Recommend me a new hard drive for a 17" MBP

[MoodyM]

I have a Mid-2010 17" MBP running 10.8.2.

Lately I've been getting LOADS of spinning beach balls when I try to do ANYTHING, it's making the Mac practically unusable.

I downloaded Rember and tested the RAM, came back fine.

I've now bough something called SMART Utility to test the hard drive, and it's said "Drive Failing". The items in red are "Reallocated Sector Count" and "Reallocated Event Count", overall SMART status "FAILING".

The drive is a 1TB Toshiba that I bought brand new at the same time as the Mac and fitted myself.

IIRC because I have a 17" MBP, I can get the wider internal drives? Anyone recommend a decent, cheap, at least 1TB drive that will fit my MBP?

Thanks!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The spinning beach ball can also be a sign of paging (copying content from the RAM to the HDD in order to free RAM for other usage).
Your model can support up to 8 GB of RAM, some have even reported using 16 GB of RAM in 2010 MBPs, take a look at Advanced Search or MRoogle to find threads about this.

As for the HDD, you can use any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 12.5 mm, but that is the case with every Unibody MBP anyway.

You could outfit your MBP with an SSD in the Optibay slot and another newer and bigger 1.5 TB HDD in the HDD bay, if you do not mind using an external optical disk drive (ODD).

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

the guide includes:

• 0. Identify your MacBook or MacBook Pro
• 1. Getting a new HDD
• 2. Guides to replace the internal HDD with a newer one
• 3. Transferring data from the old HDD to the new HDD
• 4. Using the optical disk drive (ODD) slot for placing an SSD or HDD inside the MB/P (OPTIBAY)

​

 

[stu.h]

Samsung SSD 830

Use an external for additional data

 

[MoodyM]

I'm actually thinking of getting this Seagate Momentus XT 750GB 7200rpm drive:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-750...1_7?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1362827628&sr=1-7

 

[maflynn]

That's a good drive if you need the storage, otherwise I'd recommend a full blown SSD instead of a hybrid.

 

[Doward]

I have a 2011 (Late) 17"

I went with the 250Gb Samsung 840 SSD. I'm clocking 250MB/s write and 500 MB/s read speeds. I don't wait for much on this MBP, now

I use a thunderbolt external drive for on the go storage, but if you don't find yourself using your SuperDrive, then you can get a very cheap (like $10 on Amazon) adapter to allow you to put a second SATA drive where your optical drive sits.

 

[MoodyM]

As for the HDD, you can use any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 12.5 mm, but that is the case with every Unibody MBP anyway.

You could outfit your MBP with an SSD in the Optibay slot and another newer and bigger 1.5 TB HDD in the HDD bay, if you do not mind using an external optical disk drive (ODD).

I'm interested in putting a 128GB SSD and installing OS X and apps onto it in my Optibay and leaving the new 750GB hybrid Seagate XT in the SATA bay for data/files. Any tips/links/thoughts?

 

[Applefanboy8153]

That's a good drive if you need the storage, otherwise I'd recommend a full blown SSD instead of a hybrid.

I installed a momentus 750 hybrid on my custom built pc and I think the hybrid is a better option also it had more storage and costs lesser.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I'm interested in putting a 128GB SSD and installing OS X and apps onto it in my Optibay and leaving the new 750GB hybrid Seagate XT in the SATA bay for data/files. Any tips/links/thoughts?

Look at the guide I linked to, it tells you how to use and get an Optibay adapter for that sort of thing.

I have an SSD in my optibay and a 500 GB HDD in the HDD bay, and it works quite okay.