Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How long do laptop Hard drives last?

jwolf6589

jwolf6589

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 15, 2010
4,964
1,671
Colorado
I guess the answer will depend on various factors and usage. My mom has a white MacBook from 2009 and the original hard drive is still running strong so they can last a very long time. Okay in my case I bought my 2012 MacBook Pro in Mid 2015 brand new from Apple over the phone. According to Tech Tools Pro (latest version) its in great health. I have considered upgrading to a SSD but... the problem is the cost and I will have to re-install and reformat my boot camp Windows 10 partition again which is no fun chore. Windows runs faster with conventional hard drives than the Mac for some reason.

My usage needs are mainly web browsing, MS Office, Quicken, watching movies, viewing photos, etc.. My present conventional hard drive runs fine except for when I upgrade the OS.

So what are your experiences with conventional hard drives? My MacBook just sits on my desk and hardly goes anywhere.
 
Not sure where the info comes from saying Windows runs faster HD than SSD. For what you are doing, there may be little benefit moving to SSD.
 
If you are running fine the way you are, I wouldn't worry with messing with it
As long as you keep current backups (I use Time Machine & Carbon Copy Cloner for a bootable clone)
Drives will eventually fail, but there are so many factors involved it is hard to predict

But SSDs are the way to go these days, and you would like see some performance gains
Yes, it would takes some work and inconvenience, but only you can determine if it is worth it to upgrade
 
TonyK said:
Not sure where the info comes from saying Windows runs faster HD than SSD. For what you are doing, there may be little benefit moving to SSD.
Click to expand...

Try launching apps like MS Office or Quicken on Windows and then try launching them on the Mac. They launch many times faster on Windows with a conventional hard drive.
 
As you say, longevity is dependent on a number of factors. The good thing is you can usually tell when it's about to go and hopefully do something about it. As far as MacOS on a HDD, it has seemingly been optimised for SSDs at this point and from what I hear, newer versions don't perform all that well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samuelsan2001
Unless you want a speed boost save you money, better to put it into an external for backup purpose. HDD can and do fail as does everything else. In general they are very reliable and given your hardly moving the notebook the risk is lowered.

SSD will give both Windows and OS X a speed boot in reading & writing data. You'll be looking at a SATA drive with lower capacities being not priced to high say 500Gb for around $150.

On a sub note Windows 10 runs faster and more fluid as Microsoft must optimise the OS for very low tier hardware, Apple has no such requirement. So the effect to the end user with an older Mac is that W10 feels faster and more responsive.

Q-6
 
  • Like
Reactions: Falhófnir
Queen6 said:
Unless you want a speed boost save you money, better to put it into an external for backup purpose. HDD can and do fail as does everything else. In general they are very reliable and given your hardly moving the notebook the risk is lowered.

SSD will give both Windows and OS X a speed boot in reading & writing data. You'll be looking at a SATA drive with lower capacities being not priced to high say 500Gb for around $150.

On a sub note Windows 10 runs faster and more fluid as Microsoft must optimise the OS for very low tier hardware, Apple has no such requirement. So the effect to the end user with an older Mac is that W10 feels faster and more responsive.

Q-6
Click to expand...

Well yes if I was moving my laptop all the time I would have bought a SSD. But since it sits on my desk 99% of the time..
[doublepost=1517151431][/doublepost]
Falhófnir said:
As you say, longevity is dependent on a number of factors. The good thing is you can usually tell when it's about to go and hopefully do something about it. As far as MacOS on a HDD, it has seemingly been optimised for SSDs at this point and from what I hear, newer versions don't perform all that well.
Click to expand...

Hi-Sierra actually runs faster on the machine than Siera and El Capitan did.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Falhófnir
I've come to the conclusion that 2.5" laptop drives are more "robust" than 3.5" drives -- probably built that way because of the type of "service life" to which they'd be subjected.

I've had a few 3.5" drives fail.
But the 2.5" platter-based drives I've had are ALL still running -- some more than 10 years old.

My "sample" is (admittedly) not large -- say 4 or 5 drives.
But they all still work without problems.
(I may regret having said that!)

Having said that...
IF you have a MacBook Pro that has an "upgradeable" drive,
PUT AN SSD INTO IT (shouting intentional).
It will breathe new life into it, and make it feel like a new machine.
It's that simple.

You might also consider replacing the drive ribbon cable while it's open.
They are a known "weak point" on that particular model.
Hmmm....
I've read that someone put tape on the back cover (where the ribbon cable touches it), and that could prevent the problem... if you don't have any manifestation of it, yet. Cheap and easy fix...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samuelsan2001
jwolf6589 said:
Try launching apps like MS Office or Quicken on Windows and then try launching them on the Mac. They launch many times faster on Windows with a conventional hard drive.
Click to expand...

Well my professional, Windows 7 work computer did just that, used a SSD for its primary drive. In addition to Windows, Outlook/Office we also ran Visual Studio with no ill effect or issues.

Then my work system was replaced and I hate trying to use it with a standard HD only.

So I do have experience and would love to see the numbers from a reputable 3rd party site that would test a HD against a SSD for Windows.
 
Fishrrman said:
I've come to the conclusion that 2.5" laptop drives are more "robust" than 3.5" drives -- probably built that way because of the type of "service life" to which they'd be subjected.

I've had a few 3.5" drives fail.
But the 2.5" platter-based drives I've had are ALL still running -- some more than 10 years old.

My "sample" is (admittedly) not large -- say 4 or 5 drives.
But they all still work without problems.
(I may regret having said that!)

Having said that...
IF you have a MacBook Pro that has an "upgradeable" drive,
PUT AN SSD INTO IT (shouting intentional).
It will breathe new life into it, and make it feel like a new machine.
It's that simple.

You might also consider replacing the drive ribbon cable while it's open.
They are a known "weak point" on that particular model.
Hmmm....
I've read that someone put tape on the back cover (where the ribbon cable touches it), and that could prevent the problem... if you don't have any manifestation of it, yet. Cheap and easy fix...
Click to expand...


I have had zero problems with my drive so far.
 
All drives work until they fail. All - spinners (2.5 or 3.5 inch) or SSD may die.
I use quite a lot of drives (home/work) on Windows and OSX systems (as well as Linux). Had drives dying early and late, some very old ones still work. My 4 disk attached storage had all 4 disks replaced at least once within the ~6 years I have it (they run literally all the time). I had SSD fail less than 3 months in use, others are running for more than 3 years and look perfect. Simply - do NOT trust any disk and backup, backup, backup...
SSD is faster for every OS. I have similar Windows systems - the one with HD is much slower to start/open programs than SSD based one. Same applies for OSX and for Linux.
Truth is that Apple may be bit "abusing" their hardware advantage - I was shocked that my daughter new MBA clocked 1700MB/s SSD read/write (for ~$1k machine not bad). Easy to get that underpowered system to run quickly! The best you get out of 2.5 inch SSD is ~$550MB/s - and that is MUCH better than what typical 2.5 inch HD gives (~100MB/s).
Whatever you run, backup, backup, backup... Multiple backups are critical. Any HD/SSD will eventually fail - and at the worst possible time.
 
Like Fishrrman, my experience with 2.5" drives has been somewhat better than 3.5" drives, but it's hardly statistically significant. Looking at current and past machines, and including backup drives, I can count maybe 8-10 of the 2.5 inch and 35-40 of the 3.5 inch. Zero fails with the 2.5 inch and 3 fails (2 of them excessively annoying) on the 3.5 inch.

But yes, drives run until they don't. The usual "bathtub curve" for hard drives says that if you survive the initial few months, you're statistically more or less OK for a few years, and then the rate of failure gradually goes up. But, it's a bit like being a U238 atom ... the half-life might be 4.5 billion years, but YOUR time could come any second. If you operate under the assumption that failure could hit at any moment, and back things up properly (and back up your backups), you're doing it right.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Queen6
If you don't have an SSD already, buy one.

I haven't ran a Mac with a conventional hard drive since 2010 (Intel X-25, 80GB!). Nobody got time for that.

jwolf6589 said:
Try launching apps like MS Office or Quicken on Windows and then try launching them on the Mac. They launch many times faster on Windows with a conventional hard drive.
Click to expand...
That's really more of the fact that Microsoft has optimized Office to open very fast on Windows. It's their bread and butter product.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samuelsan2001
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back