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Just installed a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 5400 on Macbook Aluminum

philosopherdog

philosopherdog

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 29, 2008
815
664
Just a quick note. I know some of you might be thinking of updating your hard drive on the Macbook Aluminum, and you might be worried the new drive will make things worse on the noise and heat front. Anyhow, I wanted to say that I just installed the Seagate Momentus 5400 speed, 500 GB, and I would say that my 2.4 ghz MB is running a bit cooler and probably a bit quieter as well. I would personally avoid the 7200 drive since it will generate more heat. The HD is what generates all the heat in the left corner of the laptop. So be careful. The stock drive I removed was a Toshiba 250 gb, and I compared the specs to the Seagate and the new drive definitely has a longer life rating among other things. The drive was pretty cheap. It was a simple process that took about 2 hours to pull off the cloning part. The only tiny complication is that there are these little screws that you have to remove from the old drive. You will need a good pair of needle nose pliers to get them off, or a very small allen key. 1/2 a terra byte! Sweet.
 
philosopherdog said:
Just a quick note. I know some of you might be thinking of updating your hard drive on the Macbook Aluminum, and you might be worried the new drive will make things worse on the noise and heat front. Anyhow, I wanted to say that I just installed the Seagate Momentus 5400 speed, 500 GB, and I would say that my 2.4 ghz MB is running a bit cooler and probably a bit quieter as well. I would personally avoid the 7200 drive since it will generate more heat. The HD is what generates all the heat in the left corner of the laptop. So be careful. The stock drive I removed was a Toshiba 250 gb, and I compared the specs to the Seagate and the new drive definitely has a longer life rating among other things. The drive was pretty cheap. It was a simple process that took about 2 hours to pull off the cloning part. The only tiny complication is that there are these little screws that you have to remove from the old drive. You will need a good pair of needle nose pliers to get them off, or a very small allen key. 1/2 a terra byte! Sweet.
Click to expand...

congratz on the upgrade, keep me us informed on how its going in a few weeks.

i was tempted to upgrade to a 500gb drive as well but i was swayed by my friend into waiting until summer to pick up a nice ssd drive.

ssd will be widely used by hp and dell in the new laptops debuting out so that should crash the prices.
 
nice upgrade there. i recently added a 500 gb hard drive to my macbook pro (late 2006).

and yes, those screws on the drive that you have to take off, they do make screw drivers for them, but i think i ended up using pliers also, lol
 
Congrats on the upgrade! For the record, they take a Torx-6 screwdriver. I picked up an electronics screwdriver set just for that upgrade (and I needed a set anyway). I've upgraded to a Seagate 320GB 7200rpm drive and loving it. I don't mind the heat, and maybe it's just my imagination but I've noticed things seem a bit snappier now with it.

BTW, I used SuperDuper! to clone and I noticed that things were actually running slower at first. Then I read that it fragments the drive during the process (it copies files alphabetically and doesn't preserve the optimization inherent in OS X), so I ended up using my old drive to do a Time Machine backup and did a fresh install of OS X and restored from the backup.
 
philosopherdog said:
The HD is what generates all the heat in the left corner of the laptop.
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From which orientation? Looking towards the screen and down towards the keyboard the hard drive is situated in the bottom right corner so the heat it generates would be in that area.
 
tubbymac said:
From which orientation? Looking towards the screen and down towards the keyboard the hard drive is situated in the bottom right corner so the heat it generates would be in that area.
Click to expand...

Good observation. I had that around the wrong way. So, what creates the heat in the left corner (looking at the screen), since the drive doesn't sit there but the battery?
 
skorpien said:
Congrats on the upgrade! For the record, they take a Torx-6 screwdriver. I picked up an electronics screwdriver set just for that upgrade (and I needed a set anyway). I've upgraded to a Seagate 320GB 7200rpm drive and loving it. I don't mind the heat, and maybe it's just my imagination but I've noticed things seem a bit snappier now with it.

BTW, I used SuperDuper! to clone and I noticed that things were actually running slower at first. Then I read that it fragments the drive during the process (it copies files alphabetically and doesn't preserve the optimization inherent in OS X), so I ended up using my old drive to do a Time Machine backup and did a fresh install of OS X and restored from the backup.
Click to expand...

Yes, I thought SuperDuper looked problematic. I went with Carbon Copy Cloner, latest version. It runs an ad, but it was incredibly fast. 2 hrs to copy 125 gbs of data. You can do it with the Timemachine, but you will have to install OS X and also any patches and non-native printer drivers. But it's quite doable. I personally recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for this task. I think it's probably the best thing for trouble free cloning.
 
fuzzycuffs said:
Any suggestions between the Seagate Momentus and the WD Blue?
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Generally Seagate is better. Just get the detailed specs (especially the estimated life of the drive) and compare them. So far the Momentus has been solid. Some folks complain about excess noise and vibration with the 7200 and not much of a performance gain. So, I'd stick with the 5400, but that's a personal call. The Seagate has a 5 year warranty. You don't need a receipt either. Just plug the serial number in to their site. I returned a drive to them recently and it was quick and efficiently done. I was impressed. They're a good company to deal with for sure. Toshiba on the other hand... forget it.
 
philosopherdog said:
Good observation. I had that around the wrong way. So, what creates the heat in the left corner (looking at the screen), since the drive doesn't sit there but the battery?
Click to expand...

The left side is where the Logic Board (and therefore the CPU and GPU) is situated. It's probably the heat coming from the CPU and GPU that you're feeling.
 
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