Scorpio Black or Hitachi Travelstar for my Usage Scenario?

[Val-kyrie]

I have researched 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drives and am deliberating on two: the WD Scorpio Black and the Hitachi Travelstar. I realize the Scorpio Black is a little faster and the Travelstar is a little bit better on power conservation, so I am curious if either will make a difference with my typical usage.

I usually have around 3-5 applications open at the same time (one or two browsers, word processor, iTunes, Accordance, BookEnds) and sometimes also Fusion. I am mostly interested in if the Scorpio Black will be much faster with multitasking because it handles I/O operations and multiple threads better.

Lastly, I am a little concerned about the vibration of the Black and about the load cycles on the drives. Does HDAPM work with both drives? I also know WD has released WDidle3 for the RE2 and this supposedly works with the Black to set the APM, but requires windows--not sure if this is possible through Fusion and not BootCamp.

I appreciate any help in deciding because they are both about the same price currently. Other feedback is also appreciated.

PS--I am not interested in the Momentus XT because I do not often use the same apps every day and I do not trust Seagate's firmware at the moment.

 

[Vantage Point]

I don't have either but I keep reading about how the Hitachi Travelstar is the best for no/low noise and vibrations in MBP's. Amazon has it for only $65.

I am actually waiting for the Hitachi travelstar 7k750 to start shipping. It is a 750 gb drive and hopefully will be as quiet as the Hitachi 7k500.

 

[Love]

Based on my past...semi-unpleasant experiences with WD (6 failures in 6 months), I'd go with hitachi.

 

[Val-kyrie]

Thanks for the replies so far. I have been leaning towards Hitachi, anyway.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for the replies so far. I have been leaning towards Hitachi, anyway.

I have two 7200 Travelstars and they're whisper quiet, screaming fast and I've never had a single problem with them.

 

[SuperCachetes]

I have two 7200 Travelstars and they're whisper quiet, screaming fast and I've never had a single problem with them.

Likewise.

 

[natebookpro]

I'm going to go with everyone else on this one. I had the Scorpio black a couple years ago in my aluminum MacBook and ended up returning it for the blue because of vibrations.

 

[windels]

just so you know, Western Digital announced a new 7200 rpm, 750gb, 2.5 inch Scorpio Black for 149 $

 

[Val-kyrie]

just so you know, Western Digital announced a new 7200 rpm, 750gb, 2.5 inch Scorpio Black for 149 $

Thanks for the heads-up. Vantage point https://forums.macrumors.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=11682929 also pointed out that Hitachi is releasing a similar 7200 RPM, 750 GB, 2.5" Travelstar sometime this quarter, but these are a little pricey and more space than I currently need. I only have 250GB now. Unless the 750 GB hard drives consume less power and/or are much faster, I am hoping that these new drives will push down the price of the 500GB drives.

 

[mr0c]

check out diskcompare.com for up to date pricing and specifications:

http://diskcompare.com/item/5704/

you could also consider the Momentus XT, which should boost speeds with the 4GB of NAND flash -- not sure how that works out for general usage though .... there's probably some threads on that here too ;-)

 

[alust2013]

I'd say either will do. They probably have nearly identical real-world performance and power consumption. Personally, I have the Scorpio Black, and I haven't noticed extra power use or excessive noise or vibration. I think with any 7200 RPM laptop drive, you run the risk of noise and vibration, and some particular drives have that problem and some don't. So whichever you get, if it has issues, you can RMA it, and likely get a better one.