Mac Pro Hard Drive/Enterprise Server?

[hobes270]

Hey!

I just got an 09 Mac Pro 2.26Ghz. I am wanting to put a new hard drive into it. I see on mac sales (OWC) that for the 1TB option they have a few different ones. Some go as low as $100 and as high as $170. What is the difference? There is also a high performance one for like $140?? Or well thats what it says.

Does it pay to get the more expensive hard drives? The more expensive ones say Enterprise or Server in the title. What does that mean? I understand the whole RPM, and cache, but they are the same for the $100 one and the $170 one. Thanks for your help!

 

[hatehereyes]

The entperprise/server drives are designed to be put into servers which data is being read/written to almost 24/7 so they will last a lot longer.
that is why they're more expensive.

 

[POLOgt]

I always leave my Mac Pro on, and that is why I bought four 750GB RE2-GP series hard drives from Western Digital.

They are good hard drives, that will last over 5 years, and they also have the 5 year warranty.
I know I will get a new Mac Pro within that time frame, and they will survive till then.

I would recommend the RE3 hard drives though if you are going to buy now, they have the 32MB cache

 

[dagomike]

My 07 Octo came with a regular Barracuda. For the prices and applications of the Mac Pro, you'd think Apple would bump that up to an ES.2. I assume Apple hasn't changed, this but if anyone wants to verify, that would be cool.

I always buy server drives when I can. When I put in for the new Octo I'll probably upgrade the internal HD to 1 TB, then buy three 1 TB ES.2/NS drives.

 

[jng204]

My MP09 came with a Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Blue. This is how I have configured my setup.

Drive 1: WD Raptor 160 GB 15K
Drive 2: WD RE3 1 TB
Drive 3: WD Blue 640 GB
Drive 4: WD Raptor 160 GB 15K

Reasoning as follows:
Drive 1: Just for the OS and applications as it is the fastest drive I have.
Drive 2: This is for all my data files so will use the most reliable drive (Pics, musics, etc)
Drive 3: Will use this for the time machine.
Drive 4: Optional use for Scratch Disk and Boot Camp for Windows XP

Anyone have any other configurations that works well to make the OS more efficient?

Thanks,
Josh