HD Upgrade: Larger or Hybrid?

[Sjhonny]

Hi (my first thread bla bla bla ...)

I've got the 17" mid 2009 revision mpb but I've got a peculiar problem with the hard drive. For university purposes I need to run AutoCAD and since the for mac version is very buggy, I'm considering installing Windows (7 64-bit) using boot camp.
Fairly easy you'd say, but then there is this problem with bootcamp (& disk utility) claiming I can't repartition my 500 GB HD (can't move unmovable files error). I used mroogle, found 'a solution' and right now I'm cloning the hard drive using CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner). I'll boot from this usb HD and use the diskutil to repartition my internal drive using a 470 GB HTC + and a 30 GB NTFS table.

My problem is: the failing of partitioning the hard drive is obviously due to fragmented files on the HD, it's also pretty full (400 GB of 500). Once I repartition the HDD I'll be at 85% of my (virtual) HD capacity. Since my Music library is still growing, as is my school documentation. I'll probably hit the 100% in like 2013 (I'll probably have another laptop/pc by that time), but nevertheless. The HD is gone become one hell of a bottleneck in the coming (two?) years!.

Therefor I'm considering upgrading my HD to either a: Hitachi Hybrid (500 GB) or a 640 GB or 750 GB (9.5 mm height max). I don't want to go any larger (there's only 1 TB I think?), nor do I want a HD higher then 9.5 mm (since I have the unwelcome habit of accidentally dropping my laptop from time to time, and those higher laptop HD's have more platters -> more heads -> higher chance on failure).

What do you guys (/girls) think?

 

[jlc1978]

Hi (my first thread bla bla bla ...)


Therefor I'm considering upgrading my HD to either a: Hitachi Hybrid (500 GB) or a 640 GB or 750 GB (9.5 mm height max).

What do you guys (/girls) think?

What's more important - space or speed? A hybrid would speed up some apps but you still have the space limitation. A higher capacity drive gives you more space.

if space is the main issue, I'd get the biggest drive you want.

Neither solution is better - it's a matter of what best suits your needs. I went with a hybrid, but I don't have a lot of space eating media files. Those are on a standalone networked HD.

 

[sk3tch]

I say either go for SSD or go for a standard hard drive - meaning forget about the hybrid option. They do help and they do speed things up a bit, but it's no where near SSD-level and for the price you may as well just get a nice, decently fast 7200RPM standard hard drive. The WD Black 750GB 7200RPM is about $100 - I would personally go for that over a Momentus XT or similar hybrid.