I have a 15" Late 2007 Santa Rosa MBP and the original 120GB Fujitsu HD has recently gone haywire. I also broke my (PATA) optical drive over a year ago.
I have replaced the original HD with a 60GB SSD (Very nice!) and I have ordered a knockoff optibay enclosure to replace the optical drive with a high capacity spinning HD for storage.
I am looking for a recommendation for the HD to go in the optibay. Specific models would be helpful and knowing what I should be looking for would be even more helpful.
These are some factors that stand out for me:
System and apps will run on SATA 1.5Gb/s SSD. My assumption is that speed should not be a significant issue for a storage drive. PATA connection will also limit speed.
I have heard that single layer drives are more reliable. I also understand that single layer drives are currently capped at 320GB.
I have heard that 5400 RPM drives are more reliable than 7200 RPM.
Running two drives will use a lot of power and I want a low power usage, especially when idling (which should be most of the time). I have heard that 5400 RPM drives use less power than 7200 RPM.
Other World Computing sells Seagate Momentus, Hitachi Travelstar, and WD Scorpio, so I would assume these are all decent drives.
System is occasionally used for gaming, sometimes for ripping movies from ISO files (ala Handbrake), more often for benign applications (ie: web browsing).
Money is an issue, but a $20 difference one way or another is not really a big deal.
Please list your suggestions of important things I haven't thought of or mentioned or your insight/experience with any particular drive.
Thanks everyone.
I have replaced the original HD with a 60GB SSD (Very nice!) and I have ordered a knockoff optibay enclosure to replace the optical drive with a high capacity spinning HD for storage.
I am looking for a recommendation for the HD to go in the optibay. Specific models would be helpful and knowing what I should be looking for would be even more helpful.
These are some factors that stand out for me:
System and apps will run on SATA 1.5Gb/s SSD. My assumption is that speed should not be a significant issue for a storage drive. PATA connection will also limit speed.
I have heard that single layer drives are more reliable. I also understand that single layer drives are currently capped at 320GB.
I have heard that 5400 RPM drives are more reliable than 7200 RPM.
Running two drives will use a lot of power and I want a low power usage, especially when idling (which should be most of the time). I have heard that 5400 RPM drives use less power than 7200 RPM.
Other World Computing sells Seagate Momentus, Hitachi Travelstar, and WD Scorpio, so I would assume these are all decent drives.
System is occasionally used for gaming, sometimes for ripping movies from ISO files (ala Handbrake), more often for benign applications (ie: web browsing).
Money is an issue, but a $20 difference one way or another is not really a big deal.
Please list your suggestions of important things I haven't thought of or mentioned or your insight/experience with any particular drive.
Thanks everyone.