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iWolf00

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 7, 2010
99
0
Hi all,

Could you recommend the best 2Tb hard disk drive for the Mac Pro 4.1, please? I checked apple website, but their price is extremely expensive. I can buy two hitachi hard disks drive and save more $$.

Well, any ideas,

Thanks in advance.
 

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
What kind of drive are you looking for? Boot drive or storage? If you're looking for a boot drive, I would take a look at WD's Caviar Black for example. If you're looking a drive for storage (no OS, just files), take a look at WD's Caviar Green as you don't need speed that much and Green will run cooler and use less power (IMO the best storage drive)
 

iWolf00

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 7, 2010
99
0
What kind of drive are you looking for? Boot drive or storage? If you're looking for a boot drive, I would take a look at WD's Caviar Black for example. If you're looking a drive for storage (no OS, just files), take a look at WD's Caviar Green as you don't need speed that much and Green will run cooler and use less power (IMO the best storage drive)

Thanks for info, I will need the hard disk for storage only, for booting I have the stock 650Gb Hard disk drive.
 

bearcatrp

macrumors 68000
Sep 24, 2008
1,733
69
Boon Docks USA
I run nothing but Hitachi in my pro. Never had a problem. Currently have two 2 TB and two 1 TB. May not be the top performer but very reliable. Have done allot of video editing and no failures in 3 years. :D
 

CaptainChunk

macrumors 68020
Apr 16, 2008
2,142
6
Phoenix, AZ
I really depends on what you're doing with the drive. If it's just for storage needs (music, compressed movies, photos, etc.), I'd buy a low-power drive like the WD Caviar Green or the Seagate Barracuda LP. They're not as speedy and they do spin themselves down more frequently at idle in order to save power, but they're cheap, silent and reliable.

If you actually need disk speed (frequent reads/writes like a scratch disk for video editing), I'd check out the Western Digital Blacks. In a lot of cases, they rival the speed of Velociraptors at a fraction of the cost per GB.
 

piggy123

macrumors newbie
Mar 27, 2010
25
0
I really depends on what you're doing with the drive. If it's just for storage needs (music, compressed movies, photos, etc.), I'd buy a low-power drive like the WD Caviar Green or the Seagate Barracuda LP. They're not as speedy and they do spin themselves down more frequently at idle in order to save power, but they're cheap, silent and reliable.

If you actually need disk speed (frequent reads/writes like a scratch disk for video editing), I'd check out the Western Digital Blacks. In a lot of cases, they rival the speed of Velociraptors at a fraction of the cost per GB.

CaptainChunk do you know if the Caviar Green will run ok in a raid 0 config? Thinking of getting a SSD boot drive and two 2TB Caviar Green in a raid 0 for storage and some light video editing.
 

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
CaptainChunk do you know if the Caviar Green will run ok in a raid 0 config? Thinking of getting a SSD boot drive and two 2TB Caviar Green in a raid 0 for storage and some light video editing.

They should work just fine, just like most HDs. There is RAID version of Caviar Green I think but it costs more
 

Fiete5401

macrumors regular
Oct 16, 2009
150
0
Germany
Thanks for info, I will need the hard disk for storage only, for booting I have the stock 650Gb Hard disk drive.

Samsung EcoGreen F3 2000GB (HD203WI)
or
Western Digital Caviar Green 2000GB, 64MB Cache (WD20EARS)
if you just want storage.
 

iWolf00

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 7, 2010
99
0
I run nothing but Hitachi in my pro. Never had a problem. Currently have two 2 TB and two 1 TB. May not be the top performer but very reliable. Have done allot of video editing and no failures in 3 years. :D

Glad to hear that.

I really depends on what you're doing with the drive. If it's just for storage needs (music, compressed movies, photos, etc.), I'd buy a low-power drive like the WD Caviar Green or the Seagate Barracuda LP. They're not as speedy and they do spin themselves down more frequently at idle in order to save power, but they're cheap, silent and reliable.

If you actually need disk speed (frequent reads/writes like a scratch disk for video editing), I'd check out the Western Digital Blacks. In a lot of cases, they rival the speed of Velociraptors at a fraction of the cost per GB.

I will use them for storage only. I may go for Raid0 to maximize capacity utilization of both hard disks. WD Caviar Green can be my first choice.


It is fast and reliable, but its expensive; I won't utilize its speed or gain benefit from it.


Samsung EcoGreen F3 2000GB (HD203WI)
or
Western Digital Caviar Green 2000GB, 64MB Cache (WD20EARS)
if you just want storage.

I will consider Samsung HDD, if it is better why not

They should work just fine, just like most HDs. There is RAID version of Caviar Green I think but it costs more

I have question; Can any WD Green HDD used for RAID 0? Or I have to buy RAID version of it?


Either this or two of these in RAID 0 :D

LoooL, COOOOL & Super, but Banks do not give loan for HDD :p:p:p:p, Or how about buying the long awaited, The New Mac Pro when it is released, it would much better option!! :D
 

Davy.Shalom

macrumors 6502
Dec 23, 2008
465
1
I've owned 2 Hitachi drives and both have been loud and eventually failed. I would never recommend Hitachi drives to anyone. Go Western Digital Green or Black.
 

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
As far as consumer grade SATA drives, I've not been impressed with Hitachi or Samsung's offerings. Seen too may failures to even attempt to use them myself. I also tend to take this as an indication of what to expect from the enterprise models as well (i.e. more commonality of parts between consumer and enterprise models than has existed in the past).

With recent drives, I've had better luck with WD, particularly their enterprise models (what I tend to use the most). Toshiba (formerly Fujitsu), Hitachi and Seagate make good SAS disks, but they're not needed for most things, and aren't cheap.
 

brentsg

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,578
936
I've owned 2 Hitachi drives and both have been loud and eventually failed. I would never recommend Hitachi drives to anyone. Go Western Digital Green or Black.

This kind of data is just anecdotal unless you have a large user sample. I've had to RMA 2 of my WD drives in the past 2 months. These are my only failures in years. Hitachi's are working fine, as are the rest of my WDs.

My failures were a Velociraptor 300 (desktop) and a Green 1TB (media server).
 

WardC

macrumors 68030
Oct 17, 2007
2,727
215
Fort Worth, TX
I purchased two 1TB Seagate Barracuda LP drives with 32MB cache today, I am going to set them up as a RAID 0 array in my new Mac Pro. Should be pretty speedy. I think this is better than going with one 2TB drive. It was only about $20 more expensive to go with two 1TB drives than to go with one 2TB drive, plus the added speed boost of going RAID 0 will be worth it!
 

Roman23

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2010
478
0
Hitachi SUCKS!!!

I just recently bought a 1TB hitachi drive and while it worked very well, its now starting to develop uncorrectable errors and already has one bad sector. Hitachi sucks - avoid it!!

Windows can't even fix the drive!!


I've owned 2 Hitachi drives and both have been loud and eventually failed. I would never recommend Hitachi drives to anyone. Go Western Digital Green or Black.
 

nanofrog

macrumors G4
May 6, 2008
11,719
3
I purchased two 1TB Seagate Barracuda LP drives with 32MB cache today, I am going to set them up as a RAID 0 array in my new Mac Pro. Should be pretty speedy. I think this is better than going with one 2TB drive. It was only about $20 more expensive to go with two 1TB drives than to go with one 2TB drive, plus the added speed boost of going RAID 0 will be worth it!
If you have the bays to spare, and can use the performance, go for it. :)
 

WardC

macrumors 68030
Oct 17, 2007
2,727
215
Fort Worth, TX
If you have the bays to spare, and can use the performance, go for it. :)

Well, this will fill all of my bays (640GB stock, SSD, 1TB #1, 1TB #2) = 4 drives total. But I still have my 2nd Optical Drive bay where I could install another 2 SSDs or a 3.5" drive if I needed one more, but I don't think I will need any additional space than what I am getting into right now.
 

TheStrudel

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2008
1,134
1
I'd like it if Samsung would deploy a 2 TB version of their F3 drives soon, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Real disappointment, as Samsung drives have always treated me well. You can get their 5400 rpm drives, but I want 7200 rpm drives for the transfer speeds.
 

linck

macrumors newbie
Aug 9, 2010
3
0
I would like to watch compressed movies from second HDD. Should I go with WD green or black? 1TB should be enough.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,366
251
Howell, New Jersey
I would like to watch compressed movies from second HDD. Should I go with WD green or black? 1TB should be enough.

I have used over 30 1tb 1.5tb and 2tb hdds. samsung has a very fast 1tb f3 hdd that I run in raid0 gets really good speed numbers low cost price

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=samsung 1tb f3
for speed this a a great raid0 choice. I have 6 of them in 3 raid0 setups.

but for reliable and speed this is better choice wd2003fyys
cost a lot but is super fast and more reliable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...36579&cm_re=wd2003fyys-_-22-136-579-_-Product

wd2001fass is good
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136456&Tpk=wd2001fass

i have owned and used all of these. I use the 1tb samsungs for most of my work but I have a set of the wd's for backup.. all of these run 24/7 with no breakdowns.
Bad hdds have been wd1501fass 2 out of 3 failed fast.

some of my hitachi's have been noisy but none have failed i have 10 of them in raid10 and raid 5 and stand alone
 
Last edited by a moderator:

AppleNewton

macrumors 68000
Apr 3, 2007
1,697
84
1 Finite Place
wd2001fass is good

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136456&Tpk=wd2001fass


some of my hitachi's have been noisy but none have failed i have 10 of them in raid10 and raid 5 and stand alone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5298&cm_re=hitachi_2tb-_-22-145-298-_-Product

I will vouch for these two drives. the FASS 2TB editions of the WD Black drives and the Hitachis are the most reliable 2tb drives i've used.

I would stay away from ANY green drive for RAID, so many issues that have come up and known issues with them, especially the WD EARS green edition they lack some TLER fuctions that seem to fall out of RAID setups.
 
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