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Best Harddrive for Unibody Macbook

drmarquez1983

drmarquez1983

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 17, 2009
4
0
Hi guys, I'm brand new to the forum and a recent switcher from a nightmare-ish dell laptop. I bought a 13 unibody macbook and I'm loving it. I'm going to need some advice on what brand/model you guys prefer on upgrading to a much bigger harddrive. I'm thinking about getting a 500 gb harddrive to put in my MacBook. Also, is iWork better than MS Office? Any more advice you guys can give to a new mac user would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a bunch.

-Donnie
 
you know, if I had the cash, i'd probably get a 128GB SSD and get a terabyte external firewire/usb HD
 
dr. shdw said:
Geez, use the search.

7200.4 Seagate Momentus 500gb
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Man, give the guy a break. He's new to the forum. You need to lose your attitude. You were once a MR noob.

DRMarquez
Check out some of the reviews of the 7200.4. There is not that much of a speed increase. Many users have also noticed loud drive parking and heavy vibration. I didn't think it was worth it. I went ahead and bought the WD 500GB Scorpio. It's wonderful. I have 100GB for bootcamp and the other 350 something on OS X. It was a 5 minute install and very easy. Message me if you have any other questions
 
scubasteve03 said:
Man, give the guy a break. He's new to the forum. You need to lose your attitude. You were once a MR noob.

DRMarquez
Check out some of the reviews of the 7200.4. There is not that much of a speed increase. Many users have also noticed loud drive parking and heavy vibration. I didn't think it was worth it. I went ahead and bought the WD 500GB Scorpio. It's wonderful. I have 100GB for bootcamp and the other 350 something on OS X. It was a 5 minute install and very easy. Message me if you have any other questions
Click to expand...

Most forums have the search feature, you can't tell me OP doesn't know how to "google" something..

Also http://barefeats.com/note05.html
 
No doubt he knows how to use google; maybe he even knows how to search the forums. But he decided to post a topic looking for buying advice in the correct forum for just that type of inquiry. This is a community, a message board, not a "guide" disguised as a forum, where users should forgo participating in the community altogether, simply to save you the headache of having to read a topic that may have cropped up before.

I'm not sure what's worse, repetitive topics, or individuals who feel the need to chastise members of the community for participating in it.

As for the topic, I also recommend the Seagate.
 
Thanks for the great input guys. I might go a local (sigh) Fry's electronics if they have those in stock. Its great to be a part of the Mac community now and btw SuperDuper is a great backup product. Thanks again.

dr.shdw.... sorry if the post offends you. I just threw in a quick random question and asking the people in the community forum is the best to ask.

-Donnie
 
drmarquez1983 said:
Thanks for the great input guys. I might go a local (sigh) Fry's electronics if they have those in stock. Its great to be a part of the Mac community now and btw SuperDuper is a great backup product. Thanks again.

dr.shdw.... sorry if the post offends you. I just threw in a quick random question and asking the people in the community forum is the best to ask.

-Donnie
Click to expand...

You won't find it at Frys.

Only buyable from http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...asp?EdpNo=4434267&sku=TMD-500AS2&srkey=7200.4 for now. Also Carbon Copy Cloner works well and is free, compared to SuperDuper.

It doesn't offend me, it's just that it's been gone over quite a few times, like everyday here.
 
Thanks doc.... So you highly recommend carbon copy cloner when I do my harddrive upgrade? Downloading it now....
 
As soon as Snow Leopard is out I'll be throwing down the cash for a 128GB SSD.

By then performance/compatibility should be up and costs should be down.
 
drmarquez1983 said:
Also, is iWork better than MS Office? Any more advice you guys can give to a new mac user would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a bunch.

-Donnie
Click to expand...

There really isn't a cut and dry answer for this, and it is highly subjective. I prefer Keynote to Microsoft's solution; I use Word over Pages; and I find myself using Numbers and Excel for different tasks on a consistent enough basis to justify owning both pieces of software.

Pages has fantastic layout capabilities that Word simply doesn't offer; however, as a creative writer I prefer Word's font rendering and styling interface, and some of the other options Word provides that Pages is either missing, or isn't doing quite as well. And although I tend to use Excel for actual spreadsheet work, I use Numbers to plot outlines, to help structure my novels.

You'd probably be better off thinking about what you're using the applications for, and doing some extra research online to find your answer.

If you hadn't guessed from above, I use both, and am happy with that particular work-flow, but this obviously isn't an option for everyone, financially speaking.
 
follow up question

hi all-

I picked up the WD Scorpio Drive (Blue) 5400 rpm 500GB and used carbon copy to clone. after cloning the drive i swapped it out with the stock 160Gb in the unibody. 1st boot took longer than normal. The second boot didn't even happen. So I am exchanging for a new drive (same one)

Any one else experience this?

I was looking for the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (500GB) but it appears they are out of stock everywhere! I have also heard that upgrading to a 7200 rpm drive will decrease battery life. This Seagate momentus drive in particular also causes massive vibration and increased heat.

Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of this?

thanks
 
Commonground said:
There really isn't a cut and dry answer for this, and it is highly subjective. I prefer Keynote to Microsoft's solution; I use Word over Pages; and I find myself using Numbers and Excel for different tasks on a consistent enough basis to justify owning both pieces of software.

Pages has fantastic layout capabilities that Word simply doesn't offer; however, as a creative writer I prefer Word's font rendering and styling interface, and some of the other options Word provides that Pages is either missing, or isn't doing quite as well. And although I tend to use Excel for actual spreadsheet work, I use Numbers to plot outlines, to help structure my novels.

You'd probably be better off thinking about what you're using the applications for, and doing some extra research online to find your answer.

If you hadn't guessed from above, I use both, and am happy with that particular work-flow, but this obviously isn't an option for everyone, financially speaking.
Click to expand...


Completely agree
 
I know this thread is a very old now, but is there really significant drop in battery life between a 5400 and 7200rpm drives?
Just coming to upgrade my unibody mac so want to select the best drive.
 
FieryFurnace said:
I'm using OpenOffice for all that office stuff and it is working really well and it's free. :)
Click to expand...

NEVER rely on OpenOffice; I'm all for free/open stuff, but not when it's dogs' balls. :eek:

Seriously, drop a little $$ for iWork and you'll never regret it. OpenOffice is just. not. good. period.
 
Regarding iwork 09 so had Numbers a live bug until last month in the swedish version that made it unable to calculate with negative values. That is how bad and useless Numbers is. Wouldn't use it if Apple paid me. It's bad. Stay with excel and you can get good grades or good reports.

example_1044873412.jpg
 
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