Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Buying a new HD for my 08 mac pro

rpaloalto

rpaloalto

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 19, 2005
733
2
Palo Alto CA.
So I just got my new mac pro and 23' acd. Yahoo:D
Extra ram is on its way from owc.

I now want to buy a extra Hd for storage as well as a install of windows later down the road.

Are their any recommendations as to a particular brand or model?

As long as it has the right specs will it be 100% compatible, after proper formating.
Does apple have special firmware on their branded drives?

If I like my new drive's performance better than the stock. Can I use it as my primary boot drive.
 
I would shop around a bit to find the specs you're looking for. I bought a couple of drives from OWC myself but also check out newegg.com and buy.com because sometimes their prices are pretty low.

OWC actually has a page to tell you if the HD is compatible with your mac pro so I would go that route, and their service is legendary.
 
Picked up a TB Hitachi from newegg over christmas. Works great. Any SATA HDD will work with the mac pro. I have 2 WD drives too. Even my G5 powermac worked with any drives I used. There is no special firmware on stock mac drives, they are just that overpriced. This goes for the boot drive aswell.
 
750GB's are the currently the best in the category of GB per Dollar.

Tracer
 
It's been over a year... why have we not seen any drives larger than a terabyte yet?! If the standard is five platters and we have a three platter terabyte now, pop another two in there and give us a 1.66TB 3.5" drive!

Well, it's more like 1.4TB after the lie is taken care of, but still...
 
rpaloalto said:
So I just got my new mac pro and 23' acd. Yahoo:D
Extra ram is on its way from owc.

I now want to buy a extra Hd for storage as well as a install of windows later down the road.

Are their any recommendations as to a particular brand or model?

As long as it has the right specs will it be 100% compatible, after proper formating.
Does apple have special firmware on their branded drives?

If I like my new drive's performance better than the stock. Can I use it as my primary boot drive.
Click to expand...

Wow! A 23 foot acd! Thats Awesome! :p

(You want " for inches, and ' for feet. Congrats on the new rig!)
 
big dainjerus said:
Have any of your WD640s made a kind of high pitched, whiny sound? Almost like a needle scratching across a chalkboard?
Click to expand...

No, they are completely quiet. Any time i think they are making noise i turn around and realize it's the Dell behind me that i have not kicked to the curb yet... or sometimes it's the ceiling fan :) but the whole Mac Pro is quiet.. love it.

The Mac Pro HD holders have rubbers for the screws that you put into the HD. Make sure those are screwed in right. they belong between the HD and the upper part of metal holder... this is hard to describe :)
 
rpaloalto said:
So I just got my new mac pro and 23' acd. Yahoo:D
Extra ram is on its way from owc.

I now want to buy a extra Hd for storage as well as a install of windows later down the road.

Are their any recommendations as to a particular brand or model?

As long as it has the right specs will it be 100% compatible, after proper formating.
Does apple have special firmware on their branded drives?

If I like my new drive's performance better than the stock. Can I use it as my primary boot drive.
Click to expand...

It's a royal pain to install, but I can't speak well enough for the Velociraptor.. as a matter of fact, I liked it so much, I'm runing two in a RAID 0 for my system disc.
 
Don't think you can go wrong with this drive:

Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F SATA II300 7200rpm
32MB Cache

I've seen it as cheap as £90 in the UK
 
I'm getting ready to start doing some major video work on my Mac Pro (Ram in the mail) and I, too, am looking to swap out the main drive with something faster and more reliable.

After reading an article on BareFeats, they seem to favor the WD RE2 drives. I checked the WD site and now it appears they have the RE3 with dual processors for a 20% speed improvement.

Here is the RE2
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=335

The RE3
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=489

Do you think there would be any noticeable improvement in speed or longevity over the WD640 Caviar SE?
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=394
 
Thanks for all the input.:)
I will be ordering the wd 640. As it has been mentioned numerous times here at Macrumors. As well as over at the apple support forums.

I will use this as my main boot drive. I will then use the stock drive for installing windows and as a back up for storing photos, music files.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back