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Mac Pro & Hard Drives

Mr.Noisy

Mr.Noisy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 5, 2007
1,077
4
UK™
I've been looking around at hard drives for my MP, ive been talking to a few people that recommended Western Digital, if this is the case would the one ive seen at http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/124228
do the job?
Just a simple yes or no will suffice, hopefully order them tomorrow when ive made my mind up, tar ;)
 
mustang_dvs said:
WDC drives are failure-prone garbage.
Click to expand...

Must be why Apple uses them.

OP: I have 4 WD drives and I've had no problems with them whatsoever. They're also much quieter than most other alternatives. The one you point to is the quietest 500 GB WD SATA drive yet (has 3 larger capacity platters instead of 4).
 
akadmon said:
Must be why Apple uses them.

OP: I have 4 WD drives and I've had no problems with them whatsoever. They're also much quieter than most other alternatives. The one you point to is the quietest 500 GB WD SATA drive yet (has 3 larger capacity platters instead of 4).
Click to expand...

Apple has also used Maxtor (also historically garbage), Seagate, Fujitsu and IBM/Hitachi -- it's not like they've exclusively endorsed WDC.

I've had nothing but trouble from WD products -- 10-15 failures over 9 years in a clean, cool, low-impact office environment (out of approximately 50 Macs and PCs), 3-4 failures in my personal Macs since 1991 (first WD failure was in an LC). I've never used a WD drive in a server (thankfully), so I've no personal data on their reliability in such uses. The only drives that have even come close to this failure rate, in my personal experience, are the infamous IBM 75GXP -- the 'DeathStar' -- which was responsible for 5 or 6 migranes back in 2000/2001.

If fact, of the 4 bare ATA-IV/V drives sitting on my desk (clearing out old stuff for a final eBay purge), the only one that won't spin up is a 20GB Caviar that was removed from my Cube upon purchase, and has been stored in a static bag, wrapped in a foam case. The WD 250GB that came OEM in my Mac Pro will be replaced within the next 3 months...

Of course, WDC could have cleaned up it's act and started building decent products, but then why do they have such a spotty warranty policy...
 
mustang_dvs said:
Apple has also used Maxtor (also historically garbage), Seagate, Fujitsu and IBM/Hitachi -- it's not like they've exclusively endorsed WDC.

Of course, WDC could have cleaned up it's act and started building decent products, but then why do they have such a spotty warranty policy...
Click to expand...

The drive OP is considering has a 3 year warranty.

I appreciate your extensive experience. Personally, I don't have any experience with Seagate drives, but numerous complaints about their loudness have turned me off to them. I'd rather buy another drive in 3 years than live with a loud one for five.
 
akadmon said:
The drive OP is considering has a 3 year warranty.

I appreciate your extensive experience. Personally, I don't have any experience with Seagate drives, but numerous complaints about their loudness have turned me off to them. I'd rather buy another drive in 3 years than live with a loud one for five.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The 5-year warranty on a Seagate means about zilch to me since the real issue is whether the drive crashes on me and I lose my data, not whether I have to pay for a new drive (in four years, I can buy a lot better for a lot less). I've mentioned this before, but longer warranties usually imply crappier products, not better products (i.e. you have to give a longer warranty to sell the product; why Honda gets away with a 3-year warranty and Hyundai has a 10-year warranty). I'm not saying that Seagates are trash, by any means, but a 5-year warranty really means little to me. I've had no problems with my WD's. Maxtors on the otherhand... louder than crap. I have a Seagate and two WD's on my MP. The Seagate appears to be the louder of the bunch.

cheers.
 
What is the different between an WD5000AAKS and a WD5000WS. Which one is their newer generation one? The WD5000WS have good reviews on them, but what about the WD5000AAKS? I don't see retail store selling this. Seagate and Western both have chances of failing, but I would prefer Seagate more though if it not for the loud noise. Since the Mac Pro is so quiet I would go for the Western Digital. I got a 500GB Seagate and it was dissapointing because it was very noisy. Read the reviews on NewEgg and most will say the same. Also with Western Digital you can use the Hitachi Drive Ulitility to reduce the drive noise to very low you can barely hear it.
 
Tangerine said:
What is the different between an WD5000AAKS and a WD5000WS. Which one is their newer generation one? The WD5000WS have good reviews on them, but what about the WD5000AAKS? I don't see retail store selling this. Seagate and Western both have chances of failing, but I would prefer Seagate more though if it not for the loud noise. Since the Mac Pro is so quiet I would go for the Western Digital. I got a 500GB Seagate and it was dissapointing because it was very noisy. Read the reviews on NewEgg and most will say the same. Also with Western Digital you can use the Hitachi Drive Ulitility to reduce the drive noise to very low you can barely hear it.
Click to expand...

I believe that there are higher density platters used in the AAKS, which means fewer platters could be used for the same capacity drive (or a higher capacity drive could fit in the same (physical) sized drive). It should also lead to slightly faster reading.

cheers.
 
dkoralek said:
I believe that there are higher density platters used in the AAKS, which means fewer platters could be used for the same capacity drive (or a higher capacity drive could fit in the same (physical) sized drive). It should also lead to slightly faster reading.

cheers.
Click to expand...

The AAKS is the newest drive from WD. It has 3 higher density platters. I have both this and the older 4-platter version. According to the benchmarking software I use, there is no substantial difference in perfomance. I've also done real world tests on them (copy a large iMowie project) and found no difference in speed.
 
akadmon said:
The AAKS is the newest drive from WD. It has 3 higher density platters. I have both this and the older 4-platter version. According to the benchmarking software I use, there is no substantial difference in perfomance. I've also done real world tests on them (copy a large iMowie project) and found no difference in speed.
Click to expand...

Not terribly shocking to me (why I qualified it with slightly). The big advantage, clearly, is that they can increase the capactiy of their hard drives (since they can fit more capacity in the same number of platters).

cheers.
 
One thing to keep in mind that a lot of people forget is to remove the SATA 1.5 Gbit/s jumper setting. Most new SATA 3.0 drives come set in SATA 1 mode out of the box and you need to adjust the jumper to allow 3.0 SATAII
 
dr01dy said:
One thing to keep in mind that a lot of people forget is to remove the SATA 1.5 Gbit/s jumper setting. Most new SATA 3.0 drives come set in SATA 1 mode out of the box and you need to adjust the jumper to allow 3.0 SATAII
Click to expand...

:eek: What?? Can you elaborate or guide me to a how-to page on this matter?

I recently added 2 WD 150GB Raptors and 1 WD 500GB disk and just stuck'em in there with no further tweaking. Im I missing something?

Thanks
 
mustang_dvs said:
WDC drives are failure-prone garbage.
Click to expand...

This is very helpful information <sarcasm>. Care to back up that statement with any facts, or do you just like to spread disinformation??

Seriously, just because you have had trouble doesn't mean other people will. Every drive fails sooner or later and that depends on more conditions than just how made the drive is made. Excessive heat by poor case ventilation, improper shutdown and power surges, are just few of the conditions that can cause a drive to fail before it's time. Those conditions can happen to any drive, so don't single out one manufacturer as being bad. Aside from that, you are playing a game of chance on hard drive failure. I have an old toshiba drive that just keeps chugging along after 6 years, and a Seagate that died within 2 months out of the box.
 
I used to test hard drives for a living.

Seagates are the best, followed by IBM (Hitachi) and Western Digital.

WD's tend to get warmer than the others and use more power (but, appropriately, they seem to have a higher tolerance for that sort of thing), Seagates are usually fastest.

Maxtor and quantum are crap.

So yeah, I'd recommend WD. check prices on http://www.newegg.com first though, as you may get a better deal there.
 
tribe3 said:
:eek: What?? Can you elaborate or guide me to a how-to page on this matter?

I recently added 2 WD 150GB Raptors and 1 WD 500GB disk and just stuck'em in there with no further tweaking. Im I missing something?

Thanks
Click to expand...

you should see the jumper on the drive if you look next to the power connector. I would pull out a drive and just read the label or look up the disks information on the manufacturers website. I had to do this with a Seagate that I just got off of newegg.
 
It is best to not have any Jumper on the Drive at all? Since this are SATA Hard Drive interface. Most WD I don't think it have jumper put on them, I do notice the Seagate have it though. It limit it to 1.5GB make me wonder why it was there in the first place.
 
Tangerine said:
It is best to not have any Jumper on the Drive at all? Since this are SATA Hard Drive interface. Most WD I don't think it have jumper put on them, I do notice the Seagate have it though. It limit it to 1.5GB make me wonder why it was there in the first place.
Click to expand...



I am not sure why they do it but I am glad they have it because on my freebsd box the motherboard is not 3.0

anyway I hope it helps someone out
 
Tangerine said:
It is best to not have any Jumper on the Drive at all? Since this are SATA Hard Drive interface. Most WD I don't think it have jumper put on them, I do notice the Seagate have it though. It limit it to 1.5GB make me wonder why it was there in the first place.
Click to expand...

SATA 1.0 has a maximum theoretical transfer limit of 1.5GB/s

SATA 2.5 has a maximum theoretical transfer limit of 3.0GB/s

If you run an SATA 2.5 drive on a SATA 1.0 chipset, limiting the transfer speed eliminates the potential for data loss and system instability. (Think of it like trying to force 30 liters per second through a hose that can only handle 15 liters per second.)
 
dkoralek said:
Exactly. The 5-year warranty on a Seagate means about zilch to me since the real issue is whether the drive crashes on me and I lose my data, not whether I have to pay for a new drive (in four years, I can buy a lot better for a lot less). I've mentioned this before, but longer warranties usually imply crappier products, not better products (i.e. you have to give a longer warranty to sell the product; why Honda gets away with a 3-year warranty and Hyundai has a 10-year warranty). I'm not saying that Seagates are trash, by any means, but a 5-year warranty really means little to me.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's some bass ackwards logic. If the drives are more prone to failure, wouldn't extending the free service and replacement cost a company more money? Conversely, if a manufacturer knows that its product has a limited lifespan, wouldn't it be in their interest for the "standard" warranty to end before that average lifespan is up?

BTW, car warranties and electronics warranties are apples and oranges -- American Honda's factory warranties vary from 3/36k to 5/60k, depending on model, and can be extended to 10/100k for a fee. The reason for the short warranty is that a long warranty does no bolster Honda's image, and given the extremely long life-cycles of their cars (versus the industry average), a long warranty only promotes private owner sales of existing vehicles, rather than new vehicle sales. Hyundai, which actually has relatively decent initial quality and product lifespans (better than Ford and Mazda, IIRC), is trying to establish a presence and positive reputation in the U.S. market, so the longer warranties encourage initial and subsequent owners to keep their Hyundai's on the road for a longer period, potentially enhancing brand awareness.

It's rare that a computer carry a hood ornament, even moreso that the hood ornament feature the hard drive's logo. WD's carry a short warranty because they're cheap. Seagate's carry a longer warranty because they're not.
 
I'd recommend you to use this WD:
Code: 
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0
While the original WD that came with MP is:
Code: 
WDC WD2500AAJS-41RYA0
The series above is the same level/quality, has SATA2 interface, and the same 250GB.
 
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