HD advice for a Blackbook 2.2

[edcoche]

Hello all,

I have a question regarding my Blackbook 2.2 Core 2 Duo that I bought brand new in November of 2007. I recently had the misfortune of my hard drive dying without me backing it up, this sucks . Lesson learned, time machine no matter what moving forward.

There are 2 things I am wondering. 5400 vs 7200 hard drives and also how big of a HD can my mac support?

I bought a hard drive for $55 from a local 'micro center' store that offers great deals, its a Hitachi drive thats 320 GB 7200. I have noticed very subtle vibrations after the install that are slightly annoying (it was easy to notice b/c I never experienced this before with the 160 GB 5400 HD the mac came with.) So, a few days later I get a mailing from micro center and on it I see a few HD's from Hitachi one of those being my HD. Then I see that for $10 more I could have had a 500 GB HD. Considering that I bought it 9 days ago and given their return policy I am considering exchanging the 320 for the 500 GB HD and paying 10 more dollars, can my mac support that much? Are there any major drawbacks from having too big of a hard drive? I do feel I can fill up most of the space with music/video and I imagine having a 7200 vs 5400 would come in handy after things fill up.

Any advice or suggestions? All input would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

-Ed

 

[alust2013]

7200 RPM drives spin faster, so they will cause a bit more vibration. Personally, I have a WD 7200 RPM drive, and the vibrations really aren't that noticeable. If you think you could fill most of a 500GB drive, I'd suggest a 750GB model, which is the biggest your computer can currently hold. The only laptop drive that's bigger won't fit in your computer. It's best to avoid completely filling a hard drive, however if you don't feel like spending that much, it wouldn't cause any problems to fill it, it just wouldn't be quite as fast.

 

[logana]

Considering that I bought it 9 days ago and given their return policy I am considering exchanging the 320 for the 500 GB HD and paying 10 more dollars, can my mac support that much?

Are you sure that they will accept a return for an internal hard disk you have been using for more than a week ?

If they will then go for the 500GB for the extra $10.

 

[edcoche]

Thanks you two, I'm going to make the upgrade. It's not like the the stuff I collected in 9 days compares to what was lost after 3 1/2 yrs.

 

[Naimfan]

Beware the vibration from the 7200 RPM drives--13" Macs don't seem to handle it well. And if you're bothered by it all now, it's possible it will drive you nuts down the road.

I have one of the new 13" MBPs and tried several 7200 RPM drives; all of them vibrated the computer so much I couldn't stand it. I'm back to a 500 GB 5400 RPM drive (a Western Digital Scorpio Blue). I'd suggest getting the biggest drive you can that runs at 5400 RPM.

 

[edcoche]

Beware the vibration from the 7200 RPM drives--13" Macs don't seem to handle it well. And if you're bothered by it all now, it's possible it will drive you nuts down the road.

I have one of the new 13" MBPs and tried several 7200 RPM drives; all of them vibrated the computer so much I couldn't stand it. I'm back to a 500 GB 5400 RPM drive (a Western Digital Scorpio Blue). I'd suggest getting the biggest drive you can that runs at 5400 RPM.

Is it possible that the vibration of the 7200 could get worse as time goes on and the hard drive fills up? I can deal with the subtle vibration I'm experiencing now in exchange for increased performance over a 5400 later once the HD space is more used up--as long as the vibration doesn't get any worse.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

Beware the vibration from the 7200 RPM drives--13" Macs don't seem to handle it well.

I have a WD Scorpio Black (7200rpm) and have no issues whatsoever. It sounds to me like you're more sensitive than most to those vibrations. Not a criticism, but I don't know anyone who put a 7200rpm HDD into their laptop and had enough of a problem with the vibrations that it caused them to go back to a slower drive.

@Ed: Regardless of how much data is on your drive, it will vibrate more or less the same. If you get it full and fragmented, it will do more seeking but you'd only notice it in an extreme case. I wouldn't worry about it.