HDD or SSD+HDD Hybrid for MacBook 5,2 ? Upgrade question.

[schusteltz]

I want to upgrade my HDD in my MacBook (Early 2009; MB 5,2). I have my options narrowed down to the Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 (750 gb @ 7200 RPM, 8 gb NAND flash) and the Hitachi Travelstar 0S03339 (750 GB @ 7200 RPM SATA II 16 MB internal cache).

I have read a lot of reviews on both and after filtering out non-credible/anomaly reviews I am still on the fence. They both seem to be about the same but the Seagate drive seems to be better equipped for the future with it's "hybridness." Or am I just falling into the marketing? I don't do anything very taxing on my machine: word processing, browsing, and programming.

I was wondering if anyone out there has seen any difference in battery life with either of these two? Or has anyone tried each of these and seen any difference? Would the Seagate be worth the extra $40?

 

[Bear]

I want to upgrade my HDD in my MacBook (Early 2009; MB 5,2). I have my options narrowed down to the Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 (750 gb @ 7200 RPM, 8 gb NAND flash) and the Hitachi Travelstar 0S03339 (750 GB @ 7200 RPM SATA II 16 MB internal cache).

I have read a lot of reviews on both and after filtering out non-credible/anomaly reviews I am still on the fence. They both seem to be about the same but the Seagate drive seems to be better equipped for the future with it's "hybridness." Or am I just falling into the marketing? I don't do anything very taxing on my machine: word processing, browsing, and programming.

I was wondering if anyone out there has seen any difference in battery life with either of these two? Or has anyone tried each of these and seen any difference? Would the Seagate be worth the extra $40?

The Momentus could get you some minor speed improvement. I'm not sure if it will be worth the extra $40 to you. It doesn't sound like you do anything very taxing. If anything, I would possibly put the extra $40 towards a ram upgrade if your MacBook is not maxxed out yet.

 

[schusteltz]

The Momentus could get you some minor speed improvement. I'm not sure if it will be worth the extra $40 to you. It doesn't sound like you do anything very taxing. If anything, I would possibly put the extra $40 towards a ram upgrade if your MacBook is not maxxed out yet.

Have you tried the Momentus personally? I have my RAM at 4gb. But I hear that my MB supports up to 6gb unofficially.

 

[Dweez]

I have a 500 gig Momentus in a dell linux laptop which my son uses, and the difference before and after the install wasn't noticeable. It may have been just the unit I received, but there was noticeable noise from the drive. Almost like the heads parking/unparking/etc while seeking.

 

[schusteltz]

Is that the latest generation of Momentus? I've read about noise/vibration in other laptops too, including MBs/MBPs.

 

[NorthDakota91]

I have the "old" Momentus (SD26 fw, the one with 4GB flash cell) which I bought 9 months ago and so far I had no problems with it. No noise, no slowdowns, no battery life anomalies, nothing. I can't say anything about the "new" momentus (since I don't have it) but from my experience I'd say go for it, my macbook became significantly faster in some everyday tasks (like booting or safari/mail/itunes opening)

 

[schusteltz]

Cool, so how much faster was your booting and other tasks?

 

[NorthDakota91]

Cool, so how much faster was your booting and other tasks?

I didn't take precise times but I'd say that the booting is notably faster (I'd say half the time than with the stock drive which was an 5400rpm), also with the momentus I have no delay when opening my frequently used apps, especially iTunes (which was the case with the stock drive).

The changes are not dramatic but you feel it once you install the drive. It's not a real SSD but, again from my experience, it is much better than a normal drive.

 

[schusteltz]

Thanks for the help. My AppleCare ends in a month so hopefully the prices go down by then. Currently, the prices are $120 for the Hitachi 750gb and $180 for the Momentus XT 750gb.

 

[schusteltz]

***update***

I went with the Hitachi Travelstar 750gb @ 7200 RPM. So far so good. Boot time is marginally better than with my original drive. I also installed Ubuntu 11.10 on a partition with Bootcamp and am now just trying to get that ironed out.