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Replacing the hard drive in my imac with a 2TB 5400rpm?

J

jamin100

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 22, 2008
498
0
Hey,

Ive just found a good deal on some Samsung F4 2TB 32MN cache ecogreen drives
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0042SGDVG/
(i paid £61 not £102)

I want replace the stock 640GB drive in my 2009 24" imac

Is this a good choice? I know that 7200rpm drives would be faster but with the current prices i just couldnt afford it.

Anyway, I use my imac for web broswing, Lightroom and make some very basic home movies in imovie.

Will that drive be fast enough? I have 8GB RAM if that makes a difference?
 
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FW800 isn't as fast as an sata connection. He'd really be taking a performace hit with fw800.
 
jamin100 said:
Hey,

Ive just found a good deal on some Samsung F4 2TB 32MN cache ecogreen drives
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0042SGDVG/
(i paid £61 not £102)

I want replace the stock 640GB drive in my 2009 24" imac

Is this a good choice? I know that 7200rpm drives would be faster but with the current prices i just couldnt afford it.

Anyway, I use my imac for web broswing, Lightroom and make some very basic home movies in imovie.

Will that drive be fast enough? I have 8GB RAM if that makes a difference?
Click to expand...

I haven´t looked at the benchmarks for those drives but there is a good chance that the 2TB newer drive is actually faster than your old one, due to increased density. So I think you should go for it!
 
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charlieroberts said:
I haven´t looked at the benchmarks for those drives but there is a good chance that the 2TB newer drive is actually faster than your old one, due to increased density. So I think you should go for it!
Click to expand...

Great, well at that price I've ordered 2 so hopefully I'll be able to put one in soon ish
 
charlieroberts said:
I haven´t looked at the benchmarks for those drives but there is a good chance that the 2TB newer drive is actually faster than your old one, due to increased density. So I think you should go for it!
Click to expand...

On large block transfers yes. Bandwidth is increasing and a 5400 drive can get up to 120MB/s+ however, response time's are going to be slow. Run your OS on something else and use the 5400RPM for storage. Or feel the speed hit. Never get an Eco or Green HDD for a boot disk. The one your looking at is very slow. Peruse the charts here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/benchmarks,134.html
Average throughput is around 100MB/s but it is in the bottom 2/3rd's on everything else that matters more. Check also about the amount of head parking on that model.

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cube said:
Better to be slower for data than to be slower for the system.
Click to expand...

???. The drive will be bottlenecked by FW800. When would that ever be a good idea to knowingly buy into? Most externals are already the 5400RPM variety as they are cool running and used to not be able to saturate FW800 link. Now they do. You'll be down 40% of your speed on FW800.
 
derbothaus said:
???. The drive will be bottlenecked by FW800. When would that ever be a good idea to knowingly buy into? Most externals are already the 5400RPM variety as they are cool running and used to not be able to saturate FW800 link. Now they do. You'll be down 40% of your speed on FW800.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter. He already bought the drive, so it's better for it to be slow for data, than to replace the system drive.

And FW800 is not that bad for that.
 
cube said:
It doesn't matter. He already bought the drive, so it's better for it to be slow for data, than to replace the system drive.

And FW800 is not that bad for that.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. The base drive is large enough for the basic install, and for the bigger data the FW800 is sufficient. And risk-free compared to the disassembling of the iMac
 
Hmmm well I have already got a 1tb USB drive hanging off my iMac.

So you suggest using the 2tb drive in an external enclosure instead of having the os on it?

I was reading that the drive was ok speed wise as the 2tb is spread over 3 platters rather than 4
 
cube said:
How do you backup?
Click to expand...

Ok so my internal 640gb drive holds pretty much everything

Connected to that via USB is a 1tb external drive. Data is backed up to this at certain intervals using chronosync

I then have a 640gb USB drive hanging off my airport extreme which I use for wireless time machine backups

My final backup is a 640gb portable drive which I make a bootable clone and keep offsite at my parents
 
Is the 1TB drive only for backup or how much data do you store there?

How fast is it?
 
The easiest and cheapest would be:

- If possible, exchange the time machine drive with the 2TB, put the old drive in a FW800 enclosure as data disk. Otherwise, get another USB enclosure and use the old TM as is as data disk.
- Get another 640GB external drive for cloning the data disk.

So, you would have to use 2 clone drives now.

----------

Apple does not support Time Machine on Airport Extreme.
 
Last edited:
cube said:
Is the 1TB drive only for backup or how much data do you store there?

How fast is it?
Click to expand...

Yes its only for backup.
Currently had 500GB of data on it.
As for the speed: its a segate Barracuda 7200rpm 1TB drive
 
You could put the 1TB 7200 in the iMac, buy a cheap 1TB external for cloning,
use one 640GB drive to replace the 1TB until it fills up and prices go down, use the 2TB for Time Machine, and retire the other two 640GB drives.
 
Assuming the 1TB can be swapped and has the same internal interface as the iMac, otherwise just get a fast internal and use the 1TB external for cloning.
 
Ok here's what i might do.

Option1
Move the 1TB drive into the imac.
Put the 2TB drive in the USB Enclosure.

my Itunes library is 250GB so I will put my itunes library onto the 2TB drive.
All other data will stay on the 1TB internal but will be backed up to the 2TB drive.

I will then use one of the 640GB drives connected to the airport extreme to backup the itunes library wirelessly.

OR another way:

Option2
Move the 1TB drive into the imac and keep all data on it (apart from itunes)
Connect one of the 640GB (7200rpm) drives via USB and store only my 250GB itunes library on it.
Use the 2TB drive in a USB enclosure connected to the Airport extreme to backup everything wirelessly

THEN which ever option i choose

Sell the 640GB 3.5inch drive and the 640GB 2.5" drive and buy a 1TB 2.5 inch drive to clone the system drive in the imac to keep offsite.

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cube said:
Assuming the 1TB can be swapped and has the same internal interface as the iMac, otherwise just get a fast internal and use the 1TB external for cloning.
Click to expand...

Yeh its SATA
 
Beware some external 2.5" drives use a proprietary internal connector.
If the mechanism is taller than 12.5mm it most probably can't be fit in a notebook, either.
 
cube said:
Beware some external 2.5" drives use a proprietary internal connector.
If the mechanism is taller than 12.5mm it most probably can't be fit in a notebook, either.
Click to expand...

These are all sata drives that ive brought and then put into external enclosures.
 
Thanks, so looking above which option would you go for?

My data is as follows

Itunes 250GB - I use 2 apple TV's so this is only going to grow
Imovie files 100GB
General Stuff 60GB
Photos 120GB (i shoot RAW so files are usually 15MB each)
 
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