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HDDs and SSDs

K

komseban

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 27, 2010
86
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So, even after reading the HD post I have a few questions regarding HDDs and SSDs.

My current MBP runs on the standard 250gb Hitachi HDD 5400rpm. I'm considering upgrading to 500gb or even 750gb but my MBP is just barely a month old I still have 200gb of space left. Space that will quickly decrease once I start recovering all the music I've lost from my ipod. ; o;...

My questions are:

1. Should I wait and use up all the space on my current HD before buying one with larger memory? I download a lot of music, movies, pictures and I have a lot of applications most of them for CG and school related.

2. HDD or SSD? I hear a lot of discussion on this with the key points being:
HDD: Much cheaper, larger memory
SSD: More stable, less likely to fail on you

Since I'm a student with a limited budget, I figured a HDD would be best. e ue;; But in the long run, is a difference in MBP processing speed between the two?

3. What is the best recommended HDD and SSD brand? I'm looking on Newegg and it seems Western Digital Scorpio is very popular along with Seagate. Which one has better reliability?

Thank you.
; n; I'm only trying to get the most out of my MBP.
Oh, it's a 2010 13" MBP 4GB ram.
Not sure what else is needed.
I apologize if a similar thread was already set up, I couldn't find one when I was looking around.
 
With the amount of storage it sounds like you will need, an SSD is out. A 512GB model (the largest I have seen) is well over $1000, which sounds like it's out of your budget. I'd get the 750GB WD Scorpio Black. That gives you a good boost of performance, as well as a bunch of space for a reasonable price. SSDs are more of a luxury at this point due to their expense and have little benefit other than opening apps and booting faster. Later on, when the computer is a bit older, the SSD won't make the processor any faster, it will still just load stuff faster. They also tend to degrade over time, and if they fail, it's often without warning. A standard HDD on the other hand, often tells you that it's about to fail, so you have some time to back stuff up and get a new one.
 
How much data will you be rockin total for the next few years?

The Scorpio Black is an amazing HDD; reliability is fantastic and it is fast for a HDD.

If you get a SSD, virtually all SSDs simply leave the best enterprise HDDs in the dust performance and reliability wise. An HDD is like Bob Dole riding a 3 legged horse, where as a SSD is Vin Disel hitting the NOS button in his (5 minute) quarter mile race.
 
e ue... Not quite sure.
Right now, if I got all my stuff together it would probably close to 200gig worth of music and roughly the same for movies and videos?

Not sure how much my art and school stuff take up.
But probably not enough to be significant.

edit.
And photos. Oh god.
I take so many photos it's ridiculous. OTL
 
Yeah unless you have a lot of money to throw down, the WD Scorpio is probably your best bet. Then you even will have money left over to buy an external hard drive for backup/storage
 
komseban said:
e ue... Not quite sure.
Right now, if I got all my stuff together it would probably close to 200gig worth of music and roughly the same for movies and videos?

Not sure how much my art and school stuff take up.
But probably not enough to be significant.

edit.
And photos. Oh god.
I take so many photos it's ridiculous. OTL
Click to expand...

For that, a 256GB drive would be pushing it without adding anything, and those run almost $600, just to give you an idea.
 
I plan to be using my MPB from now all through college so I think it's probably best to be safe and go with the 750gb.

Thank you. :D
 
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The Scorpio Black is a great drive. In fact, WD drives in general are great. You've made a good choice :)
 
One last question!

I heard that for MBPs, the HDD should be a certain size so that it fits.
Will the WD Scorpio Black 750gb fit?
I should have asked this earlier now that i think on it.
 
komseban said:
One last question!

I heard that for MBPs, the HDD should be a certain size so that it fits.
Will the WD Scorpio Black 750gb fit?
I should have asked this earlier now that i think on it.
Click to expand...

Hey Komseban,

You're right about what you heard and since MBP are laptops, it would most likely use the 2.5" standard. However, there are drives out there that are over 9.5mm thickness (standard height). I believe the WD black 750GB should be 9.5mm, so the other thing would be to verify what dimension drives will MBP take.

Hope this helps you with your question!
 
So, I figure it's best to continue this topic.

I read that WD HDs tend to have an anti-shock system in the HDs and Macs also have a built in SMS system which tends to lead to kernal panics when the two shock systems operate at the same time.

I read that WD has two different HDDs, one with the anti-shock and one without it. Which model doesn't have the anti-shock? And if I can't find a model with the anti-shock, how would I turn off one of the shock systems to prevent kernal panics? Am I over thinking this?

Thanks for answering all of my questions everyone. ; n;...
 
It depends on what you want. Longer battery life, faster performance, less heat, more storage, cheaper, etc.

SSD- more expensive, less storage. WAY faster, less heat, no noise, and longer battery life.

HDD - cheaper, bigger storage.

I just got a brand new 2010 macbook pro 13 and was getting pretty bad battery life out of the box. It was around 4 hour of light use and 2-3 of maybe "heavier" use with youtube and music. I took out the HD yesterday (250gb Toshiba) and replaced it with a good performance Corsair P128 that draws very low power on idle and active, and right now as im typing this, my battery indicates 9:13. It goes down to 6 or even 4 depending on what i'm doing but i never saw 9 hours while browsing. Same brightness and everything else. I did remove indexing from spotlight though. But honestly, it is worth the money. My boot time is 15 seconds and apps are instant. One bounce max on the dock before its open. Everything is just more efficient, its like an upgraded computer.

But I only have 128gb of space. Which actually is plenty even with m 25gb of music. What I did was I ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexSta...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1296177299&sr=8-2

for $9.99 and i'm putting my 250gb HD in it to have a tiny little external that has all my other stuff on it. Its the size of a small laptop hd so it really doesnt bother me. I only use it when I need it.

I did look into the dual bay HDs and taking out the optical drive but battery life is an issue so I didn't go that route.
 
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komseban said:
So, I figure it's best to continue this topic.

I read that WD HDs tend to have an anti-shock system in the HDs and Macs also have a built in SMS system which tends to lead to kernal panics when the two shock systems operate at the same time.

I read that WD has two different HDDs, one with the anti-shock and one without it. Which model doesn't have the anti-shock? And if I can't find a model with the anti-shock, how would I turn off one of the shock systems to prevent kernal panics? Am I over thinking this?

Thanks for answering all of my questions everyone. ; n;...
Click to expand...

If you got the BEKT you will be fine as it does not have that added protection. With that said, even with the protection, the kernel panics don't seem to be a very big issue. None-the-less, the BEKT version is the ideal choice. You'll like the drive; it is about as good as HDDs go.
 
I got the Scorpio Blue 500gb a couple months ago and I can't recommend it over a standard Apple one. The drive spins up and down constantly and makes a slight whirring sound every time it does it. Most people won't care about the little sounds, but it bugs me. My computer also hangs a second or two every time it happens too. Very annoying. I had to buy an external enclosure and use it as an external HD in the end.

The standard one Apple has built in is deadly quiet. I know they don't make HDs, but they must do something or find manufacturers who make them to pass their standard of quality.
 
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