Do they make a 500GB -7200 RPM drive ?

[GFSarah]

As ts been mentioned a few dozen times, most of the real world difference between a 320GB 7200RPM and a 500GB 5400 is going to be in the user's head. I'd be more concerned about how much cache.

It may very well be in my head, however, as far as the cache is concerned, the 500G 5400 RPM Scorpio Blue is 8MB and the Seagate 500G 7200 RPM offers a 16MB cache. That's enough to convince me that it's probably worth the wait since I need it, but can survive without it a bit longer. I won't be terribly surprised (although I'm sure I'll still be disappointed) if next Monday comes and goes without my drive being shipped; but again, I'll deal with the wait. I think the extra speed, imagined or not, will be worth it (not to mention double to cache).

P.S. -- pdxflint: That was a nice article on the Scorpio Blue; I hadn't come across that before. It looks like it does compete very well with the other drives. As you said, it didn't compare it with the 500G 7200 RPM Seagate, but it was compared with other 5400 RPM Seagates and other 7200 RPM drives. I must say, I'm impressed. If things don't pan out with the Seagate I've ordered, I may have to reconsider this drive a bit more seriously (had looked at it briefly but dismissed it without much research because of the speed & cache). I'l definitely keep this one in mind. Thanks for the link; it's a great read.

 

[Signal-11]

It may very well be in my head, however, as far as the cache is concerned, the 500G 5400 RPM Scorpio Blue is 8MB and the Seagate 500G 7200 RPM offers a 16MB cache. That's enough to convince me that it's probably worth the wait since I need it, but can survive without it a bit longer. I won't be terribly surprised (although I'm sure I'll still be disappointed) if next Monday comes and goes without my drive being shipped; but again, I'll deal with the wait. I think the extra speed, imagined or not, will be worth it (not to mention double to cache).

Well, if your heart's set, your heart's set. Not that I believe you're being irrational but I know when I've got a hair in my ear about acquiring a top spec component regardless of the actual benefit, I'm not happy until I get it.

 

[Daremo]

I just heard from ProVantage on my order that I placed on Monday for the drive, and I was told by phone, the drive will ship to me on the 27th of this month. I have my doubts, but I'll let guys know if this holds true.

 

[GFSarah]

I just heard from ProVantage on my order that I placed on Monday for the drive, and I was told by phone, the drive will ship to me on the 27th of this month. I have my doubts, but I'll let guys know if this holds true.

Nice. Let us know how that pans out. I'm particularly interested because they told me it would be June before mine shipped and when I saw MacSales would ship much sooner, I cancelled my ProVantage order and placed one with MacSales.

Also an update:
I've been anxiously watching the count down of days until my drive ships from MacSales and today was the day it should have shipped. I still haven't gotten a notification to say mine has shipped AND I've watched the status of that item go from ships in 1 day, to "pending," and now it says 10 days. Not a good sign.

 

[Daremo]

I'm having serious doubts my drive will ship on Monday as I was told. The online status has not changed.

 

[melchior]

if it's any help, i ordered from DiscounTecnnology on April 8 and it arrived in Bangladesh from the states on April 13. Pretty amazing considering it was easter weekend and I had ordered from two retailers in November last year when suppliers started accepting orders only to be perennially postponed through to the end of march at which point australian suppliers came to the conclusion that seagate was not going to come through with the goods any time soon.

they are a bit more expensive, but i was sick of waiting and wait i did not.

i am thinking of getting another to put in the superdrive bay. only 50gig free on the drive and i don't even have alternative OS partitions, but at least i am not dependent on external drives when there is no power...

 

[GFSarah]

if it's any help, i ordered from DiscounTecnnology on April 8 and it arrived in Bangladesh from the states on April 13. Pretty amazing considering it was easter weekend and I had ordered from two retailers in November last year when suppliers started accepting orders only to be perennially postponed through to the end of march at which point australian suppliers came to the conclusion that seagate was not going to come through with the goods any time soon.

they are a bit more expensive, but i was sick of waiting and wait i did not.

i am thinking of getting another to put in the superdrive bay. only 50gig free on the drive and i don't even have alternative OS partitions, but at least i am not dependent on external drives when there is no power...

Thanks for the info and the link. I followed it to the site and the product it took me to was the one with the built-in G-force sensor. I'm hoping that's not the one you ordered because I've heard that it causes a lot of problems since the MBP already has the G-force sensor. It's said to cause hard drive failure and other problems. Just FYI if that's what you ordered. I'm going to poke around that site and see if I can't find the one without the G-force sensor. If this Thursday comes and goes without my drive being shipped from MacSales, I may place an order with DiscounTechnology or anyone else and see who can get it to me first and then of course just cancel the other order(s).

 

[machomer]

I just heard from ProVantage on my order that I placed on Monday for the drive, and I was told by phone, the drive will ship to me on the 27th of this month. I have my doubts, but I'll let guys know if this holds true.

Sad news. I've been checking the Provantage website for this drive the "Ships" date was at 3 days, but today it jumped up to 20 days. Similar deal with newegg's eta date, went from 4/24/09 to 4/27/09 and now even further back.

If you can wait for a drive do so, but if you need one right now, looks like the Scorpio Blue is the way to go.

 

[melchior]

I'm hoping that's not the one you ordered because I've heard that it causes a lot of problems since the MBP already has the G-force sensor. It's said to cause hard drive failure and other problems. Just FYI if that's what you ordered.

Sad news. I've been checking the Provantage website for this drive the "Ships" date was at 3 days, but today it jumped up to 20 days. Similar deal with newegg's eta date, went from 4/24/09 to 4/27/09 and now even further back. If you can wait for a drive do so, but if you need one right now, looks like the Scorpio Blue is the way to go.

Too bad about the lack of stock. Either the wholesale suppliers are not giving accurate information or Seagate is feeding them rubbish shipping numbers or there are so many failing drives!

Seriously though, I did buy the g-sensor version knowing that it conflicts with the mbp motion sensor protection causing kernel panic, though this is easily disabled in the pmu settings. i have not read any correlations between high rates of failure with the g-sensor than the vanilla version. if you have a link i'd be interested.

good luck. and frankly, looking at the number, i reckon the scorpio blue comes in pretty darn close in non-synthetic benchmarks, but there is in fact still no definitive answer, probably due to the scarcity of these drives...

here's hoping there's no catastrophic failure.

 

[greenythebeast]

Does anyone know if/when Western Digital will release a 500GB/7200RPM drive for laptops?

 

[DoNoHarm]

7200 rpm is a meaningless number

People, at the end of the day, all that matters is the speed of data transfer. Saying one drive is better due to the rpm is like saying cars with a 5 liter engine is faster than cars with a 4 liter engine. Especially since you have a laptop, why not just buy a seagate momentus 5400.6?

the review mentioned previously didn't have the momentus tested:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/scorpio-notebook-hdd,2109-6.html

but this site compares the wd scorpio blue with the momentus and I think most people will agree that the seagate, being quieter, is a great buy:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/500gb_laptop_drives

I guess everyone has different priorities, if you have to have a drive that spins faster, all the power to you.

 

[melchior]

People, at the end of the day, all that matters is the speed of data transfer. Saying one drive is better due to the rpm is like saying cars with a 5 liter engine is faster than cars with a 4 liter engine. Especially since you have a laptop, why not just buy a seagate momentus 5400.6?

the review mentioned previously didn't have the momentus tested:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/scorpio-notebook-hdd,2109-6.html

but this site compares the wd scorpio blue with the momentus and I think most people will agree that the seagate, being quieter, is a great buy:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/500gb_laptop_drives

I guess everyone has different priorities, if you have to have a drive that spins faster, all the power to you.

not that i am disagreeing with your point, because honestly i think the difference between the scorpio and the 7200.4 is neglible in real-life tests and the scorpio seems to have a more efficient i/o, where seagate is compensating with rpms.

that being said, neither of the two links you provided mention the 7200.4 so, how are they relevant?

 

[pdxflint]

People, at the end of the day, all that matters is the speed of data transfer. Saying one drive is better due to the rpm is like saying cars with a 5 liter engine is faster than cars with a 4 liter engine. Especially since you have a laptop, why not just buy a seagate momentus 5400.6?

the review mentioned previously didn't have the momentus tested:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/scorpio-notebook-hdd,2109-6.html

but this site compares the wd scorpio blue with the momentus and I think most people will agree that the seagate, being quieter, is a great buy:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/500gb_laptop_drives

I guess everyone has different priorities, if you have to have a drive that spins faster, all the power to you.

Speaking from personal experience, the Scorpio Blue 500g is a very quiet drive - so the differences in the noise factor are like splitting very tiny hairs. Also, the silentpcreview article says the Scorpio Blue has a high(er) vibration level, which they imply is where the noise comes from, but I have to say as a user of one installed in a prev. generation MBP - there is no detectable vibration at all. Not in the palm rest, or any other location. That would have been a deal-breaker for me, and maybe it's just sample variation, but so far my experiences don't match silentpcreview's.

not that i am disagreeing with your point, because honestly i think the difference between the scorpio and the 7200.4 is neglible in real-life tests and the scorpio seems to have a more efficient i/o, where seagate is compensating with rpms.

that being said, neither of the two links you provided mention the 7200.4 so, how are they relevant?

They are relevant in the context of the discussion where alternatives to a practically non-existent or unavailable 7200rpm drive are being discussed.

 

[barhodomri]

If i accidently orderd the ASG insted of the AS, How bad is it?

 

[barhodomri]

anyone?

 

[Daremo]

I cancelled my order with Provantage today. I was told it would be at LEAST another 2 weeks... They have no idea, and they keep pushing it along.

 

[GFSarah]

I Got Mine !!!

In the last 3 days, the estimated ship time for this drive at MacSales has gone from 22, to 7, to now 1. I got all excited and sure enough, last night it showed my order as shipped and I got it about an hour ago!

To answer the question above (don't remember the posters name), if you read above, someone suggested that if you have the ASG instead of the AS, you may be alright if you just disable the SMS. I know you can do it with Cocktail and programs like that, but I don't know how/if you can do it otherwise. Better to exchange for the AS, in my opinion.

Just wanted to announce the happy news!

 

[pdxflint]

Good for you. You are one patient customer, GFSarah. When you get things sorted out, a few 1st person accounts of how the drive performs overall would be welcomed here.

 

[GFSarah]

After a few days with it, I am very pleased. I used SuperDuper to copy my HD over to the new Seagate and then had to reinstall BootCamp (needed to make that partition bigger anyway & with FAT32, WinClone wouldn't help), but all went smoothly as expected. I have noticed no additional heat, noise, or battery consumption from this drive as opposed to the Hitachi 320g 7200 RPM that came in it. It seems that my battery life may even be better than before (keep in mind this may very well be due to updating to 10.5.7 and not the new HD). There's really no indication that anything is different other than the additional space -- just as I had hoped.

If I notice anything else worth reporting, I'll post it.