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Hard Drive Woes, OEM is best!

S

skiracer8148

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 6, 2011
35
0
Frankfort NY
Thought macrumors should know about my recent hard drive upgrade woes. I have a 2.4 2010 model and it only had 250gb in it so i wanted to upgrade to 500gb. So after doing some research i purchased a western digital caviar blue 500gb 5400rpm from best buy for $60, HD was so loud i immediately took it back. So now i exchanged it for a seagate momentus 500gb 7200rpm because everyone on here said it was great this HD was $90. After using it for a couple days yes it was somewhat quieter but still not as quiet as oem. Another issue with the 7200rpm drive was battery life, some people on here say you dont notice but i did and battery life is very important to me being a student and not wanting to carry around a charger. I bought this computer because of the 10 hour battery why would i wanna sacrifice it. So took back the seagate and ordered a oem hitachi 500gb 5400 drive of ebay. I was able to find one claiming to be new and pulled from a macbook pro becuause it was replaced with a SSD. I got this HD for $45. Everyone is gonna laugh but i sold the oem 250gb on ebay for $55 used so im actually ahead $10 !! At the end of the day none of the aftermarket HD's were comparable to oem!
 
Last edited:
I had the same experience. The WD scorpio blue was loud and slow. Upgraded to a Hitachi 500 GB 7200 rpm that was pulled from a Mac mini. Dead quiet just like the stock 160 GB 5400 I had, and very fast to boot.

There's a reason why Apple goes with them. :)
 
Misleading and deceptive titling. No reviews were performed, just observations about sound and perceived/actual battery life differences (with no measurable data to support findings). I am glad you found something that works for you, but without any sort of measurable data and repeatable tests it can't be considered a review but more an overview.
 
Anyone tried the Western Digital Black 7200 rpm 750 gb with 16 mb cache against the OEM drive of Apple?

I know the WD will win in speed, but how is it in noise and battery life?
 
vincenz said:
I had the same experience. The WD scorpio blue was loud and slow. Upgraded to a Hitachi 500 GB 7200 rpm that was pulled from a Mac mini. Dead quiet just like the stock 160 GB 5400 I had, and very fast to boot.

There's a reason why Apple goes with them. :)
Click to expand...

+1 for the Hitachi 7K500 drives.
 
miles01110 said:
I don't think you understand what "OEM" means. Hitachi drives are OEM drives that happen to ship with some Apple machines. Seagate and WD drives are also OEM.
Click to expand...
Yes i understand some had seagate but any macbook pro i ever owned had a hitachi drive in it, were the seagates mostly found in older mbp's?
 
When I swapped mine out for my Momentus XT (already had it and everything loaded, so figured what the heck), mine was a Toshiba, and my 2008 had a Fujitsu.
 
I've had lots of hard drives & SSD's which I've installed in my various new MBP's.

As long as you understand how to set them up, they work very well.

My favorite? OCZ Vertex 3.
 
Kind of a ridiculous post. There is nothing special about an OEM drive. It's labeled as such b/c the device maker using the drive assumes the warranty. Drive for drive, OEMs are identical to their retail brethren, i.e. there is zero performance difference between a 500MB Hitachi 7K500 with an Apple label on it, and it's boxed equivalent on Amazon. Any perceived difference is in one's head.
 
snaky69 said:
The seagate momentus XT is know for it's battery draining abilities, had you done some research you would've known too.
Click to expand...

Poster was referring to the Hitachi drive the OP was referring to and not the Seagate. I have the Seagate and don't notice the battery drain. I think it is hit or miss with this drive actually. Some people report all types of issues and others little to none. Thankfully I am in the little to none category. I notice the increased noise, but it doesn't bother me at all, as I am usually listening to music or doing something and not having my ear to the computer anyway.
 
altecXP said:
All the 500GB HDD's I've seen in MacBook Pros were by Seagate.
Click to expand...

thus I went with 750GB 5400RPM Hitachi. I've had bad experiences with Seagate drives going bad, and I wanted more space than speed since I was going to install SSD and optibay the HDD.
 
snaky69 said:
The seagate momentus XT is know for it's battery draining abilities, had you done some research you would've known too.
Click to expand...

There is SD25 firmware now, although some people still say to have issues.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
Kind of a ridiculous post. There is nothing special about an OEM drive. It's labeled as such b/c the device maker using the drive assumes the warranty. Drive for drive, OEMs are identical to their retail brethren, i.e. there is zero performance difference between a 500MB Hitachi 7K500 with an Apple label on it, and it's boxed equivalent on Amazon. Any perceived difference is in one's head.
Click to expand...

I wasnt saying there was but i learned that the oem hitachis work best in these macbook pros if you cant afford an SSD and for $45 why not get a drive with the apple logo on it? it will look good when i sell
 
skiracer8148 said:
I wasnt saying there was but i learned that the oem hitachis work best in these macbook pros if you cant afford an SSD and for $45 why not get a drive with the apple logo on it? it will look good when i sell
Click to expand...

There is no way the person that buys the computer from you will know the difference between that hard drive and one without the Apple logo except for you telling them, and if they know anything about computers there is no reason for them to care.
 
I have installed a new Hitachi 7K500 7200rpm in the optical bay. Works perfect and super quiet although it is not the fastest drive in 500GB. I don't regret it. The best strategy for the new mbp should be 120G SSD for application and OSX. Install other hd in optical bay. Then it already works perfect and fast. :)

I love my new mbp!!!
 
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