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Large Hard Drive Recommendation

B

bielen

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 26, 2008
153
9
New Jersey
I currently use the unibody MacBook Pro with a 230GB 5400rpm stock hard drvie. I'm looking to upgrade to a 320gb 7200rpm or 500gb 5400rpm.

Any recommendations between the Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung drives? I'd like to wait for 500gb 7200rpm, but I have a variety of web development projects and VMWare virtual systems taking up space. I plan to put the 230 in an external case and use to backup select files.

Since I work with small files, would the 7200rpm provide a good speed bump versus what I have or should I just go for the storage?

Thanks
 
Check out tom's hardware guide for an a$$load of benchmarks. I've got the 320 gig scorpio black, and I can tell a difference in bootup, cold app launches, and file transfers.

I don't know if I'd want a brand new type of disk. Seems a rev a. is asking for trouble..
 
I also went with the WD 320g. It's been great so far, no issues at all.

Soon, I will be pondering the 500g.
 
Tom's benchies are really outdated.

Anyway, Western Digital drives are the most reliable I've ever owned. They're all I buy, now.

The 7200RPM will be significantly faster - you'll want it.
 
bielen said:
I hope this is true. This is the drive I really want and need. I called Seagate today and the tech support person said January or February to OEM and 60-90 days after that before manufacturers start using the drive.
Click to expand...

Well my sales rep told me 12/16 is when they'll have it in stock supposedly, though these things do get delayed..
 
wiseguy27 said:
Go for 5400rpm - lesser heat (and probably noise). Make sure that you confirm the drive's height - it should be 9mm. There are 2.5" notebook drives that have a 12.5mm height (mainly Hitachi) - those may not fit (well?) in your MBP.

I recently got the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 ST9500325AS 500GB 5400 RPM drive from newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148371).
Click to expand...

Negligible. 7200rpms greatly outweighs the 1 degree difference in temperature and that 2dB of extra noise that you can't really hear.
 
Heres a Samsung 500 GB, for $109. Its also a 7200 rpm OEM drive, and 9.5 mm thick.

I'm not sure how good Samsung drives are, but i think that i would choose a slow RPM drive to conserve a battery power. However if i was not concerned about the battery consumption, i would choose a faster RPM drive.
 
Sweetfeld28 said:
Heres a Samsung 500 GB, for $109. Its also a 7200 rpm OEM drive, and 9.5 mm thick.

I'm not sure how good Samsung drives are, but i think that i would choose a slow RPM drive to conserve a battery power. However if i was not concerned about the battery consumption, i would choose a faster RPM drive.
Click to expand...

5400rpm. Seagate is the first with 500gb @ 7200rpm. Also WD hasn't even announced a 500gb @ 7200rpm so it'll be quite a while before they have anything.
 
Just wanna bump up this thread, I'm the owner of a Unibody MB and I want to get a 500GB HDD upgrade. There are so many options though and Seagate has their system of 5400.6 or 7200.3, trying hard to make sense of it all.

Several months have passed since the last reply in this thread so what's new out there and what would you guys recommend for me?
BTW I'm located in Canada, thanks a bunch for the help
 
Jimbo Slice said:
Just wanna bump up this thread, I'm the owner of a Unibody MB and I want to get a 500GB HDD upgrade. There are so many options though and Seagate has their system of 5400.6 or 7200.3, trying hard to make sense of it all.

Several months have passed since the last reply in this thread so what's new out there and what would you guys recommend for me?
BTW I'm located in Canada, thanks a bunch for the help
Click to expand...

I've been waiting on the 500gb 7200 Seagate drive. It's out of stock everywhere. NewEgg and OWC both carry the drive. OWC has their in-stock counter down to 6 days, but I've seen jump around so who really knows when it will be available.
 
i've got the seagate 320gb 7200. i threw the old hard drive in an enclosure and used it as a backup/media center and you can really tell the difference between the two drives. and about which hard drive to get? basically too me, a working hard drive is a working hard drive. and a non working HD is a non working HD. no preference
 
bielen said:
I've been waiting on the 500gb 7200 Seagate drive. It's out of stock everywhere. NewEgg and OWC both carry the drive. OWC has their in-stock counter down to 6 days, but I've seen jump around so who really knows when it will be available.
Click to expand...

Is that the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200.4?

If so why did you choose that drive?
 
ive been considering an upgrade as well. 7200rpm looks like the way to go. Only one question: does replacing your hard drive affect your OS? Would you have to reinstall it (im assuming u must)? And dont the disks that come with the MB and MBP only contain part of the OS?
 
MacBook.Matt said:
ive been considering an upgrade as well. 7200rpm looks like the way to go. Only one question: does replacing your hard drive affect your OS? Would you have to reinstall it (im assuming u must)? And dont the disks that come with the MB and MBP only contain part of the OS?
Click to expand...

Get a sata cable and you can use carbon copy cloner to clone the old disk to the new one. Otherwise, you have to format the disk and reinstall the OS. The two disks that come with your system contain everything that was on your system when you first booted it up.
 
I have a unibody macbook and put in the wd scorpio black 320gb and while it was fast there was a good amount of vibration and my battery life took about a 20 minute hit over the stock hd. I returned that drive and put in the wd scorpio blue 500gb and I could not be more pleased. This drive is just as fast as the lower density 7200 as far as I can tell, it has an extra 180gb, and there is no vibration or noise whatsoever. Just to put it in perspective, I was hitting 133 on xbench with the stock drive, with the scorpio black and the scorpio blue I got 149 with everything else being equal.
 
natebookpro said:
I have a unibody macbook and put in the wd scorpio black 320gb and while it was fast there was a good amount of vibration and my battery life took about a 20 minute hit over the stock hd.
Click to expand...

That's funny, I have the scorpio black 7200RPM 320GB drive, and I have the same battery life and there's no noticeable vibration or noise (I have a Unibody Macbook too). Maybe you just got a bad drive? :confused:
 
I just pulled the trigger on a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 SATA 3Gb/s 500-GB Hard Drive on Dell.ca as they're having an amazing sale on this HDD.

Anyone have experience with this drive?
 
John Jacob said:
That's funny, I have the scorpio black 7200RPM 320GB drive, and I have the same battery life and there's no noticeable vibration or noise (I have a Unibody Macbook too). Maybe you just got a bad drive? :confused:
Click to expand...

Yea I have heard conflicting things on it. I thought bout sending it back but just didn't feel like having to send it back a second time. Basically lazyness pushed me towards the 500gb haha
 
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