Hard Drive recommendation for Alu Macbook 13 in:

[hkim1983]

Hi, I'm in the market for a faster Hard Drive for my laptop since I've recognized that it is by far the biggest bottleneck on my system, and I thought this would be a great place to ask for some advice. I have a few conditions though:

-It must be reliable. I really can't state that enough. I realize that all mechanical drives are destined to fail, and that by sheer bad luck you can end up with a dud even from a good manufacturer, but it would be nice to minimize those occurrences (by my bitter tone, yes, I've had a lot of hard drives fail on me the last few years...this stock drive I have now is the first decent one I've had in awhile).

-It must be fast, noticeably faster than what I have now. I'm looking into 7200 RPM drives, but I've read somewhere (can't recall where) that the WD Scorpio drives are noticeably speedy even at 5400 RPMs.

-I don't want a SSD. I have my reasons for it, I just don't think now is the best time for me to get one.

-Size is not important to me. I do not need 1 TB of storage. As long as it has at least 160 GBs, that's enough for me.

With that in mind, I've been looking into the WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM, 160 GB drive. Anyone have any experiences with that line of drives? Anyone have any recommendations otherwise? I'm not going to touch Seagate or Fuji drives at all though. Thanks in advance, I appreciate the time and help.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Browse through all of these threads that discuss this topic. If none of them answer your question then post back here.

 

[hkim1983]

Browse through all of these threads that discuss this topic. If none of them answer your question then post back here.

There was some useful information in those threads, but most of them are outdated (I consider nearly 6 months to be outdated in the tech world). It did make a promising argument for the Scorpio Blue, but I didn't see what I wanted to see in my brief browsing: how the blue compares to the black.

 

[vaderhater245]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

 

[hkim1983]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

Thank you, this directly addresses one of the things I was looking for. So basically, it comes down to vibration v. performance.

 

[miles01110]

-It must be reliable. I really can't state that enough. I realize that all mechanical drives are destined to fail, and that by sheer bad luck you can end up with a dud even from a good manufacturer, but it would be nice to minimize those occurrences

-It must be fast, noticeably faster than what I have now. I'm looking into 7200 RPM drives, but I've read somewhere (can't recall where) that the WD Scorpio drives are noticeably speedy even at 5400 RPMs.

-I don't want a SSD. I have my reasons for it, I just don't think now is the best time for me to get one.

-Size is not important to me. I do not need 1 TB of storage. As long as it has at least 160 GBs, that's enough for me.

With that in mind, I've been looking into the WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM, 160 GB drive. Anyone have any experiences with that line of drives? Anyone have any recommendations otherwise? I'm not going to touch Seagate or Fuji drives at all though.

I read this and I'm just confused. You contradict yourself on practically every other point.

-You want something mechanically reliable, but don't want an SSD.
-You want something noticeably faster than your current drive (5400 rpm?) but are only going for a 7200 rpm drive, the speed of which won't be noticeable for a lot of "casual" applications.
-You don't want a Seagate or "Fuji" (Fujitsu, I assume) without stating why. If you think they're any less reliable than a WD, you're wrong.

The WD Scorpio line is generally a safe bet, but if you're only getting 160 GB I'd say you're wasting your money. You can get larger drives for a disproportionally small increase in price.

 

[Badger^2]

miles summed up several of my thoughts as well

If you want the best bang for your buck: WD Black in either 320 or 500 gigs, difference is about $20.

No idea why that first review on newegg cites vibration issues, that should NOT be happening, I'm gonna say it was installed incorrectly.

Lots of tests over at barefeats

http://www.barefeats.com/hard121.html

http://www.barefeats.com/note05.html

 

[FieryFurnace]

I would still recommend to get a SSD - it does all want you want.
Just call it HDD, if you don't like SSDs right now,...

Get the Intel G2 160GB or the Vertex 250GB.

 

[chill.]

i have an aluminum macbook as well, and a few months ago i upgraded the hard drive from the stock 250 gb 5400rpm to a 320 gig 7200 rpm Hitachi

here's my take on some of the differences:

- no noticeable speed difference

- noticeable vibration increase, but still not too bad

- battery lasts a bit shorter like 10-15% i would estimate

- runs a bit hotter but not much

of course i did not record any hard data and this is all my subjective experience. also, size does matter for speed in terms of data density. if your hard drive is close to full then it will be slower because it requires more spins to access the relevant data block