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

Considering a New Hard Drive, What Should I Look For?

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,688
1,479
Los Angeles, Ca
With tomorrow's Black Friday's sale i'm looking to either purchase a small portable external hard drive or better yet, a hard drive for my white macbook to replace my current one that only has 60GB's of space, 10GB's currently.

I know replacing it is simple but haven't the slightest clue as to what to look for when I purchase a new one. I'm assuming perhaps a specific make/model or number or something?

Any help is truly appreciated.

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving!
 
your main options are either 5400 or 7200 rpms... faster is generally better.

a lot of people (like me) are buying the WD Scorpio Black 320 GB. it's got a lot of space and its fast. I found it online for $90.
 
whatevs said:
your main options are either 5400 or 7200 rpms... faster is generally better.

a lot of people (like me) are buying the WD Scorpio Black 320 GB. it's got a lot of space and its fast. I found it online for $90.
Click to expand...

Yeah? Awesome. Link perhaps? I saw a 160gb on eBay but it was hardly a brand name for $50.
 
1. Don't buy from ebay
2. Don't rush to buy it tomorrow, hard drives are always on sale

Basically, SATA 2.5" wide, 9.5mm tall, 5400 rpm (standard) or 7200 rpm (faster).

Try NewEgg.com. They've got great prices on drives. All you need is a Phillips #0 screwdriver and a Torx 8 screwdriver to do the install... both about $2 at your local hardware store.
 
Oh, to add to that, you can also buy a SATA enclosure for your old hard drive, they're like as cheap as $10. but that way when you have the new drive installed, with operating system... you can just migrate your data from your old drive.. then use it for backup purposes.
 
With the prices these days, the best deals are either 320GB 7200RPM or a 500GB 5400RPM. Should last you for a while if you're a regular user.
 
Awesome, any links regarding these 320 GB's or 500GB's hard drive?

I doubt i'll purchase it tomorrow at a black friday store but will def. look around.

A WestGate 250 External portable hard drive goes on sale for $70, but wouldn't mind paying $90 for a 320GB for the mac book itself.


Any links or info is appreciated.

I'm still a bit confused on how I can transfer all the stuff I have on my current hard drive to the new one i end up purchasing.
 
Hmmm is SeaGate good? I've heard bad things, mainly they crash and erase all memory at rare times. I've heard this though regarding external hard drives.
 
HappyDude20 said:
Hmmm is SeaGate good? I've heard bad things, mainly they crash and erase all memory at rare times. I've heard this though regarding external hard drives.
Click to expand...

I've heard good things about Seagate but don't have any personal experience, but as with any HDD you should always back up your data just in case.
 
Can anyone recommend any over the other between the WD Black, Hitachi Travelstar, or Seagate Momentus for a 320gb 7200rpm drive? The Seagate seems to have the best performance according to tomshardware.com, but who knows how accurate that is or how noticeable the differences would be. Some personal experiences would be great.
 
I too would like to hear which is best. I'm excited that I'll finally after 2 years be getting so much more gb's on my mac. I'm planning on buying a hd camcorder after to finally begin filming and editing my stuff to upload on you tube
 
From the (limited) research I've done since I'm looking at the exact same upgrade (320GB 7200rpm), everything I've read online leans toward the Seagate rather than the Western Digital. But just barely. Mostly it's because the Seagate has a lower power consumption and because of the 5 year warranty (as opposed to WD's 3 years). The thing is they're both so close in specs and price it's hard to pick one over the other. It ultimately comes down to preferences. I know people that swear by WD, and I know others that swear by Seagate. I honestly don't think you could go wrong either way, but like others have mentioned, always back up your data.

I myself am going the Seagate route. Knowing that I'm keeping my computer for a long time, I'd rather have that 5 year warranty.
 
If silence is important to you, I'd recommend the WD drives over all other drives. Nothing worse than getting a big drive that makes a high frequency whine and that will drive you bonkers. Before getting a drive I recommend looking at the list of recommended 2.5 inch quiet drives from the www.silentpcreview.com web site. Trust me, your ears will thank you for it.
 
If manufacturer sites can be trusted (please don't flame me, it was the only readily available source of acoustics data I could get), the Seagate Momentus has 23 dB idle and 26 dB seek, while the WD Scorpio Black has 22 dB idle and 25 dB seek.

Yes, the WD outperforms the Seagate by 1 dB in both idle and seek modes, but I hardly doubt 1 dB will make that much of a difference to anybody. And yes I know that manufacturers' data can't be trusted all the time, but I say that's a fairly negligible difference if it is true.
 
I haven't looked at the particular model of drives posted in this thread, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've gone through a lot of different hard drives, machines, etc, in my quest to get a quiet machine. A long time ago Seagate was king of silence with their Barracuda IV drives, but then WD took the crown. I have some Seagates sitting around unused because the character of the sound, and not the actual loudness in dB was what drove me bonkers. High frequency sounds grate on your ears much more because they are piercing and the dB measurements don't reflect this fact. Low frequency sounds are much more relaxing and are like a gentle whoosh of air.

The reason I linked that silentpcreview web site is they actually provide MP3 recordings of the sounds both the Seagate and the WD makes, so you can see if any are too annoying before you buy them.
 
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