing the 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue drive. I had no problems with either drive. Couldn't tell they were running, they were that quiet.

The stock 250GB drive is made by Hitachi.

Looking at those threads it does appear to be tied to the 7200 drives.
 
CRAP! Why didn't I see this thread before I ordered it...:(

Is EVERYONE having this problem with the 7200 RPM drives?
 
i just swapped my stock 7200 rpm drive back in .. it wasnt terrible with the seagate 7200rpm 500gb hd .. but it started to bother me and i dont bootcamp so i dont really need that much room
 
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