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Advice on new MBP internal HD

B

brokendrums

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2008
5
0
Hey thanks for the time.
120 gigs isn't nearly enough, I don't know what I was thinking back in late 2006 but it's time I got a 320 or something at least. I'm up for the surgery...
I don't know much about different brands of HDs, so I was looking for advice on the market, and any other guidelines I need to know for putting an HD in the MBP. I know I gotta check to see if it takes SATA or ATA, I can't remember at this time.. is there anything particularly not good for the MBP? Do 7200 rpm drives work fine? Any general tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks guys, cheers.
 
Any 2.5" SATA drive with maximum height of 9.5mm will work. 7200rpm drives work fine but some people have noticed heating, vibration and loss in battery life.

WD's Scorpio Blue is good if you get a 5400rpm drive, it's up to 750GB
 
Thanks bud. Yeah I'm sure a 5400 is fine, and 750 gb would be awesome. WD seems to be pretty good, anyone have anything else to say about that? cheers

Edit - Thanks for the fixit page, Spinner. I saw that on a thread yesterday and it's very thorough. Much appreciated!
 
spinnerlys said:
You can take any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 9.5mm, which gets you up to 750GB as of now.
Any rotational speed will be fine.

Here is a guide on how to do it: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/...-Duo-Model-A1211-Hard-Drive-Replacement/459/1

Here is a link to MacSales, which offer 2.5" S-ATA HDDs, though you can use any other vendor. The Seagate Momentus series, including the XT, is often recommended.
Click to expand...

Sweet! Thanks for the ifixit link. That is good information to know as I will will be doing this next week.
 
brokendrums said:
Thanks bud. Yeah I'm sure a 5400 is fine, and 750 gb would be awesome. WD seems to be pretty good, anyone have anything else to say about that? cheers

Edit - Thanks for the fixit page, Spinner. I saw that on a thread yesterday and it's very thorough. Much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Personally, I've always preferred Western Digital and I know other people do as well. They make great products so I wouldn't be worried. Anything will be better than that Hitachi or Toshiba crap you have in your MBP now :p

Here is video tutorial how to replace the HD.
 
I personally am a Western Digital fan as well... Make sure, no matter what drive you get, that you DO NOT get one with a free fall sensor in it. Your MBP has that mechanism in place for the internal drive bay, and they will conflict.

In the Western Digital world, their "free fall sensor" drives have part numbers ending in BJKT... so make sure, if you go WD, you do order a drive with a part number ending in BEKT
 
mac8867 said:
I personally am a Western Digital fan as well... Make sure, no matter what drive you get, that you DO NOT get one with a free fall sensor in it. Your MBP has that mechanism in place for the internal drive bay, and they will conflict.

In the Western Digital world, their "free fall sensor" drives have part numbers ending in BJKT... so make sure, if you go WD, you do order a drive with a part number ending in BEKT
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch, this is exactly the type of info I was hoping to get.

And Hellhammer, yeah I have a Hitachi in there right now. It about time I got in there to clean out the crud, as well.
What is the difference between serial ata and ata? I was reading on OWC that most laptops 2006 and later use sata, which is right around the time I purchased my MBO, so I guess I can check that information in the system info? gonna have to wait until I get home from work to check on that.
Cheers
 
brokendrums said:
Thanks a bunch, this is exactly the type of info I was hoping to get.

And Hellhammer, yeah I have a Hitachi in there right now. It about time I got in there to clean out the crud, as well.
What is the difference between serial ata and ata? I was reading on OWC that most laptops 2006 and later use sata, which is right around the time I purchased my MBO, so I guess I can check that information in the system info? gonna have to wait until I get home from work to check on that.
Cheers
Click to expand...

IDE/ATA: IDE drives (also known as ATA/33, ATA/66, ATA/133, ATA/133, UltraATA, PATA and Parallel ATA) use a simple circuit of Integrated Drive Electronics, and are controlled by the computer's CPU and drive controller chip - consequently they are less expensive than SCSI drives, but are slower. Desktop IDE drives use a 40 pin ribbon cable connector plus a 4 pin Molex connector for power. Notebook drives use a 44 pin connector that incorporates power. Depending on the version, IDE has a theoretical bandwidth of 33, 66, 100 or 133 MB/s. There is no external form of IDE.
Click to expand...

Serial ATA (SATA): To break the speed limitations of IDE standard, Serial ATA uses a serial connection with few pins, running at a very high speed, rather than IDE's parallel connection with many pins. Serial ATA interfaces have a theoretical bandwidth of 187.5 MB/s (SATA 1.5Gb/s), 375 MB/s (SATA 3Gb/s - sometimes called SATA2, which isn't strictly accurate) and 750MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s, so-called SATA3) Another benefit is that SATA cables are much smaller, and can extend longer distances. SATA busses are strictly one device per cable, and there is no daisy-chaining.
Click to expand...

http://guides.macrumors.com/Hard_Drive

ATA is older and clumsier (bigger connector). You don't have to check anything since all MacBook Pros use SATA for hard drives
 
Hellhammer said:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Hard_Drive

ATA is older and clumsier (bigger connector). You don't have to check anything since all MacBook Pros use SATA for hard drives
Click to expand...

Thanks man, you've been a great help;
Upon researching the WD blue scorpios, I noticed some people with the 750gb (which appears to be sata2 by your definition) reported that they had long hang ups (constant spinning pinwheel) and clicking noises (sudden motion sensor?). Some of these people made it sound a bit unbareable; have you experienced or heard of any of these issues? Werd, thanks.
cheers
 
brokendrums said:
Thanks man, you've been a great help;
Upon researching the WD blue scorpios, I noticed some people with the 750gb (which appears to be sata2 by your definition) reported that they had long hang ups (constant spinning pinwheel) and clicking noises (sudden motion sensor?). Some of these people made it sound a bit unbareable; have you experienced or heard of any of these issues? Werd, thanks.
cheers
Click to expand...


I use both WD Scorpio Blue 640GB and OCZ vertez 2 in my unibody MBP. the SSD is for speed and the WD for storage. No issues with either drive.
 
brokendrums said:
Thanks man, you've been a great help;
Upon researching the WD blue scorpios, I noticed some people with the 750gb (which appears to be sata2 by your definition) reported that they had long hang ups (constant spinning pinwheel) and clicking noises (sudden motion sensor?). Some of these people made it sound a bit unbareable; have you experienced or heard of any of these issues? Werd, thanks.
cheers
Click to expand...

I've heard some issues but that affects all capacities; 500GB, 640GB, 750GB and 1TB. Most of them are fine though. If you get a bad one, you can just get a replacement. Seriously, that can happen with any brand. Hard drives often fail within few days (manufacturing error) or after years of loyal service.
 
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