Taking on a Macbook Pro 17 hard drive swap - question

[duncanapple]

Hi all - quick question - I am taking on a hard drive swap on a Macbook Pro 17inch 2.4ghz (purchased summer of 2007)

I found some decent tutorials online and it doesnt look too bad.

I really have two questions that I couldn't find in search. First, it seems there aren't any reliable 7200rpm 500gb drives out there. Looking on newegg the only one was a seagate which got panned for being unreliable. I heard toshiba was close to releasing one but I cant wait, the hard drive is full now lol.

So I think I am just going to go with the 320 7200rpm Western Digital Scorpion Black

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

My question with this is, is this the right drive for the computer I have? I know I need 2.5 inch, and I am pretty sure this will fit. Also, is my laptop compatible with the SATA 3.0 Gb/s? I am not all too familiar with hard drive specs, just want to be sure this one will work.

Thanks in advance for the help - Also, opinions on the western digital I have linked are welcome!

Chris

 

[bugout]

I'm not sure where you're hearing the seagate is unreliable. I have that drive in a lot of machines with no issues.

 

[gerabbi]

The WD 320 should work fine. Good luck.

 

[duncanapple]

I was going off the reviews in the newegg site. Granted I know people with bad experiences are more likely to complain, but there seemed to be quite a few unhappy customers on there... It may be an okay drive, but the WD gets really great reviews. The fewer GB but better reviews may be worth it to me? Regardless, I want to make sure I am looking at the right drive for my laptop?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[AvMac]

I have a 15 inch MBP 2.33 ghz from Nov'06 and recently upgraded to the 320 7200rpm Western Digital Scorpion Black.

It should work with your 17 inch MBP without any issues.

 

[darngooddesign]

I was going off the reviews in the newegg site.

Before panning a product you might want to check reviews from various sources, not just one.

 

[duncanapple]

Hey hey now - I clearly stated where I got my research. I didn't claim this to be scientific fact - I merely said "I" had heard it was unreliable. And I didn't pan it either - I said others on the new egg site had. And my second post went even further to disclaim that I know the squeaky wheel is the loudest.

Still, there aren't a lot of reviews in terms of durability anyway. I see plenty of benchmarks but not many inputs on failures. And granted newegg is just one site, but its one large site with lots of customers and a ton of reviews. So it isnt exactly one source, its multiple users. But I will reiterate, I wasn't claiming this to be science, nor did I knock the product into the ground. Sheesh.

Side note - upon further reading it seems that even seagates own site is full of complaints. Almost a third of the 259 reviewers on newegg have rated this as poor or very poor. Doesn't sound too great huh?