Best 1TB HDD upgrade for a 13' mid-2010 MBP

[P51Mustangrulz]

Greetings,

I've been a lurker on this site for awhile now - and I'm strongly considering upgrading my stock 250GB HDD to something much larger (preferably in the 500GB - 1TB range).

I do know that I want to stick with a 5400rpm HDD (unless someone here can come up with a compelling reason otherwise).

Does anyone have a recommended brand for a 1TB or 500GB hard drive to put in this thing?

I've decided that If I do it -- since I'll have the thing opened up, I'll max out the RAM as well.

I am wanting a HDD that is still as quiet as the stock one, that won't reduce battery life, and is reliable.

 

[apd]

Greetings,

I've been a lurker on this site for awhile now - and I'm strongly considering upgrading my stock 250GB HDD to something much larger (preferably in the 500GB - 1TB range).

I do know that I want to stick with a 5400rpm HDD (unless someone here can come up with a compelling reason otherwise).

Does anyone have a recommended brand for a 1TB or 500GB hard drive to put in this thing?

I've decided that If I do it -- since I'll have the thing opened up, I'll max out the RAM as well.

I am wanting a HDD that is still as quiet as the stock one, that won't reduce battery life, and is reliable.

If you're thinking of maxing out the RAM, presumably you have speed issues? In which case why not replace the stock HDD with an SSD and install a 1Tb drive alongside it. The HDD will have to go where the current HDD is and the SSD can go in the DVD bay (using an optibay). You will see a much greater performance gain than just upping the RAM. The SSD will barely touch the battery life.

As for the new HDD, there are so many to choose from but it seems a little silly to stick with a 5400 one - 7200 will not drain much more battery power but ought to be a fair bit faster.

 

[P51Mustangrulz]

Thanks for the quick reply APD --

Yes - it does seem like I get the beachball of death quite a bit which is why I'm concerned about the RAM.

I'm against going the SSD route for the time being due to the high price of them. I know and understand what you're saying about that giving me best performance -- but for me the price tag isn't worth it at the moment.

My main concern about the 5400rpm vs 7200rpm is the heat. The laptop that my MBP replaced was from another company...and had overheating issues straight out of the box. This was to the point that the entire mother board had to replaced by the company while it was under warranty, and it also fried the battery charging connector.

Is the 7200rpm HDD not a major concern for heat? I'll be honest and say that I am not at all concerned about the MBP's boot-up time or transfer speeds...as long as the thing reliably works!

As far as my usage of the MBP: I mainly use it for research, for writing documents, and for surfing the internet - with some occasional photo editing.

 

[AppleNewton]

I know you're not interested in the SSD route, but I'd opt to put the SSD in the HDD bay instead of the optical drive bay if its a 2011 model atleast.

But in any case, I have yet to experience any form of heat issues with 7200RPM drives in 13" or 15" MBP's.
If you're not going the SSD route I'd check out the 750GB Western Digital Scorpio Black. For abit of a boost in performance and some nice space to boot.

Otherwise if you already have a 5400RPM HDD in there and you just want storage space, the Western Digital Scorpio Blue HDD 1TB is a nice replacement.

 

[room271]

My suggestion is to buy an external hard-drive and load all your media/files onto that. Just keep all your current work files on your laptop drive.

This way will be cheaper and improve the start-up time and speed on your laptop.

 

[G-Mo]

Otherwise if you already have a 5400RPM HDD in there and you just want storage space, the Western Digital Scorpio Blue HDD 1TB is a nice replacement.

I am running the above mentioned WD Scorpio Blue 1TB in a late 2008 Unibody aluminum MacBook (maxed out with 8GB RAM), and it's a great drive. I previously had a Seagate 500GB 7200rpm drive in the machine, and I am much happier with the 5400rpm, it's quieter and cooler (I find).

The only issue with the 1TB Scorpio Blue, is that it's a 12.5mm drive, and it does not fit in all MacBook/MacBook Pros, so, you should check that out first.

 

[Plumbstone]

FWIW I've had 2 1Tb Scorpio Blues die on me recently, I have now gone for the Samsung option. Also the WD 1Tbs are actually 5200rpm not 5400.

 

[apd]

Thanks for the quick reply APD --


My main concern about the 5400rpm vs 7200rpm is the heat. The laptop that my MBP replaced was from another company...and had overheating issues straight out of the box. This was to the point that the entire mother board had to replaced by the company while it was under warranty, and it also fried the battery charging connector.

Is the 7200rpm HDD not a major concern for heat? I'll be honest and say that I am not at all concerned about the MBP's boot-up time or transfer speeds...as long as the thing reliably works!

I have had 7200s in a MBP and a Macbook and had no problems at all with heat or, for that matter, battery drain.

 

[apd]

... I'd opt to put the SSD in the HDD bay instead of the optical drive bay if its a 2011 model atleast.

I know a lot of people advise putting the SSD in the HDD bay but I think is sometimes a mistake: (1) the optical bay doesn't fit the larger HDDs (2) not all drives seem to use the sudden motion sensor in the Optibay and (3) almost all optibay adaptors will end up covering the HDD breather hole. Also, the optibay connector is SATA II 3GB which is fast enough for all consumer SSDs at the moment (although some of the very new ones use 6Gb)

 

[silentsage]

I have a Samsung 1 TB drive in my 2011 15" MBP.

Works great, no issues, but it is sloooow.

I need the storage for a project that I'm working on, but I plan to revert to a 500GB or 750 GB 7200 RPM drive when I'm done.

 

[econgeek]

Had the WD 1TB drive in my 2008 MBP since about the time they came out. No problems. It is 5200 RPM but and it is not speedy, but that's why I have an SSD to keep it company.

I bought another one just recently.

I have a Samsung 500GB drive that makes a clicking noise that I find irritating, and Samsung didn't have a 1TB option at the time, so I have stuck with WD.

 

[6italia0]

MBP 13" mid-2010 1TB upgrade

Ok so I just tried this to see if it would work and I am very happy it does, but not really surprised. I went to walmart, purchased a 1TB seagate external hard drive (making sure the drive connection matched the MBP seagate drive) for $90 and went through the set up and then reformatted it for mac os (journaled) in disk utility then proceeded to restore the drive (before installing) from my backup file. I have been using it for about two weeks now and have not had a problem with it and it doesn't make much noise either.