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New hard drive for Macbook... WD or Toshiba?

A

abstraction

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 14, 2008
14
0
Hey there,

I've got a 13.3 Macbook, 2.16GHz C2D bought in September last year and am thinking about upgrading the hard drive in it. I'm looking at 320GB, and have spotted 2 that have caught my eye. The first is the Western Digital Scorpio 320GB:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=377
And the second is a Toshiba:
http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.asp?pn=MK3252GSX
Both are around the same price range, so what would you guys recommend? I've heard that there are issues with the WD involving it's inbuilt anti-shock protection interfering with the Macbook's own... but it seems to score quite favourably in reviews. Does anyone have any experience with either?

Thanks in advance!
 
Sorry to be a little off topic on your post, but is it complicated to change out the hard drive on a MacBook? I know that replacing the RAM is the simplest thing...just curious...
 
TygerMac said:
Sorry to be a little off topic on your post, but is it complicated to change out the hard drive on a MacBook? I know that replacing the RAM is the simplest thing...just curious...
Click to expand...

Really easy apparently, similar to changing the RAM you take the battery out and remove the bracket, then you'll see a tab. You literally pull this tab out carefully and out slides the hard drive! You need to swap the EMI shield on the old hard drive onto the new one, but after that it's just a case of sliding the new one in.

Also to Cave Man, could you find me a link to the Samsung one? I can't seem to find it on google :(
 
TygerMac said:
What is the EMI shield? Sorry, just wondering.
Click to expand...

Electromagnetic interference shield... basically stops all the EM radiation frying your hard drive. The hard drive currently in your Macbook has one on it, and you need to swap it to the new one before inserting the new one into your mac.

There's a really good tutorial on google somewhere, goes through everything from creating a backup, swapping the hard drives and then restoring your data.
 
I just changed hard drives in my MacBook. Changing drives is VERY easy.

The EMI shield is attached to the hard drive with four torx (T8) screws so be sure you have a torx screwdriver of that size ready.
 
Cave Man said:
The Samsung 320/5400/8 is the fastest overall notebook drive on the market. That's the one I'd go for.
Click to expand...

The WD Scorpio has the same specs. 320GB/5400/8 unless I've missed something. I've been using Seagate drives latley and that's what I'm sticking with. WD is good as well but I'd never go for a Samsung, Hitachi or Toshiba hard drive. But that's just me.
 
CalmEnvy said:
The WD Scorpio has the same specs. 320GB/5400/8 unless I've missed something. I've been using Seagate drives latley and that's what I'm sticking with. WD is good as well but I'd never go for a Samsung, Hitachi or Toshiba hard drive. But that's just me.
Click to expand...

Yes, that WD drive is a close second to the Samsung in sustained write speed - so close that it's a wash. I've owned two WD drives and both failed within 3 years (both were 3.5"). I've only owned one Samsung drive (2.5") and it's still going strong after one year. Buying hard drives is a real crap shoot.
 
Cave Man said:
The Samsung 320/5400/8 is the fastest overall notebook drive on the market. That's the one I'd go for.
Click to expand...

Cave Man said:
Yes, that WD drive is a close second to the Samsung in sustained write speed - so close that it's a wash. I've owned two WD drives and both failed within 3 years (both were 3.5"). I've only owned one Samsung drive (2.5") and it's still going strong after one year. Buying hard drives is a real crap shoot.
Click to expand...

Actually, according to Tom's Hardware the WD wins in speed and the Samsung wins in energy consumption.
 
Ah awesome, thanks everyone for all the views/advice. I'm in the UK, so I'll have to hunt down what the going rate is on that Samsung and hope it's about the same as the WD.

Can anyone say anymore about the apparent problems with the WD's inbuilt sudden motion sensor causing kernel panics with the MacBook's own one? Is solving the problem as simple as disabling the MacBook's sudden motion sensor?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A110a Safari/419.3)

another idea: pick up a wd passport (320 can be had for 150 if you catch a deal) usb external, pop it open, switch the drives, and viola. 320 upgrade plus a usb-powered external, which is extra handy if you want to clone your drive.

WD passport 320 and 250 are all 2.5"-sata/5200/8 drives.
 
jackiecanev2 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A110a Safari/419.3)

another idea: pick up a wd passport (320 can be had for 150 if you catch a deal) usb external, pop it open, switch the drives, and viola. 320 upgrade plus a usb-powered external, which is extra handy if you want to clone your drive.

WD passport 320 and 250 are all 2.5"-sata/5200/8 drives.
Click to expand...
One problem - you instantly void your warranty.
 
I was also recently considering upgrading the HDD for my Macbook. But how much work is there involved in mirroring my current system onto the new drive?
 
if you cloned your drive using superduper onto the new drive, would that work after just plugging it in? Or would you need to clone to a 3rd drive, plug the new drive in, then boot and restore from the clone?


And wouldn't it be better to get a 7200rpm drive for better performance? or are there heat issues?
 
chatoyer said:
I've got the 320GB WD in my MB (about four weeks now). No kernel panics.
Click to expand...

Same here. Works as it should. No, the integrated sensor doesn't provoke problems.

As in a post above: "Actually, according to Tom's Hardware the WD wins in speed and the Samsung wins in energy consumption." That's also what I've read on several pages. So if you run more on battery maybe the Samsung might be the better choice, though I went with the WD Scorpio. I also had to ask me the same question as you (except that my favourite hardware store here doen't have the Toshiba one you mentioned).

As of WD drive fails, all of my WD drives are still working (all of them 3.5 and 2.5 inch after several years in several systems.) But posters above me are right, many drives failed, but also Samsung ones can fail. So just back up everything properly and regularly. But if my WD drive fails to soon, then my next will be a Samsung.
 
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