The best HDD 7200 RPM for MBP 13"

[ermir4444]

I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive from my stock 160 GB 5400 rpm to a new 7200 RPM.

My choices are as follows:
1- Seagate Momentus 7200.4 - 500 GB
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=023760&cid=HDD.517.47

2- WD Scorpio Black 7200 - 320 GB
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=020352&cid=HDD.517.47

Which one is better considering the price and speed?
How will this upgrade affect my battery consumption and will the laptop get even hotter (considering the macbook pro 13 inch already runs pretty hot)?

I dont have the budget to go with an ssd so i have to go with the best of thee spinning disks

 

[Gabriel GR]

The consensus around here is that with the Seagate there is quite some noise and it eats a lot of battery. I've had the 320GB WD Black for some months and it's flawless. Just make sure you pick the model without the drop sensor cause it might not cooperate too well with the built in one inside your mac.

 

[elfxmilhouse]

same here +1 for the WD scorpio black. I had the 320gb 7200rpm in my MB and it gave no problems. Gabriel is right, get the one without the sensor since the MB takes care of that for you.

I did not notice more heat but it was louder than the stock drive. which is to be expected from 7200rpm drives.

 

[ermir4444]

The consensus around here is that with the Seagate there is quite some noise and it eats a lot of battery. I've had the 320GB WD Black for some months and it's flawless. Just make sure you pick the model without the drop sensor cause it might not cooperate too well with the built in one inside your mac.

Hey i just went a bought the same WD as you and i was wondering how am i supposed to transfer the data from my old HDD to the new one before i install it so i dont have to install the OS from the begining?

 

[xlii]

Hey i just went a bought the same WD as you and i was wondering how am i supposed to transfer the data from my old HDD to the new one before i install it so i dont have to install the OS from the begining?

If you have a timemachine backup of your current setup, you can remove the old drive, put in the new, boot from your osx boot disk and select restore from timemachine backup.

 

[ermir4444]

If you have a timemachine backup of your current setup, you can remove the old drive, put in the new, boot from your osx boot disk and select restore from timemachine backup.

Unfortunately i dont have a time machine backup but i have an enclosure for the new drive a bought. can i backup the system in the new drive and after its done take it out of the enclosure and put it in the laptop?

 

[Gabriel GR]

look up superduper and carbon copy cloner. They are both disk cloning tools that will copy your entire hard drive to your new one. Then you put the new drive in your mac and it will boot just like the old one.

 

[xcreet]

I also bought a 320 GB WD Scorpio Black w/o sudden motion sensor to put in my 3 month old 13 MBP. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my stock 160GB drive onto the WD Scorpio black which was in a cheap USB external HDD caddy. Worked brilliantly!

Since putting the 7200RPM WD drive in, I have noticed a little more noise and vibration than the stock drive but no noticeable decrease in battery life (could be slightly less, but without a stop-watch to prove it, it doesn't 'feel' like there is a decrease). No heat difference. All the heat in the MBP comes from the GPU and CPU. If you are worried about this, download SMC Fan Control , works great.

Good luck!

 

[ermir4444]

I just put the new wd in an enclosure but when i connected to the mbp via usb it doesn't read it. It says disk not supported but when i go to disk utilities it supports it but i cannot partition it or anything. What do i do?

 

[ttran88]

Seagate is having pretty bad luck lately. you should go with the newly introduced Hitachi travelstar 500 gb 7200 rpm HD. I have it. I love it. Its very quiet, fast, reliable and best of all, cheap!

 

[Nuc]

I just purchased the Seagate 7200.4 500Gb hard drive and think it's great so far. It's not noisy at all. I'll have to see how it goes since a lot of people have given it bad ratings.

Nuc

 

[Jollins]

I've gone from the WD500GB 5400rpm and the Seagate 500GB 7200rpm. Performance wise, I can't tell a difference. The seagate drive reduces battery life by maybe 10 minutes, and it's a bit more audible under load (still quiet though)

I'd go with the WD drive. I've found a few benchmarks comparing these drives, but these Techreport benchmarks are the most well rounded IMO. Their conclusion is that the Seagate and WD drives are about equal in performance, but the WD is quieter and uses less power.

 

[xlii]

look up superduper and carbon copy cloner. They are both disk cloning tools that will copy your entire hard drive to your new one. Then you put the new drive in your mac and it will boot just like the old one.

This guy is correct. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner (free). Put your new drive in your enclosure and use CCC to clone your current drive to the new drive. Then do the swap and you should be good to go.

You should consider backing up your data because sooner or later not having a backup will bite you and it will hurt.

 

[richard.mac]

The consensus around here is that with the Seagate there is quite some noise and it eats a lot of battery. I've had the 320GB WD Black for some months and it's flawless. Just make sure you pick the model without the drop sensor cause it might not cooperate too well with the built in one inside your mac.

my 250GB 7200.12 is pretty quiet for me and the battery life is pretty much the same as my old 5400rpm 7200.9, maybe less than 1/2 hour less. I only ever hear it with no ambient noise.

it is very fast averaging around 110 MB/s max read using AJA System Test. the WD Caviar Black would be a little faster but IMO louder and uses more power. the Caviar blue is very quiet and low on power but sacrifces speed both in spidle speed and thruput.

my pick would be the Seagate 7200.12 (without the shock protection, the Q model) or the Samsung 7200rpm.

 

[Gabriel GR]

my 250GB 7200.12 is pretty quiet for me and the battery life is pretty much the same as my old 5400rpm 7200.9, maybe less than 1/2 hour less. I only ever hear it with no ambient noise.

it is very fast averaging around 110 MB/s max read using AJA System Test. the WD Caviar Black would be a little faster but IMO louder and uses more power. the Caviar blue is very quiet and low on power but sacrifces speed both in spidle speed and thruput.

my pick would be the Seagate 7200.12 (without the shock protection, the Q model) or the Samsung 7200rpm.

Isn't 7200.12 a series of desktop hard disks by Seagate? I have a single platter 500GB 3.5" drive from that series. So is 7200.9...
The newest laptop series is 7200.4. And it's reported to be loud and vibrant. I have nothing against Seagate and I've got several drives from them in my desktops. If it works well your laptop that's great.

Here is the 7200.12 Barracuda series:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/desktops/barracuda_hard_drives/barracuda_7200.12

And here are the mobile drive Momentus series: (5400.6 and 7200.4):
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/

 

[richard.mac]

oh yeah whoops! i have the 250GB 7200.4 in my MBP and a 500GB and 1TB 7200.12 in my PC im allowed to be mistaken .

in my MBP i can only really hear it when completely quiet and only then is it just seek noise and not spindle noise. i cant really here the 7200.12s at all in a 6 feet away from my PC, they have very quiet motors.