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Bought my first Mac! Whats the best hybrid HD?

R

ramzijw

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 13, 2012
39
3
Hi guys,

After a long time of saying i was going to by a mac, i finally have, since my laptop screen decided it won't work anymore. So i managed to buy a second hand 13" mid 2012 cmbp for $700 in pretty excellent condition.

Now I'm pretty new to the whole MAC OS since I've been windows all my life but have fancied a change. Now I'm currently travelling around australia and only currently use the laptop for some light video/photo editing, documents and general browesing. But would like to upgrade the hard drive to a hybrid drive....but the question is what one? As I don't know really any peoples experiences from them on a mac. I'm looking for 500-750gb and SSD is out of my price range for this.

Also any useful apps/programmes to keep my mac healthy would greatly be appreciated.
 
ramzijw said:
Hi guys,

After a long time of saying i was going to by a mac, i finally have, since my laptop screen decided it won't work anymore. So i managed to buy a second hand 13" mid 2012 cmbp for $700 in pretty excellent condition.

Now I'm pretty new to the whole MAC OS since I've been windows all my life but have fancied a change. Now I'm currently travelling around australia and only currently use the laptop for some light video/photo editing, documents and general browesing. But would like to upgrade the hard drive to a hybrid drive....but the question is what one? As I don't know really any peoples experiences from them on a mac. I'm looking for 500-750gb and SSD is out of my price range for this.

Also any useful apps/programmes to keep my mac healthy would greatly be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Why not a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro or 120GB Samsung 840 Evo, and an external drive? You risk a much lower chance of drive failure. You can store all your libraries and large files in an external drive.
 
yjchua95 said:
Why not a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro or 120GB Samsung 840 Evo, and an external drive? You risk a much lower chance of drive failure. You can store all your libraries and large files in an external drive.
Click to expand...

The problem with external drives is that you need to lug them around with you when ever you travel. I don't think the OPs decision for a hybrid drive is a bad one. It all depends on your needs.For me, I can live within a 256 SSD and my non current stuff on a drobo DAS. When I travel I have everything I need on the SSD
 
120gb + ssd in an optibay and use main drive for storage. Wouldn't bother with a hhd they really don't offer significant gains.
 
Thank you for the replies, but I do carry a external hard drive its only really to let people watch me media and store documents so I have a back up of a back. Plus i like the option of carry most of my files (400gb Old laptop, still need to transfer) on the go for the same price or cheaper of a 128gb SSD with near same benefits of boot time and application load times. Plus i don't want to be restricted on what i can only carry on my cmbp

So is the seagate the only company that seems to make them? Also Ive noticed just on my basic web browsing( 6-10 tabs) and music playing in the background almost all my ram (4gb) is being taken. Ive just installed mavericks. Should I think of upgrading this with a 8gb stick so it would put my total ram to 10gb since the 4gb comes in 2x2gb.

Thank you again for your times guys :)
 
I had put a Seagate Momentus XT in my early 2011 MBP a couple years ago and had no problems with it. There was a noticable performance boost over the stock drive. I don't know how they are now, but a couple years ago I thought they were supposed to somewhat learn what apps or programs you run often and learn to speed up those processes. So after installing the new hard drive and installing the OS if you cycled the power on and off a few times it would somewhat cache the startup of the OS and I will say the boot times were quite quick. Now things may have changed since then or it may have been a placebo effect but I was very happy with my upgrade. If you can't afford the just to a full SSD in the size you want I think a hybrid drive is a great boost in performance for very little cost.

Victor
 
ramzijw said:
Thank you for the replies, but I do carry a external hard drive its only really to let people watch me media and store documents so I have a back up of a back. Plus i like the option of carry most of my files (400gb Old laptop, still need to transfer) on the go for the same price or cheaper of a 128gb SSD with near same benefits of boot time and application load times. Plus i don't want to be restricted on what i can only carry on my cmbp

So is the seagate the only company that seems to make them? Also Ive noticed just on my basic web browsing( 6-10 tabs) and music playing in the background almost all my ram (4gb) is being taken. Ive just installed mavericks. Should I think of upgrading this with a 8gb stick so it would put my total ram to 10gb since the 4gb comes in 2x2gb.

Thank you again for your times guys :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, you definitely need a memory upgrade. 4GB is insufficient these days. I'm not sure how will your Mac react to 10GB of RAM though, because RAM is usually addressed in 4, 8, 16, 32... Power of 2 values, although I've heard people using 12 and 24GB of RAM in iMacs before.
 
ramzijw said:
Should I think of upgrading this with a 8gb stick so it would put my total ram to 10gb since the 4gb comes in 2x2gb.
Click to expand...

You should be upgrading via the path of 8gb in the form of 2x4 or 16gb in the form of 2x8 for best results. You lose dual channel in mismatching the DIMM's which has an associated performance hit. It's not huge, in the area of 10% but if you're upgrading anyway best to do it right the first time.
 
+1 on the seagate momentus xt. I have the 750gb model in my mini. Definite speed boost. Not quite as good as an ssd, but I paid less than $100 for mine.

I snagged an older model that has like 33gb with a 7200rpm drive. The current ones are 5400rpm I believe.
 
Ccrew said:
You should be upgrading via the path of 8gb in the form of 2x4 or 16gb in the form of 2x8 for best results. You lose dual channel in mismatching the DIMM's which has an associated performance hit. It's not huge, in the area of 10% but if you're upgrading anyway best to do it right the first time.
Click to expand...

I always wondered if there was a issue from this, but for my uses i will get two 4gb ram dimms or couldn't you just use a single 8gb stick and keep one of the 2gb in place so it has 10gb?

MacPoulet said:
+1 on the seagate momentus xt. I have the 750gb model in my mini. Definite speed boost. Not quite as good as an ssd, but I paid less than $100 for mine.

I snagged an older model that has like 33gb with a 7200rpm drive. The current ones are 5400rpm I believe.
Click to expand...

33gb?! all i have seen is them having 8gb on the new ones! Or am i looking at the wrong model/type?
 
ramzijw said:
I always wondered if there was a issue from this, but for my uses i will get two 4gb ram dimms or couldn't you just use a single 8gb stick and keep one of the 2gb in place so it has 10gb?
Click to expand...

If the performance hit doesn't matter to you you can do it. Personally if you're going to make the investment in memory it's best to do it "by the book" so to speak which your way really isn't. Your way the memory becomes a bottleneck because it disables the second channel.

A primer on memory architectures:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/133
 
Nice purchase, that was really good price for that machine, especially down under where everything seems more expensive than similar items Stateside.

As others have suggested the cheapest, quickest, and most simple HDD upgrade path if you need more than 256GB is going with a hybrid. If 256GB works for you, the small SSDs are cheap enough these days that I'd probably go that route. If, however, you need more space, I highly recommend the 750GB Seagate Momentus XT. They have a newer one that's 1TB (and no longer called the Monentus XT), but the platter only spins at 5400rpm whereas the last gen version is a 7200rpm platter.

In my use I have found the NAND flash caching algo is so effective that I have no need for a large SSD and can just wait until (real) prices fall further. My computer boots in 15 seconds and the apps that I use everyday load instantaneously. I really only feel the HDD slowness when I use Windows (in a VM), which will eventually lead me to upgrade to a full SSD - but probably only when I finally go rMBP.

A RAM upgrade is also a very good idea, unless you really only use it to surf the web (w/o too many tabs open), write emails, etc. Unless you plan to use a VM often 8GB should suffice.

Edit: ...and the above poster claiming a 33GB NAND cache is incorrect. The first gen ones were 4GB, 2nd and 3rd are 8GB.

>
 
NewishMacGuy said:
Nice purchase, that was really good price for that machine, especially down under where everything seems more expensive than similar items Stateside.

As others have suggested the cheapest, quickest, and most simple HDD upgrade path if you need more than 256GB is going with a hybrid. If 256GB works for you, the small SSDs are cheap enough these days that I'd probably go that route. If, however, you need more space, I highly recommend the 750GB Seagate Momentus XT. They have a newer one that's 1TB (and no longer called the Monentus XT), but the platter only spins at 5400rpm whereas the last gen version is a 7200rpm platter.

In my use I have found the NAND flash caching algo is so effective that I have no need for a large SSD and can just wait until (real) prices fall further. My computer boots in 15 seconds and the apps that I use everyday load instantaneously. I really only feel the HDD slowness when I use Windows (in a VM), which will eventually lead me to upgrade to a full SSD - but probably only when I finally go rMBP.

A RAM upgrade is also a very good idea, unless you really only use it to surf the web (w/o too many tabs open), write emails, etc. Unless you plan to use a VM often 8GB should suffice.

Edit: ...and the above poster claiming a 33GB NAND cache is incorrect. The first gen ones were 4GB, 2nd and 3rd are 8GB.

>
Click to expand...

Cheers for the info and looks like i will hunt for a 2nd or 3rd gen seagate then. But more likely the 2nd gen since is spins at 7200 rpm :D I'm also going to do a ram upgrade to 2x4gb, so a total of 8gb as 16 is just over kill for me! Although i may run windows next year if i go back to do my masters( will use windows auto cad since it isn't missing any features like it does on the mac).

As for the macbook. I thought it was a good buy...just wasn't 100% sure as it was my first mac. It only has 132 battery cycles, but the apple care is out of date :'( other than that its all good i think :D
Any other information would be great :D
 
Gav2k said:
120gb + ssd in an optibay and use main drive for storage. Wouldn't bother with a hhd they really don't offer significant gains.
Click to expand...

A secondary drive inside the laptop is going to get used far more often than an optical drive.

I replaced the ODD on my 2011 MBP on day one. SSD in optibay and HDD in main bay (to take advantage of motion sensor).

I put the ODD into an enclosure. I used it once a month, at most.
 
undesign said:
A secondary drive inside the laptop is going to get used far more often than an optical drive.

I replaced the ODD on my 2011 MBP on day one. SSD in optibay and HDD in main bay (to take advantage of motion sensor).

I put the ODD into an enclosure. I used it once a month, at most.
Click to expand...

hi there, this is very interesting idea as well....could you send me a link for a enclosure for the ODD as i could also be tempted to do this. Thank you
 
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