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The best 250 GB Macbook Hard Drive?
- Thread starter grpaul349
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Hitachi 250
I have the Hitachi 250 installed in my Macbook now... works excellent - cept for one small problem.
I used Super Duper! and did a clone - dumped it back on the Toshiba - OS X starts up and I get the ? Folder for about 2 seconds before booting up. Once it's loaded everything works fine.. but the ? Folder is worrying me.
I have the Hitachi 250 installed in my Macbook now... works excellent - cept for one small problem.
I used Super Duper! and did a clone - dumped it back on the Toshiba - OS X starts up and I get the ? Folder for about 2 seconds before booting up. Once it's loaded everything works fine.. but the ? Folder is worrying me.
wow nice! i really wanna upgrade my HD, but am really only willing to get a hitachi. i know its being a bit padantic and all that, but they are the best.
i believe your problem is with the startup drive. you might have to choose what startup disk you want. because the computer will have to seach for a drive and maybe that 1-2seconds it is searching. i wouldnt worry tho. just choose your startup disk and it SHOULd be ok.
Western Digital is very good from my experience Samsung's aren't good quality as they get VERY hot. At least in my experience.
For the people looking for sites within the EU for buying stuff heres another.
www.komplett.ie or www.komplett.co.uk
They also have other stores too!
www.komplett.ie or www.komplett.co.uk
They also have other stores too!
Firmware Update: I'm asking again!
I have the same drive with firmware HS100-06 and I am having issues. Please tell me how to go about updating my firmware to HS100-08.
Thank you in advance for your help!
I have the same drive with firmware HS100-06 and I am having issues. Please tell me how to go about updating my firmware to HS100-08.
Thank you in advance for your help!
Hitachi 250
I've had the Hitachi 250 in for a few days... works great! I had a Seagate 80 in it before that and I don't notice a different in anything. It installed without a hitch. I used Super Duper! to back up the 80 and then put it back on the 250. The only minor problem, which I forgot, was once I booted up the 250 - go into System Preferences, Startup Disk and make sure your new HD is enabled as the startup drive.
Overall I'm very happy with the Hitachi 250.
I've had the Hitachi 250 in for a few days... works great! I had a Seagate 80 in it before that and I don't notice a different in anything. It installed without a hitch. I used Super Duper! to back up the 80 and then put it back on the 250. The only minor problem, which I forgot, was once I booted up the 250 - go into System Preferences, Startup Disk and make sure your new HD is enabled as the startup drive.
Overall I'm very happy with the Hitachi 250.
Firewire or USB Enclosure
I'm getting ready to swap out my hard drive and wanted to clarify one point first. I know you can boot off an external drive if it's firewire, but I had always heard you couldn't do this with a usb drive? Is that true? Does that make a difference when moving the image to the new drive?
Also, is there any reason to not go the cheap route with HD enclosures?
I'm getting ready to swap out my hard drive and wanted to clarify one point first. I know you can boot off an external drive if it's firewire, but I had always heard you couldn't do this with a usb drive? Is that true? Does that make a difference when moving the image to the new drive?
Also, is there any reason to not go the cheap route with HD enclosures?
Oh, no worries, I've booted to a USB drive. Just make sure it is plugged in and ready to roll when you boot. You may need to press the left option key on boot to get the boot manager to show up.
Forgot to mention about the HDD enclosure: If it is a notebook drive, you could probably go cheap, BUT... Make sure it supports drives larger than 160GB and make sure it supports SATA if that is what you have. There are quite a few that do not do one or the other, or both! As for desktop drives, I would make sure the cooling is adequate. I have a Seagate SATA drive that gets very hot and I cannot use it with my generic CompUSA enclosure because of the heat. Get a good one and you will not regret it.
FWIW, I also have used that same generic USB, CompUSA, 3.5" HDD enclosure with my old 2.5" SATA drive from my MacBook Pro. The drive is too small to mount but for temporary use, it works just great!
Forgot to mention about the HDD enclosure: If it is a notebook drive, you could probably go cheap, BUT... Make sure it supports drives larger than 160GB and make sure it supports SATA if that is what you have. There are quite a few that do not do one or the other, or both! As for desktop drives, I would make sure the cooling is adequate. I have a Seagate SATA drive that gets very hot and I cannot use it with my generic CompUSA enclosure because of the heat. Get a good one and you will not regret it.
FWIW, I also have used that same generic USB, CompUSA, 3.5" HDD enclosure with my old 2.5" SATA drive from my MacBook Pro. The drive is too small to mount but for temporary use, it works just great!
Which 3 generations ago Samsung's are you referring to? If you go to Silentpcreview.com I think you'll find more people happy with Samsung's reliablity as a laptop drive manufacturer than you will WD.
If I did not need to immediately replace a 5.4k drive with a 250GB, I would wait a few more months and get the higher areal density 320GB 5.4k rpm Samsung drive currently being offered in Alienware's top of the line laptops along with the 64GB SSD, cause we know Apple doesn't give you much in the way of choices of currently highest performace storage solutions on their laptops
. 320GB in the 15.4in, and 640GB for the Raid 0 option on the 17in models:http://laptoping.com/alienware-320gb-hdd.html
These 320GB drives are bound to outperform all 5.4k rpm 250GB drives, and come close to 200GB 7.2k drives, all the while giving you much more space than a 200GB drive. The 320GB drive will be faster in STR, than the smaller drives when the 200GB drive gets to 80% full.
250GB/5400 still a better deal
That is true. However, when will you be able to get one of those drives for around 150.00 USD?
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WD2500BEVS&cat=HDD
Until then, the WD and the others which should start to move down in price will be a better performance/size per dollar.
If I did not need to immediately replace a 5.4k drive with a 250GB, I would wait a few more months and get the higher areal density 320GB 5.4k rpm Samsung drive currently being offered in Alienware's top of the line laptops along with the 64GB SSD, cause we know Apple doesn't give you much in the way of choices of currently highest performace storage solutions on their laptops
http://laptoping.com/alienware-320gb-hdd.html
These 320GB drives are bound to outperform all 5.4k rpm 250GB drives, and come close to 200GB 7.2k drives, all the while giving you much more space than a 200GB drive. The 320GB drive will be faster in STR, than the smaller drives when the 200GB drive gets to 80% full.
That is true. However, when will you be able to get one of those drives for around 150.00 USD?
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=WD2500BEVS&cat=HDD
Until then, the WD and the others which should start to move down in price will be a better performance/size per dollar.
Just to jump in and join the discussion. I'll be getting the Scorpio 250GB 5400RPM drive next week for my new MBP, is there any chance of a new 7200RPM version rearing its head any time soon?
I'm going to pay an authorised service provider to do the work. Would this void my warranty?
I'm going to pay an authorised service provider to do the work. Would this void my warranty?
i had that problem although for like half a sec. i was told to reset pram and it fixed it
Thanks for this. I have ordered the Samsung HM250JI for my MacBook (based on Tomshardware review it looks like a great drive) to replace the 80Gb Fujitsu that died on me over the weekend. Hopefully it will come with the latest firmware.
What are the problems that the older firmware suffers from?
I upgraded my machine myself, added a 250GB WD Scorpio. No issues here, machine is DEFINITLY faster, esp at boot and under load. I didnt image my old drive, I wanted to start fresh so I could de-select all the crap like printer drivers and stuff, good drive and no issues.
Running Bootcamp/VM all the time.
Running Bootcamp/VM all the time.
After CCC, no Bootcamp and no Firmware upgrade... Why?
I used Carbon Copy Cloner to move my data to my Scorpio and now I cannot upgrade to firmware 1.4 and I cannot run Bootcamp.
My original 160 had Bootcamp installed with a 20GB XP partition off the main drive. After CCC, I only got the OS X stuff and no XP partition. I assumed this was because CCC was not really cloning, but copying. But... How can I get back to using Bootcamp (it won't install) and why won't the newest firmware install?
I used Carbon Copy Cloner to move my data to my Scorpio and now I cannot upgrade to firmware 1.4 and I cannot run Bootcamp.
My original 160 had Bootcamp installed with a 20GB XP partition off the main drive. After CCC, I only got the OS X stuff and no XP partition. I assumed this was because CCC was not really cloning, but copying. But... How can I get back to using Bootcamp (it won't install) and why won't the newest firmware install?
There is an extra partition on your drive that probably wasn't copied over. It is a 100MB (or so) partition at the start of the drive. Without this you can't use bootcamp or the bios upgrade.
I don't know how you get it back though. However why didn't you use the built in image making and restore tools on the OSX install disk to do the backup. That would have copied everything and kept everything working. Plus it's included free.
man this thread has been hijacked! Haha I guess I will hijack it further.
So I guess the general consensus here is that WD and Samsung drives hit the top of the list? I want to upgrade my drive to 250gb, but was just wondering if a good route to go is getting the WD passport external and just swap the drives. Any reason why I shouldn't do this?
So I guess the general consensus here is that WD and Samsung drives hit the top of the list? I want to upgrade my drive to 250gb, but was just wondering if a good route to go is getting the WD passport external and just swap the drives. Any reason why I shouldn't do this?
i too thought about that then figured if the drive died on me, i wouldnt have a warranty to fall back on as they could probably tell it was opened or something
There is some description:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=131.0
But there are people too who don't have any problems with the older firmware.
Using Data Rescue II, I cloned my 200gb on my macbook to a 250gb and installed it. But for some reason a partition appeared. So I've got a 200gb with a 46gb partition that wont mount. Does anyone have any advice about how do break the partition and reclaim that space?
Update firmware for Samsung 250
Can you give more info on the update CD for Macs? All I've found is the Samsung page on doing it with a Windows machine:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=131&orderNum=1
Did you use BootCamp to do this under Windows? If there's a straight Mac way to do it, it would be great because I don't have this machine set up to do Windows.
Thanks,
Allen
Can you give more info on the update CD for Macs? All I've found is the Samsung page on doing it with a Windows machine:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=131&orderNum=1
Did you use BootCamp to do this under Windows? If there's a straight Mac way to do it, it would be great because I don't have this machine set up to do Windows.
Thanks,
Allen
BTW, I used SuperDuper, it worked flawlessly and gave nice, user-friendly indications of what it was doing and what I needed to do.