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Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB HD Now Shipping?

panzer06 said:
Even more surprising is the complete lack of competing products. You would think Hitachi, Samsung, WD et al would jump at the chance to sell 500GB 7200rpm drives while Seagate cannot deliver.

Cheers,
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agreed. but i know why WD isnt. their 500GB Blue is performing just as well as the 7200rpm HDD's. but as for the others it is a mystery why they havent come out with theirs.

i wonder if WD did make a 7200rpm 500GB it would be even better than the Blue. that would be a pretty incredible drive.
 
Newegg has this drive, but the cost has gone up from $139 to $149. I never received my auto notification of the hd becoming available again, but found it when checking. :D
 
Hmm, any sign of some serious competition (actually available to buy!) to this drive?

Had a 500gb Scorpio Blue fail on me this week after only a few months usage so was considering bunging its replacement in my old macbook and putting a 7200 in my mbp. The Seagate doesn't seem to be that amazing though...

Just bad luck with the 500gb Scorpio, I've had the same drive in my PS3 for a while and it works perfectly. Equally, the 320gb Scorpio in my old mb has been running well for a couple of years.

I put the 500gb straight into my umbp when I bought it, and I'm quite relieved it turned out to be the hdd that caused the freezes on my umbp lately, was worried my mbp was going bad. I've put the stock 320gb 5400 Hitachi back in for now, smaller and slower by all accounts but crikey it's a LOT quieter than the Scorpio Blue!
 
Seagate Momentus - Shipping from OWC

Ordered a copy of the drive last week and just got confirmation that it has shipped. Cant wait to replace my 150GB drive in my MBP (version from late 2006).
 
Can someone please advise what model I should be buying for my MacBook Pro SR 17" (08)? I'm replacing its 200GB drive with one of these and wish to know whether I can get the one with or without shock protection and whether the inbuilt motion sensor will work with the drive if it doesn't have shock protection built in.

thanks!
 
evilzardoz said:
Can someone please advise what model I should be buying for my MacBook Pro SR 17" (08)? I'm replacing its 200GB drive with one of these and wish to know whether I can get the one with or without shock protection and whether the inbuilt motion sensor will work with the drive if it doesn't have shock protection built in.

thanks!
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it's best to go with the one WITHOUT the shock sensor.
 
ViciousShadow21 said:
it's best to go with the one WITHOUT the shock sensor.
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i had to have mine replaced by warranty exchange, and seagate sent me the one with the sensor. they basically send out the 1st available same or better, and this is what i got. turned off the sms on the mbp and all is working perfectly. no issues. so while it's easier to get the non-g version, its not required.
 
scottuf said:
i had to have mine replaced by warranty exchange, and seagate sent me the one with the sensor. they basically send out the 1st available same or better, and this is what i got. turned off the sms on the mbp and all is working perfectly. no issues. so while it's easier to get the non-g version, its not required.
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no i know that was why i said "it's best." but like you said it certainly isnt required, but if you have a choice definitely get the one without it.
 
Installed and very happy

thought I give you a quick run down of my experience.

I am using a MBP 2.2 late 2006, 4 gig of ram (I know, it only handls 3) and ordered the Seagate 7200.4 g.

Let me spill the good news first: best up-grade so far. My MBP runs as if new! Start-up times have improved, and once logged on, the thing flies. My iTunes library (40 gigs) is almost availabe instantaneously, my fotos in Light Room pop up right away. Parallels 4.0 / XP (best application up-grade so far) is substantially more responsive.

All in all, excellent user expierence. Fan is not running signficantly more than before. The hard drive operates very quite, vibration is not more of an issue than before. I am using my MBP as a desktop replacement, so I am not that much affected by battery life. My MBP is also on a stand, so overheating is naturally less of an issue.

Just a couple of comment for the one of you thinking of taking their MBP late 2006 model appart.:

- you need the right tools
- look at the ifixit guide, excellent
- take your time and make sure no cables are missplaced when you put the keyboard back on.

I am not a technical guy, so I was hesitant giving it a go. In the end it worked out well but you can see on my MB that the cover had been taken off. Since it is almost 3 years old, I can live with it. Had it been a new laptop it would have seriously bothered me.

For all the guys that have unibody MBP's, this is a slam dunk (remember, I am not worried about battery life ...).
 
I've had the 500gig 7200rpm drive in my computer now for a couple of week and I'm pleased with the performance. I feel a little more vibration in the palm rest but not much. Overall if you didn't know any better you'd not really know if there' was a faster larger HD in the computer which is what I wanted :)

Another happy customer
 
Ordered my drive because of this thread. I got the AS version from MacMall.com (who I think still has them in stock for less than Newegg).

It's been running great in my 13" Macbook Unibody. I'm getting better battery life than the stock 250gb Toshiba under most conditions and the speed and response is just phenomenal. I installed OS X onto it in 45 minutes and restored the entire contents of my nearly full 250gb drive in about an hour and a half. In day to day activities I notice that Quicksilver indexes the drive quicker and seems more responsive. Booting and download speeds are also noticeably better probably due to the 16MB cache.

I do have vibration under my wrists though. I don't really notice it when I have sleeves covering my wrists but it is definitely there. I am going to take it apart tonight and see if I can find a place to reduce some vibration but I know it was put in there properly. It's kind of irritating, but I'll either get used to it or find some way to stick some padding in there to help absorb the vibration.

After my initial setup of it, my system fans did like to kick on full blast randomly even though the drive was running at like 36 degrees. I reset my PRAM and the SMC and it seems to have cleared up. I've since reinstalled OS X 2 times due to Time Machine restore problems and the wild fans have not returned.

All in all pretty satisfied. I'll post back here if I can figure out a nice way to get rid of some of the vibration.

Edit...
Here is the MacMall link: http://www.macmall.com/ttsvr/p/Data Storage/product~dpno~7727033~pdp.fcejefd
 
I installed one into my Unibody MacBook and the vibration is horrible. Especially on my table surface the resonance is amplified into an utterly annoying hum. Guess I'll need to swap the stock 160GB back into the machine and apply for a refund as I can't stand the noise. :(
 
NewEgg has the AS (non-sensor) model in stock again. Price is $130. I ordered one last night. I hope this one is better than the last one I got.
 
Roadstar said:
I installed one into my Unibody MacBook and the vibration is horrible. Especially on my table surface the resonance is amplified into an utterly annoying hum. Guess I'll need to swap the stock 160GB back into the machine and apply for a refund as I can't stand the noise. :(
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I thought it was at first too, but I don't even notice it anymore. It's possible to wedge in a little foam to absorb some of the vibration but I don't think it's necessary. My drive is quieter than the 250gb Toshiba that it replaced.

Are you missing the rubber feet on the bottom of your case? Do you have a hard shell on the laptop?
 
:mad: at Seagate

This one is a POS, too. I had difficulty with it when zeroing the drive after the basic initialization. I eventually got it to zero and complete the process. Boy does this thing run hot!

I partitioned the drive and installed an OS and used the migration assistant to move things over from a 3.5 inch utility drive. Hot! Hot! Hot! I am not liking this at all.

Well, it died.

Oh, did I mention that I called Seagate tech support after the problem zeroing it? They have become progressively more surly and have started throwing out "Seagate doesn't support the use of our drives in external enclosures" to go along with their "We don't support booting" when I bought one of their Firewire/USB drives. What nonsense!

I think that this is the last Seagate drive I am likely to purchase. I will be RMAing this to NewEgg. (As a side note, NewEgg did a better job of packing this one than they have been doing in general.)
 
for your information.

After researching into it and reading this thread completely, waiting until I get to my last few GB and getting the correct screwdriver (T-6 Trox) I finally got one of these and installed it yesterday.

I used the video guide here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp47AQinUM8

Its a good guide but his 2hr clone was of an ancient 80GB drive and my 256GB HDD cloned in 7hrs! so take note, also you'll need a T-6 Trox screwdriver, this I didn't realise and had to go out to Maplin for one (UK here). The enclosure for the naked ext HDD is, I think, important because I now have a spare 256GB HDD, so get a good one and its a space drive!

The drive was called Untitled when I cloned it, so the drive will be called "Untitled" but appart from that (and be patient with the first boot up) everything is untouched! as it was! but I have the original files on the old HDD and a TimeMachine Backup, be safe!

There is absolutely no noise or vibrations or heat. I have installed it in a White MackBook. Just do a good job and it should be fine. I've had the drive operationnal for about an hour and not noticed much speed increase but things like Spotlight had to re-index so I think I have to break the drive in. But its got to be faster, I'm sure of it.

I say things are good and if things go pear shaped then I'll post back. I don't think they will and am confident this will extend the life of my beautiful white MacBook.

Thanks.
 
winterquilt said:
... also you'll need a T-6 Trox screwdriver...
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Its "Torx". ;)

Also you could've named the drive with Disk Utility; in your Utilities subfolder underneath Applications. In fact, you still can rename it (but be careful what you change if you are poking around in there).

There is nothing magical about the drive name, the drive on my BlackBook is named "BlackBook HD". Pretty unimaginitive, but it makes it obvious which drive is which when I connect two Macs with target disk mode.
 
For those who bought the ST9500420AS (not G-Force Protection model) did you find the reported vibration too much to tolerate?

I want a fast drive but I do not want a rattle fest. Is the 500GB WD Blue a good alternative?
 
Philflow said:
It performs slightly better than 7200.4 while consuming less power and making less noise. Review.
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No kidding? That's wonderful news then. :)

It essentially simplifies my life. :) I found a shop that will install the WD Blue into my unibody and non-unibody MBP and transfer my data to the new drive for free. But I won't ask them to transfer data seeming it'll take overnight.
 
John.B said:
Its "Torx". ;)

Also you could've named the drive with Disk Utility; in your Utilities subfolder underneath Applications. In fact, you still can rename it (but be careful what you change if you are poking around in there).

There is nothing magical about the drive name, the drive on my BlackBook is named "BlackBook HD". Pretty unimaginitive, but it makes it obvious which drive is which when I connect two Macs with target disk mode.
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Thanks for the correction :)

I know I could have but I hadn't done this before and didn't want to get too fancy, it was easy enough to do the other end but for a few seconds made m think it handn't copied everything - but it had. And now a couple of days in I can confirm having half my disc space and a faster drive is faster, genuinely.

Also there is no noticable extra vibration or noise.
 
I bought one of these 500GB 7200.4 for my MBP 15 2.6, with the intention of replacing the smaller capacity Hitachi drive that came as the OEM drive. After the delicate surgery required to put it in, I think I have a dud of a drive.

It showed up just fine after the hardware install, erased/partition and took a time machine restore no problem. However, the entire computer would freeze about five minutes into running tests to see how the drive performed. After a full installation from the restore DVDs, it would freeze after a few minutes.

I went to the Seagate site and set up a RMA, and I even paid for their silly packaging requirements. Someone suggested I do a complete zeroing of the drive and try it again, but I think the drive is bad.
 
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