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Fastest 2.5" Harddrive for new MacBook Alu

D

Death Warrant

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 12, 2007
19
0
Hello folks

I just ordered a brand new MacBook with 2.4GHz and the standard 250GB harddrive.

I'm now thinking to exchange the harddrive with a better and faster one. Apple sells for the MacBook only the 5400rpm drives and only for the MacBook Pro the faster 7200rpm drivers.

Can someone tell me a good and fast harddrive with around 250GB or 320GB with 7200rpm?

What does the MacBook support, only SATA-150 (SATA1) or SATA-300 (SATA2)?

I've seen those:

HD Western Digital 320GB SATA
12ms, 5400rpm, 8MB, 2.5", SATA-150, 9.5mm
WD3200BEVT

or

HD Western Digital 320GB SATA2
12ms, 7200rpm, 16MB, 2.5", SATA-300, 9.5mm
WD3200BEKT


Or is it even possible to run a SAS 2.5" harddrive with maybe an adaptor?


Thanks for the answers guys

Phil
 
The Seagate Momentus 7200.3 is a ridiculous hard drive. First of all its at the top of its class in performance right now, and the power drain is actually quite low too. It doesn't cost too much either and comes with a 5 year warranty.

I'm definitely going to pick one of these up and put it in my new MBP when I get it.
 
f1400 said:
The Seagate Momentus 7200.3 is a ridiculous hard drive. First of all its at the top of its class in performance right now, and the power drain is actually quite low too. It doesn't cost too much either and comes with a 5 year warranty.

I'm definitely going to pick one of these up and put it in my new MBP when I get it.
Click to expand...

This is an awesome drive! I'm personally waiting on a 500GB, 7200rpm drive myself. That'll be perfect for me and my huge photo/music collection. But 110(on newegg) for a 320GB 7200rpm drive is an excellent deal in my book.
 
This is the one I got; it's $89 at zipzoomfly

I haven't actually used it yet, but according to the benchmarks, it is fast and also has very low power consumption. It seems to use as much power as the average 5400 rpm drive out there (Seagate's own 5400rpm drives seem a bit better, and perhaps WD's), but in broad strokes, you do have no tradeoffs here:

Very fast, Very low power draw, Very low price.
How often do you get to get to experience no tradeoffs in life?
 
As a new OSX user with a Alu Macbook 2.4, I've been contemplating switching out the HD too although performance seems great with the included 5400rpm for now so I might wait.

My question is, can I do a TimeMachine backup, swap out the hard drives, use Leopard Restore disc and restore that TimeMachine backup? Assuming I can, will I lose ANYTHING? Or is it seamless in terms of picking up where I left off.

By the way, no matter what anyone says, a 7200rpm HD will always take more power and generate more heat than a 5400rpm...simple physics :)
 
mobilehavoc said:
As a new OSX user with a Alu Macbook 2.4, I've been contemplating switching out the HD too although performance seems great with the included 5400rpm for now so I might wait.

My question is, can I do a TimeMachine backup, swap out the hard drives, use Leopard Restore disc and restore that TimeMachine backup? Assuming I can, will I lose ANYTHING? Or is it seamless in terms of picking up where I left off.

By the way, no matter what anyone says, a 7200rpm HD will always take more power and generate more heat than a 5400rpm...simple physics :)
Click to expand...

Do Flatscreens produce more Heat and use more power than the 1st TV ever?
No they don't, so why wouldn't 7200 drives use same power and heat than 5400?
 
owdin said:
Do Flatscreens produce more Heat and use more power than the 1st TV ever?
No they don't, so why wouldn't 7200 drives use same power and heat than 5400?
Click to expand...

Flatscreens and TVs aren't even the right analogy.

Nature of what you are getting - higher revolutions per minute in same form factor. How can you spin something 50% faster than something else that's identical without more energy and (in this case) more heat? If you can prove this, maybe you can get the Nobel prize this year.
 
mobilehavoc said:
By the way, no matter what anyone says, a 7200rpm HD will always take more power and generate more heat than a 5400rpm...simple physics :)
Click to expand...
My momentus consumes less power than the WD 5400RPM drive that I replaced it with. In fact, it consumes less power than most 5400RPM drives as tested in the Tom' Hardware review. This is a measured fact. My battery life has also gone up by about 10%.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006.html

Seagate claims best-in-class efficiency, and the firm is right about that. The measured 0.95 W idle power is the lowest hard drive idle power we measured for all 7,200 RPM drives. As a matter of fact, only a few 5,400 RPM drives show better results. Once the drive switches into a low power idle state after longer inactivity, we measured 0.78 W, which is as close as we could get to the specified 0.75 W for low power idle, and is a lower power requirement than we measured for the competition.

The results are reflected by our performance per watt tests on a notebook, where we looked at workstation-type I/O performance and streaming read performance. In both cases, the Momentus 7200.3 achieved excellent results.
Click to expand...
 
mobilehavoc said:
Flatscreens and TVs aren't even the right analogy.

Nature of what you are getting - higher revolutions per minute in same form factor. How can you spin something 50% faster than something else that's identical without more energy and (in this case) more heat? If you can prove this, maybe you can get the Nobel prize this year.
Click to expand...

This is true assuming the same technology and friction in the bearings as well as the same spin time. Older 5400rpm drives probably produce more heat and use more electricity than new 7200rpm drives because manufacturing has gotten more precise, reducing the friction on spinning it. But newer 5400rpm drives will be more efficient than the new 7200rpm drives.

The best argument (not saying it is totally correct but does factor) is that because the 7200 rpm drives are faster, they won't have to spin as long and so in theory, could produce similar or better efficiency, but that is assuming a set amount of data transfer as opposed to a set amount of time.
 
I wonder what the real-world performance increase would be over the 250GB 5400RPM drive in my MB. Due to having 4GB of RAM, I don't think the HD is accessed that often. I don't do any video editing either or encoding that would require a speedy HD.

In my case, might not even be worth the trouble of upgrading to the 7200rpm.
 
f1400 said:
The Seagate Momentus 7200.3 is a ridiculous hard drive. First of all its at the top of its class in performance right now, and the power drain is actually quite low too. It doesn't cost too much either and comes with a 5 year warranty.

I'm definitely going to pick one of these up and put it in my new MBP when I get it.
Click to expand...

Just ordered one from Newegg for $110, plus if you look down the page a bit at the combo deals you can also get a 2.5 enclosure for free, and free shipping on both.
 
I've decided to hold off on upgrading the HD on my MB to 7200rpm. Instead I'm waiting for cheaper, faster SSDs to be available and then I'm skipping 7200rpm straight to SSD. Apart from speed increases and lower power consumption with SSDs, I'm looking forward to no moving parts meaning it'll be 100x more reliable and last a lot longer!!!
 
I just ordered the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 drive, which seems to be a very good and fast drive.

Just need to wait until the MacBook arrives ;-)


Cheers
 
Death Warrant said:
I just ordered the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 drive, which seems to be a very good and fast drive.

Just need to wait until the MacBook arrives ;-)


Cheers
Click to expand...

Are there 2 versions of the Seagate - one with g-shock sensor and one without? I assume it's best to get the one without if using in a MacBook Pro as they already have a Sudden Motion Sensor?
 
I put a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 250GB drive in my MBP last night. I can't really comment on increased performance since I haven't really done anything HDD intensive with the stock drive. But based on everything I've read this is supposed to be a fantastic drive.

I will say that the Seagate is noisier than the stock Hitachi drive. In a really quiet room I can hear the drive seeking or doing whatever hard drives do. The stock Hitachi was dead quiet. If you need absolute silence from a hard drive this is not the one for you.

Hard to beat the 5 year warranty.

I like newegg, but in this case tigerdirect was $15 cheaper (plus a couple bucks cheaper on shipping).

The Western Digital Scorpio is another highly rated drive that's in the same price range as the Seagate Momentus.
 
drlunanerd said:
Are there 2 versions of the Seagate - one with g-shock sensor and one without? I assume it's best to get the one without if using in a MacBook Pro as they already have a Sudden Motion Sensor?
Click to expand...
hmm...looks like there are indeed two versions and I got the one without the free fall protection.
 
flopticalcube said:
My momentus consumes less power than the WD 5400RPM drive that I replaced it with. In fact, it consumes less power than most 5400RPM drives as tested in the Tom' Hardware review. This is a measured fact. My battery life has also gone up by about 10%.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006.html
Click to expand...

I'm sold!

Damnit all to hell though! I needed to take a vacation from buying anything (aside from one more plane ticket + hotel). Now there's this! Bad geek influences!
 
Phat Ham said:
I will say that the Seagate is noisier than the stock Hitachi drive. In a really quiet room I can hear the drive seeking or doing whatever hard drives do. The stock Hitachi was dead quiet. If you need absolute silence from a hard drive this is not the one for you.
Click to expand...

Do you feel any vibration on the palmrest?
 
mobilehavoc said:
I've decided to hold off on upgrading the HD on my MB to 7200rpm. Instead I'm waiting for cheaper, faster SSDs to be available and then I'm skipping 7200rpm straight to SSD. Apart from speed increases and lower power consumption with SSDs, I'm looking forward to no moving parts meaning it'll be 100x more reliable and last a lot longer!!!
Click to expand...

good decision. i don't know how accurate it is, but istat is reporting my ocz ssd to be 0 degrees celcius =)
 
SSD rocks

The Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 (7200rpm, 320G) offers the most bang for the buck in terms of capacity to speed ratio to price ratio. It tops out at 75MB/s READ and WRITE. It's going for $79 after double rebate on ZipZoomFly.com.

But for blazing speed at an 'almost reasonable' price with 'adequate' storage capacity, the OCZ Core Series 128G SSD is tempting. We measured 103MB/s READ and 86MB/s WRITE. You can buy it at Amazon for $349 after rebate.
 
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