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Exchange or keep? Seagate SSDHD Hybrid.

jbachandouris

jbachandouris

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 18, 2009
6,008
3,235
Upstate NY
I installed the 8GB/1TB Seagate Hybrid drive. It's been about a week and I don't notice any speed difference. Also it's a little noisier than the stock Hitachi my MBP came with.

Would the 1TB Toshiba ($30 cheaper) be a better option?

As I'm not prepared to go full SSD, trying to decide what to do here.
 
I have the toshiba and I feel like it is significantly faster than the old 5400 drive. I find it odd how little the platter spins up - I mostly use the machine for Logic, iTunes (huge library) and iPhoto (huge library). Start ups are quick and everything else seems good, too.
 
BigRed1 said:
I have the toshiba and I feel like it is significantly faster than the old 5400 drive. I find it odd how little the platter spins up - I mostly use the machine for Logic, iTunes (huge library) and iPhoto (huge library). Start ups are quick and everything else seems good, too.
Click to expand...

Is it as quiet as the stock drive? It seems like the Seagate is louder.

As for reboots needed to fill the cache, I rarely reboot. I just close the lid, so if the SSD portion only helps with start up time, then its not a good investment for me.
 
I saw where Seagate now has a new version of "hybrid" drive -- which bundles about 120gb of SSD storage -and- a 1tb spinning HDD into a single 2.5" enclosure.

The cost is around $220, but looks to be a way to put either a "dual drive" setup into a MacBook into -one- drive space, or even have your own fusion drive within...
 
Fishrrman said:
I saw where Seagate now has a new version of "hybrid" drive -- which bundles about 120gb of SSD storage -and- a 1tb spinning HDD into a single 2.5" enclosure.

The cost is around $220, but looks to be a way to put either a "dual drive" setup into a MacBook into -one- drive space, or even have your own fusion drive within...
Click to expand...

For $220, I'd just buy a lower capacity SSD instead. Plus I haven't seen this drive yet.
 
My MBP also seems to be a lot warmer than with the stock drive. Although the HD temp is only 48 Celsius (down from 60 awhile ago).

Do Seagate's run any hotter than comparable drives?
 
jbachandouris said:
Is it as quiet as the stock drive? It seems like the Seagate is louder.

As for reboots needed to fill the cache, I rarely reboot. I just close the lid, so if the SSD portion only helps with start up time, then its not a good investment for me.
Click to expand...

When the platter spins up, it is definitely louder, but it also spins up a LOT less often than the old one did.
 
Exchanged the Seagate for a 1TB Western Digital HD. The box says quiet and cool. Although it runs MUCH cooler than the Seagate, its just as noisy. Grrrrrr...I may just say forget it and stay with my stock Hitachi drive until I can afford SSD. This really sucks.:mad:
 
Why not check the Tech Specs of a drive and compare it with your existing one before purchase.
They normally list the noise levels in there.

Barney
 
Good idea. I didn't think to look up specs on my original drive.

I can buy a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD for $139.99. I may just have to bite the bullet and buy an SSD after all.
 
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I don't know how much this helped or if it was a placebo effect, but when I had installed the Seagate hybrid drive in my 2011 MacBook Pro I did a fresh install of Mac OS X instead of restoring from a backup or cloning the drive. I then turned the machine off and on a few times and used it without installing anything additional for as long as I could. The theory behind this at the time was that the drive would learn the programs or whatever you used most often and house those on the SSD part of the drive speeding them up, and by turning the machine off and on with out really using any apps it would train the drive that the OS was the most used program and store it there. As I said, don't know if actually helped or just felt like it helped but it did seem like the boot time got quicker the more I did it. Then I loaded everything on it I needed and proceeded to use it like i normally would. I would say that load time of the OS on boot up was noticeably quicker than with the stock drive and some normal operations seemed slightly quicker than before.

Victor

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jbachandouris said:
I don't have an external enclosure, so how do I wipe the drive for a return?
Click to expand...

The easiest way is to spend the $10 or less on an enclosure. Sometimes they're handy to have anyways. You con't have to worry about getting a USB 3.0 one or anything, just pick up the cheapest one you can find.

Hard Drive enclosure under $5

Victor
 
Your 2010 has SATA 2, a crucial m500 is an excellent match for that model with the 03 firmware. Prices have fallen a hell of a lot recently cos crucial have launched the m550. If you instead want to keep your mac for a long time and not remove the drive in the future to go in a SATA 3 model like the 11/12 it would be my SSD of choice to go in a 2010 - else get the evo which streaks ahead in SATA 3.

If you want to erase your SSHD download a free active killdisk ISO, burn off, hold option down on boot select the cd and zero the drive.

You will be laughing at how fast it is and will never go back to a spinning disk or SSHD to boot OSX ever again and it's utterly silent!
 
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