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Replacement HD for iMac
- Thread starter volntitan
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Verify you have SATA using Apple System Profiler. I buy most of my drives from New Egg, although I recently got a Segate 500 gig at PCConnection for $140 (open box).
I have heard that the hitachis have some tendencies to die
If silence is important to you
Samsung
WD
Seagate (The perpendiculars are really loud)
If silence is important to you
Samsung
WD
Seagate (The perpendiculars are really loud)
Im not sure but generally the one with the longer warranty will probably be more reliable since they are guaranteeing its life longer...
Both are pretty on par with eachother
Well it is personal preference but yes they are really noisy... im pretty sure most of them have similar reliability
I personally prefer Western Digitals.
Sure, the warranty isnt as long, but hard drives are becoming so cheap, sometimes it might not even be worthwhile to deal with the warranty.
Besides, a general rule of thumb is that if its gonna croak, it normally does within the first few months of ownership. Thats from personal experience.
I bought 2 250GB Caviar SATA drives, and when I got them and plugged them in, I thought they were dead on arrival, but when I placed them aganist my ear, they were spinning perfectly fine. They're that quiet.
If your iMac is 2.0 GHz, its definitely SATA.
You can get a 250GB drive online for around 60-80 shipped at Newegg.
Sure, the warranty isnt as long, but hard drives are becoming so cheap, sometimes it might not even be worthwhile to deal with the warranty.
Besides, a general rule of thumb is that if its gonna croak, it normally does within the first few months of ownership. Thats from personal experience.
I bought 2 250GB Caviar SATA drives, and when I got them and plugged them in, I thought they were dead on arrival, but when I placed them aganist my ear, they were spinning perfectly fine. They're that quiet.
If your iMac is 2.0 GHz, its definitely SATA.
You can get a 250GB drive online for around 60-80 shipped at Newegg.
When I get into work today, I'll check the one in my lab. I have the exact same machine.
OK, your drive is a 3.5" SATA. If you go to NewEgg and use their menu system on the left side of the screen, selec for internal SATA 500 gig drives and 12 will come up. The decision on what to get is up to you!
Good luck and have fun.
Good luck and have fun.
You'll be fine with any of the 3 gb/sec 7200 rpm OEM drives. I personally favor seagates for their warranty, but I've had WD, Maxtor, IBM (Hitachi) and Samsung drives and have never had one fail on me.
My Seagate is in an external firewire enclosure. The only noise I hear from it is the enclosure's fan. I cannot comment on how quiet it would be in your iMac.
"Original Equipment Manufacturer" means it won't come with anything but the drive (usually). But you don't need anything else. Set the drive to "master" (if it's not already), connect the cables in your iMac, secure the drive, close up the back. You'll need to boot from your install DVD and you should be ready to format and install OS X.
BTW - did you ever boot from your installer DVD and run Disk Utility on your hard drive? It might only require a simple disk repair to correct any problems with your current drive.
Well, on a whim I just checked the HD that shipped with my office iMac C2D 24" and it's a Seagate 500 gb. It seems quiet to me.
http://www.shopping.com/xPC-Seagate-SEAGATE-BARRACUDA-SATA-500GB-7-2K
http://www.shopping.com/xPC-Seagate-SEAGATE-BARRACUDA-SATA-500GB-7-2K
