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Macbook Pro hd Upgrade

It'll work, but it's an older discontinued model (according to Newegg). It's also 5400RPM - you would get better performance out of a 7200RPM.

For the best performance, get something on this page. (Well, an SSD would give much better performance, but it's a lot more)
 
Go ssd if you can find one big enough for your need, and I would go 5400rpm over 7200rpm in a laptop.
 
smoge said:
Go ssd if you can find one big enough for your need, and I would go 5400rpm over 7200rpm in a laptop.
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There's not as much reason as there used to be to go 5400PM except cost and available capacity.

As for your SSD comment. Did you look at the size drive the user was upgrading from and looking at to buy? Yes he could find an SSD with enough capacity, but I doubt he would be able to find the funding for an SSD that large.
 
As for your SSD comment. Did you look at the size drive the user was upgrading from and looking at to buy? Yes he could find an SSD with enough capacity, but I doubt he would be able to find the funding for an SSD that large.[/QUOTE]

how do you know hes not rich plus the 5400 rpm over 7200 is not cost but reliability.
 
burty22 said:
Whilst awaiting the launch of the new os I thought this would be a good time to upgrade my HD in my macbook pro 13". I have already upgraded it to a 320gb hd, however i have already ran out of room.
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I have a new 13" MBP. Installed an Intel 160GB SSD and put the OEM 500GB in an external inclosure. Now I have a much faster Mac and lots of easily accessible storage.
 
Bear said:
There's not as much reason as there used to be to go 5400PM except cost and available capacity.
Click to expand...

That strikes me as just a bit funny, because those are two perfectly valid reasons to go with a 5400 RPM drive.

The only advantages to an SSD for most people are speed in booting and in launching applications; those advantages are offset for most by the substantial additional cost of an SSD.

Given that the OP has a 13", I'd stick with a 5400 RPM drive anyway--at least in the new 2.3 GHz i5 model, all the 7200 RPM drives I tried created unacceptable (to me) levels of vibration.
 
Naimfan said:
That strikes me as just a bit funny, because those are two perfectly valid reasons to go with a 5400 RPM drive.

The only advantages to an SSD for most people are speed in booting and in launching applications; those advantages are offset for most by the substantial additional cost of an SSD.

Given that the OP has a 13", I'd stick with a 5400 RPM drive anyway--at least in the new 2.3 GHz i5 model, all the 7200 RPM drives I tried created unacceptable (to me) levels of vibration.
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thank you, that what ive been trying to say 7200rpm drive in a laptop the negatives out weight the positive (slitty better performance).
 
smoge said:
thank you, that what ive been trying to say 7200rpm drive in a laptop the negatives out weight the positive (slitty better performance).
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To each their own, I'm surprised you didn't mention that 5400rpm drives suck less battery power but I'm a pro 7200rpm kinda guy. And the vibration REALLY depends on the quality of drive you buy.

I'm looking at a Western Digital (for my 2010 13" MBP) 7200rpm 500Gb with the power requirements of a 5400rpm drive and has great reviews. (it's on newegg somewhere if you wanna take a look)

The only true negative I see in 7200rpm drives is that they are slightly louder, but not much.
 
Nuckinfuts said:
And the vibration REALLY depends on the quality of drive you buy.
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I tried a number of different 7200 RPM drives in my 2.3 GHz i5 13", and ALL of them created an unacceptable (to me). The one that created the least vibration was the Hitachi 500 GB/7200 RPM, but even that one made the machine feel like it was constantly vibrating. The WD Scorpio Black was worst--I thought the laptop was going to vibrate itself right off the desk. The 5400 RPM drives did not do that.

Interestingly (to me), the 15" MBPs don't suffer from the vibration problem. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I have a hard time believing it is simply the extra mass of the 15" that is responsible--perhaps the 15" has a bit more flex and is able to dissipate vibration better?

All that said, the OP would be fine with the drive he linked. Samsungs are generally quite good in my experience.
 
I'm currently looking into getting this guy here for my mid-2010 MBP. It's 5200rpm instead of the normal 5400rpm, but I reckon that won't be a noticeable drop in speed. Having a 1 TB HD in a notebook would be pretty awesome, plus it'll be another while before SSD's drop to a normal, affordable price that makes the increase in speed and battery life worthwhile.

For now, it'll be 1 TB, good ol' un-SSD HD. Anyone have experiences with this HD?
 
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friendlybombs said:
I'm currently looking into getting this guy here for my mid-2010 MBP. It's 5200rpm instead of the normal 5400rpm, but I reckon that won't be a noticeable drop in speed. Having a 1 TB HD in a notebook would be pretty awesome, plus it'll be another while before SSD's drop to a normal, affordable price that makes the increase in speed and battery life worthwhile.

For now, it'll be 1 TB, good ol' un-SSD HD. Anyone have experiences with this HD?
Click to expand...

I had this drive in my last laptop and I must say it was really slow (even for lower-RPM drives). My first one actually crapped out after a month, but my second one has been good so far after 6 months of continuous use.

Now that Samsung is coming out with their 2-platter, 9.5mm 1TB drive (5400RPM) that is MUCH faster than the WD, I'd say wait a bit and get that. A guy on here posted his benchmarks for it and it's easily 40-50% faster than the stock 750GB Apple drive, which is about the same as the WD 1TB drive.
 
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Naimfan said:
I tried a number of different 7200 RPM drives in my 2.3 GHz i5 13", and ALL of them created an unacceptable (to me). The one that created the least vibration was the Hitachi 500 GB/7200 RPM, but even that one made the machine feel like it was constantly vibrating. The WD Scorpio Black was worst--I thought the laptop was going to vibrate itself right off the desk. The 5400 RPM drives did not do that.

Interestingly (to me), the 15" MBPs don't suffer from the vibration problem. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I have a hard time believing it is simply the extra mass of the 15" that is responsible--perhaps the 15" has a bit more flex and is able to dissipate vibration better?

All that said, the OP would be fine with the drive he linked. Samsungs are generally quite good in my experience.
Click to expand...

Do you know if you had a 9.5mm or 12.5mm high drive? I think the 12.5mm drives are too big and that could be causing vibration. Whenever I see a "what hard drive should i buy" thread on here, after I get through all the SSD posts, someone always mentions 9.5mm max height
 
Nuckinfuts said:
Do you know if you had a 9.5mm or 12.5mm high drive? I think the 12.5mm drives are too big and that could be causing vibration. Whenever I see a "what hard drive should i buy" thread on here, after I get through all the SSD posts, someone always mentions 9.5mm max height
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All the ones I tried were 9.5 mm. The biggest one I tried was the 750 GB Scorpio Black.
 
awer25 said:
I had this drive in my last laptop and I must say it was really slow (even for lower-RPM drives). My first one actually crapped out after a month, but my second one has been good so far after 6 months of continuous use.

Now that Samsung is coming out with their 2-platter, 9.5mm 1TB drive (5400RPM) that is MUCH faster than the WD, I'd say wait a bit and get that. A guy on here posted his benchmarks for it and it's easily 40-50% faster than the stock 750GB Apple drive, which is about the same as the WD 1TB drive.
Click to expand...

Hey man, thanks for the mini-review. Why do you think it was so much slower - I didn't expect a mere 200rpm drop in speed to influence the speeds as strongly as you described with your laptop. Is it a mid-2010 MBP, too?

I read that the Samsung HD you're speaking about is also 12.5mm. You have any links to it?
 
pretty much any hard drive bigger than a 750gb is going to be at least 12.5mm, which is fine, if you are ok with a 5400 rpm hard drive. the 12.5mm will fit in the mbp without a problem or any modification. i have a 1.5TB in mine and i had to grind down the inside of the bottom cover slightly because its a 14.5mm. im planning on getting a 128gb ocz SSD to run my os's off of and use the 1.5 tb for storage... if you are looking for great performance and a hell of a lot of storage space on a budget, you are better off using an SSD/physical drive combo.. maybe not a 1.5TB, but even the western digital 1TB drive is cheap now.. although the WD model is atcually 5200rpm not 5400 like the rest of them.
 
friendlybombs said:
Hey man, thanks for the mini-review. Why do you think it was so much slower - I didn't expect a mere 200rpm drop in speed to influence the speeds as strongly as you described with your laptop. Is it a mid-2010 MBP, too?

I read that the Samsung HD you're speaking about is also 12.5mm. You have any links to it?
Click to expand...

It was in an HP HDX16t. I was using the stock 320GB 5400RPM drive for a while, but then upgraded to the WD 1TB drive. I thought it would be faster b/c of the higher data density, but my computer felt slower after installing it. I don't remember whether or not I actually benchmarked it, but I remember the definite feeling that everything had more of a lag.

Here's the Samsung drive I was talking about, and here's a thread with the benchmarks.
 
awer25 said:
It was in an HP HDX16t. I was using the stock 320GB 5400RPM drive for a while, but then upgraded to the WD 1TB drive. I thought it would be faster b/c of the higher data density, but my computer felt slower after installing it. I don't remember whether or not I actually benchmarked it, but I remember the definite feeling that everything had more of a lag.

Here's the Samsung drive I was talking about, and here's a thread with the benchmarks.
Click to expand...

Nice benchmarks result there, thanks for the links. A 2-platter 1TB HD is obviously gonna outrun a 3-platter setup. Seeing that I live in Germany I think I'll be getting one these days. Thanks for pointing it out to me!
 
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