Need a Hard Drive purchase recommendation

[warvanov]

I just bought a refurbished early 2011 13" 2.3GHz MBP last night from Apple. (SO EXCITED!) One of the big factors in choosing the early 2011 refurb was that it was $270 less than the late 2011 new MBP. Even though the hard drive in the refurb was smaller I will be able to upgrade it for significantly less than that difference in price.

My plan was originally to buy a 1TB HDD from Western Digital this week, but it seems as though stock is limited by recent flooding and the price of this drive had shot up (from $179 to $219 on newegg.com, from $179 to $199 to unavailable at macsales.com). The price of other drives have risen as well. My second option 1TB Samsung HDD shows a price of $139 on the newegg search page, but $179 when viewing the product page or adding it to a cart.

However, this Samsung drive is still at macsales.com for $130 ($138 with upgrade kit). So this brings me to my question:

1) How reliable are Samsung Hard Drives? I've had a Seagate drive fail on me, and have been happy with Western Digital ever since, and WD remains my first choice. What are your experiences with Samsung Hard Drives?

2) Should I buy this Samsung 1TB drive now or should I wait for the prices to level out? Should I take advantage of a decent price while macsales still has stock, or should I wait until the WD drive becomes available again at a reasonable price and stick with my original plan?

 

[Adamantoise]

Samsung and Western Digital are pretty reliable in my opinion. But then again, I have never had a hard drive in a personal computer fail on me.

I cannot imagine that you'd need 1TB but I don't know your usage habits, I'd suggest getting a 500 GB (Scorpio Black) it's pretty cheap and supplementing it with a true external storage solution.

I have a Seagate Momentus XT and honestly, I don't see the fuss about it.

 

[warvanov]

I'd like to keep a large music collection on my MBP without having to worry about restricted storage space. 320GB seems like it would not be enough to be comfortable to me. Also, if I'm going to upgrade then I'd like to make it a significant enough of an upgrade to make it worth it.

 

[Adamantoise]

While there are 1TB drives that fit, I'd rather go with 750GB ... I don't know anyone that has had a 1TB drive for extended periods of time, no one really knows how it performs in the 13" Macbook Pro.

If space is your concern go with the 750 just to be safe.