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Upgrading Hard drive

smcx83 said:
:confused: :confused:

I just bought a new MBP about two weeks ago and I was looking to upgrade the HD already (my itunes library plus autocad takes up more than I thought) and just need a 500giger. Doesnt have to be 7200rpm but would appreciate it.

I've been reading online that people have been having problems with power consumption firmware??? Am I going to run into any problems??
Click to expand...

The problems you are reading about pertain to a specific hard drive, the Seagate Momentus XT. Maybe you should have read a bit more carefully.

Other hard drives have no such problems.
 
other hard drives do have issues though with the load cycle count being driven way up, it's the apple fw and hd fw fighting each other..... Read up on my earlier post on page 1 and google HDAPM install for macs
 
BriChi said:
other hard drives do have issues though with the load cycle count being driven way up, it's the apple fw and hd fw fighting each other..... Read up on my earlier post on page 1 and google HDAPM install for macs
Click to expand...

Hi you seem to have some experience with a problem I am experiencing. I just open another thread on it. I upgraded my macbook pro with a Seagate Momentus 500G 7200 model number ST9500420ASG. I am having major freezing and spinning wheel problems. I see a bunch of threads from 2009 and 2010 talking about a possible firmware upgrade for this drive but see no evidence of it. Do you have any insight.
 
the only thing i have done was install the HDAPM setting, this on every startup sets the power management properly for the drive and Apple won't acknowledge this problem because they want you to purchase the drives through them, There is a lot of talk about it, All the WD drives I have replaced for people in MacBooks I have had to do this or the cycle count shoots up and eventually kills the drive..

You can get the installer package here: http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

then read once you reboot, go into "console" and you should see

disk0: """""YOUR HARD DRIVE"""""
30/06/2011 20:12:28 hdapm[62] Setting APM level to 0xfe:
Success


whats happening to you is the drive keeps spinning down every minute and then when you go to do something you get the beach ball because the drive needs to spin back up to access what you need. This is what was happening in all my cases anyway
 
So let me see if I have this straight. A 5400 rpm tb hd will be about HALF as slow because same speed double the "distance" if you will. Is that right? Damn if they made a fast tb hd this wod be so much easier. I am now leaning toward a 750gb 7200rpm but I really like the idea of splitting a tb down the middle 500gigs for the Mac and 500gigs for windows; like whole other laptop.
 
hocman22 said:
My reason for upgrading my hard drive is because id like to run windows 7 via bootcamp. I want to give a decent amount of space for both operating systems. I was on the phone with apple and asked about a 1TB and they said it would slow my computer down ( Late 2010 17" i7 2.8ghz macbook pro). The guy i talked to also said that i may get an excess amount of heat from the bigger hard drive.... Is that true? Id like opinions on what i should do, and if possible id like to get a 7200rpm hard drive but thats a secondary need. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The reason he said both things is that the drive would be 5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm and the drive probably uses 2 platters instead of 1. But, increased data density means more speed, so depending what u had in there before, the change may not be noticeable. Increase in heat and power would be largely marginal.
 
cfII said:
So let me see if I have this straight. A 5400 rpm tb hd will be about HALF as slow because same speed double the "distance" if you will. Is that right? Damn if they made a fast tb hd this wod be so much easier. I am now leaning toward a 750gb 7200rpm but I really like the idea of splitting a tb down the middle 500gigs for the Mac and 500gigs for windows; like whole other laptop.
Click to expand...

but it is probably 2 platters, so basically it is 2 500 gb hds in one enclosure.

9.5mm = 1 platter
12.5mm = 2 platters
 
Also, is it possible to partition the platters themselves? Eg I platter for the Mac and one for windows? Giving 2x 500gig hds at 5400 true?
 
new 1TB western digital scorpio blue

Seems to actually be FASTER seek and read/write times than many 7200 drives with lower capacity.
 
tivoboy said:
Seems to actually be FASTER seek and read/write times than many 7200 drives with lower capacity.
Click to expand...

any idea why?
that would be really cool, could just be in your mind though and don't take tis the wrong way but i don't see any REASON to believe you
 
cfII said:
So let me see if I have this straight. A 5400 rpm tb hd will be about HALF as slow because same speed double the "distance" if you will. Is that right? Damn if they made a fast tb hd this wod be so much easier. I am now leaning toward a 750gb 7200rpm but I really like the idea of splitting a tb down the middle 500gigs for the Mac and 500gigs for windows; like whole other laptop.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand that sentence.

a 5400rpm 2-platter 1TB hard drive would be faster than a 5400rpm 3-platter drive 1TB for example.
 
Here is a test of it (new 1 TB scorpio blue 5400 rpm) installed in my 13" 2009 MBP. Just ran it a few minutes ago.
 

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nice

xlii said:
Here is a test of it (new 1 TB scorpio blue 5400 rpm) installed in my 13" 2009 MBP. Just ran it a few minutes ago.
Click to expand...

that's some pretty nice scores, probably some of the best for a regular drive (not SSD)
 
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