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best hard drive and memory to get for Mac Pro?

charlestrippy

charlestrippy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 29, 2006
386
0
Tampa, Florida
Hey guys! I am wanting to get more hard drive space and more memory for my Mac Pro ( 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon)

was curious the best drive to get!

my friend say to get Seagate Barracuda 7200.10's but a lot of the reviews said they're really loud :(

looking forward to hearing back! thanks!
 
Those are fast and reliable drives....but of course a bit loud. Not that much, though, unless you're a nitpick.

Go with WD if you want it to be a bit quiet (But it generates a bit more heat)....but either way, Apple ships their Macs with Seagate boot drives, so it doesn't really matter anyhow.

You shouldn't be bad with Maxtor Basics line either, it's made by Seagate and if you find one on sale locally grab it quick. Try to stick with 16MB Cache and 7200RPM SATAII (Also known as SATA 3.0Gbps). Seagate or WD.
 
SDAVE said:
Those are fast and reliable drives....but of course a bit loud. Not that much, though, unless you're a nitpick.

Go with WD if you want it to be a bit quiet (But it generates a bit more heat)....but either way, Apple ships their Macs with Seagate boot drives, so it doesn't really matter anyhow.

You shouldn't be bad with Maxtor Basics line either, it's made by Seagate and if you find one on sale locally grab it quick. Try to stick with 16MB Cache and 7200RPM SATAII (Also known as SATA 3.0Gbps). Seagate or WD.
Click to expand...


out of curiosity what is the difference between these two 500gb hard drives...they look identical?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822148151

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822148136


being stupid paranoid i was thinking it'd be best to stick with seagate? plus they do have a 5 yr warranty...right?
 
charlestrippy said:
out of curiosity what is the difference between these two 500gb hard drives...they look identical?
Click to expand...

One is the standard drive, and the more expensive one is the Enterprise Series (ES) series. The ES drives are optimized for lower heat, and longer sustained operation such as it would see in a server or a RAID array.

They don't say explicitly, but this may involve a trade-off against the ultimate performance in single-user operation. I don't know specifically, but I do know that drive operation can be fine-tuned in the firmware to suit different patterns of use, and that each change affects other areas of performance
 
They're older tech. Go with the .10's, they are newer and have perpendicular recording...
 
I would highly recommend the Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB drives. They consistently outperform other drives (with the same capacity) while producing less heat and noise.
 
I wouldn't touch a Samsung with a ten foot pole. Who cares about a measily 3MB/sec increase over other drives? I don't.:)
 
SDAVE said:
I wouldn't touch a Samsung with a ten foot pole. Who cares about a measily 3MB/sec increase over other drives? I don't.:)
Click to expand...

They are the best choice for those concerned about noise and heat, which many Mac Pro users are.
 
SDAVE said:
Those are fast and reliable drives....but of course a bit loud. Not that much, though, unless you're a nitpick.

Go with WD if you want it to be a bit quiet (But it generates a bit more heat)....but either way, Apple ships their Macs with Seagate boot drives, so it doesn't really matter anyhow.

You shouldn't be bad with Maxtor Basics line either, it's made by Seagate and if you find one on sale locally grab it quick. Try to stick with 16MB Cache and 7200RPM SATAII (Also known as SATA 3.0Gbps). Seagate or WD.
Click to expand...

Not all Mac Pro's Ship with Seagate boot drives, Mine came with WD, then i added 3 more WD drives, chose not to have any sleep when not in use, result is super quiet running with no lag accessing each drive, i was going to get seagate's but was advised against it.
 
Mr.Noisy said:
Not all Mac Pro's Ship with Seagate boot drives, Mine came with WD, then i added 3 more WD drives, chose not to have any sleep when not in use, result is super quiet running with no lag accessing each drive, i was going to get seagate's but was advised against it.
Click to expand...

haha im so torn now on what to get lol :(
 
Mr.Noisy said:
Not all Mac Pro's Ship with Seagate boot drives, Mine came with WD, then i added 3 more WD drives, chose not to have any sleep when not in use, result is super quiet running with no lag accessing each drive, i was going to get seagate's but was advised against it.
Click to expand...

Who advised against it? One of those nerdy Apple "Geniuses"?

Please man....I have over 10 WD drives here, and over 8 Seagate drives. Both are on par with reliability.
 
charlestrippy said:
haha im so torn now on what to get lol :(
Click to expand...

I think you're looking too deep into this man...nowadays hard drives are good enough to be very reliable...this is not the late 90's :)

Go with WD or Seagate...I prefer the latter because of longer warranty.
 
I would recommend either :
Western Digital WD7500AAKS 750GB - around 200.00 for OEM
or if money is not an issue
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB - around 350.00 for OEM
 
SDAVE said:
Who advised against it? One of those nerdy Apple "Geniuses"?

Please man....I have over 10 WD drives here, and over 8 Seagate drives. Both are on par with reliability.
Click to expand...

My brother advised against it, he had 3 seagates in his Mac Pro, now all replaced by WD's after 2 out of 3 seagates were sent back due to some fault, he didn't explain, just said avoid the heartache and get the WD's, ok a 5 year warranty is good, but for 'My' peace of mind i went all WD, all AAKS the 3 plater variety, and the boot drives on a 4 plater AAJS, no difference at all in performance and very quiet, the only way i know the things on is that i'm working on it ;)

Do i get Seagates, or do i get WD's, the end decisions down to personal preference, performance wise both seagate and WD do the same job, not going to be a lot in it apart from the warranty and price, i think i paid about £76 here for a 500gb WD and only got 3 year warranty..
 
I have used all types of drives in my various system.

Currently, I am using WD Raptors as boot drives, WD 500GBSE16 drives in RAID 1 as data drives in my Mac Pro, and have Hitachi 500GB in my Infrant ReadyNas NV+ which is on 24/7 gets used almost as much, it's my back up, streaming media, ftp, and NAS for my home.

The Hitachi in the NAS are OEM, and have been installed for about 1 year now without a single hick-up. When I am not home, and I shut the A/C off, they run at about 110F and not one failure.

The WD drives in my MacPro are the same: reliable and fast. Only have had them installed for about 2 months, and no failures.

The new Seagates .10's are good drives. I would use them without hesitation.

In the past, Samsung drives have had a bad rep. Bad QC, lots of failures. But, I think they fixed these issues, they have been highly recommended, and lots of positive reviews on them. I just have no current experience with them.

Hitachi's had a bad rep in the past, when they were IBM drives. The current crop of Hitachi drives are excellent.

If you are concrened about warranties, and 3 years is not long enough for you, buy an enterprise rated drive, they usually come with 5 year warranties. I only buy OEM drives, and have never had a warranty problem with WD, Hitachi, or Seagate.

So, buy whichever drive is within your budget. Shop around, and you should find some great deals.

Basically:

Capacity you need
7200 RPM
16MB Cache
SATA 3.0
 
Toknee said:
I have used all types of drives in my various system.

Currently, I am using WD Raptors as boot drives, WD 500GBSE16 drives in RAID 1 as data drives in my Mac Pro, and have Hitachi 500GB in my Infrant ReadyNas NV+ which is on 24/7 gets used almost as much, it's my back up, streaming media, ftp, and NAS for my home.

The Hitachi in the NAS are OEM, and have been installed for about 1 year now without a single hick-up. When I am not home, and I shut the A/C off, they run at about 110F and not one failure.

The WD drives in my MacPro are the same: reliable and fast. Only have had them installed for about 2 months, and no failures.

The new Seagates .10's are good drives. I would use them without hesitation.

In the past, Samsung drives have had a bad rep. Bad QC, lots of failures. But, I think they fixed these issues, they have been highly recommended, and lots of positive reviews on them. I just have no current experience with them.

Hitachi's had a bad rep in the past, when they were IBM drives. The current crop of Hitachi drives are excellent.

If you are concrened about warranties, and 3 years is not long enough for you, buy an enterprise rated drive, they usually come with year warranties. I only by OEM drives, and have never had a warranty problem with WD, Hitachi, or Segate.

So, buy whichever drive is within your budget. Shop around, and you should find some great deals.

Basically:

Capacity you need
7200 RPM
16MB Cache
SATA 3.0
Click to expand...

awesome man, thanks a lot for the advice!!
 
I've got a Western Digital WD7500AAKS and it's awesome- very fast drive, I couldn't be happier.

I personally prefer WD to Seagate even with the shorter warranty, but that's because I've never- knock on wood- had a WD die on me.

Samsung has fixed their previous issues btw, Spinpoint are great drives too.
 
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