They were just announced and aren't available in the retail channel yet. Typically it takes a month or so. I think WD supplies OEMs first.
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WD 320GB 7200rpm self installation
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Did you format the disk with DiskUtility? It's probably Fat32 out of the box, which is the wrong format for a Mac OS install.
The difference between a 5400 & a 7200 depends on what you want to use it for,for general stuff ie surfing,a office suit etc then no there's not much gain,but if you render movies,edit photo's then yes there is an advantage for a 7200 drive,oh and here is a link for the scorpio black
I stand corrected. The Scorpio Black is available now, but I bet it sells out very quickly. That's what happened when the Scorpio 320 came out, and then it couldn't be found for several weeks.
Note that the one available now is without the free-fall sensor.
I will wait for that or get the new Hitachi 7K320 (also not yet available).
Note that the one available now is without the free-fall sensor.
I will wait for that or get the new Hitachi 7K320 (also not yet available).
Ah, but is it necessary at all for Mac laptops as MacBooks already have motion sensor?
Do MacBook Pros have it?
yep all Mac lappy's have them, they have to to stop the drive getting damaged if on the go
OK, then I would guess it's better not getting the WD with the free-fall tech, as the two might interfere with each other.
god knows about that,i have the 320GB 5400 in my pro,and i can hear the heads park,but i don't know if it has a free fall sensor or not,but it works whatever
Can't remember offhand, but I'm pretty sure I formatted it correctly with Disk utility. I'll check again later tonight to see if that's the issue.
I didn't even think of this, how do you format the drive before booting it up to install OSX?
Thanks for the link, I didn't realize there was the free fall sensor toggle. I'm a chemist so I don't do much video editing, just family stuff, so I think I'll just get the 5400rpm drive and save some money.
That is great that the mbp's free fall sensor is in the laptop not the hard drive.
I also have the WD320 Scorpio (WD3200BEVT ) in my MBP. It does not have free-fall tech. I don't hear anything. It just works.
But I do photo editing with RAW image files, and my workflow involves culling thousands of photos at a time in Adobe Lightroom, so I would like the extra bit of performance with a 7K RPM drive.
Boot from the OS Install CD/DVD. Once the menubar shows up in the installer, you should be able to run DiskUtility from it. That's what you use to format for a Mac OS X boot disk.
Or put the drive in an enclosure, mount it as an externals disk, and run DiskUtility from your current Mac OS. Once you've done that you can even use the free part of SuperDuper to clone your old drive to your new drive before swapping the drives. That's what I do.
On the web page it says that it will park the heads to save power, which I take it as a feature rather or not if you have the free-fall sensor.
Thanks, I think I'll do the latter. Is it possible to boot from the drive while it is mounted as an external disk so that I can make sure that everything will work before I do the installation?
the seek times will be faster with the 7200,but not sure about the 500GB as i don't think any benchmarks are out yet,but i would imagine it'll be as quick as say a 250 7k,but then that would depend on the amount of data on the drive
It's space i need so it's a toss up between a samsung or hitachi
Thanks but I'm aware of what a motion sensor is,all 2.5mm must park there heads as these are portable drives,so therefore they park to save damage,what the question is,is why have a free fall sensor on a 2.5mm drive,when lappy's already have a motion sensor built in
If you open the book yourself, and replace the hard drive yourself you are fine. If something happens and you take it for repair thinking it's not the HDD and an Apple tech shows that it is in fact due to your HDD upgrade then they can refuse to fix it since you in fact "broke/damaged" the machine.
Well if you break your computer using it; it voids the warranty as well.
It won't void the warranty, Apple just wont fix it for you. Say, if you drop the machine and the LCD cracks, you will have to pay for the repair. Then a month later the HDD craps out, Apple will fix that.
As far as speed and storage goes, I am hoping that the 500GB proves to be faster than the 320GB 7K. I'd rather have speed and 500GB of storage. If not, then it's the WD scorpio black for me. I am not even using half of the space on my 250, but having 70 extra gigs and a faster drive would be nice.
I'd just pay the $60 for piece of mind by the way. Around my area there is an Apple Certified tech shop that will do the swap for $50 and give me my machine back same day if I pre-schedule it. I'd rather pay $50 and have a pro do it than save $50 and do it myself. Just like I pay $10 to have a pro cut my hair, and $500 to have a pro replace the brakes on my car.... in the end I will pay for piece of mind.
Yes, hold down the option key when you start booting. It will let you select the drive to boot from.
Bad analogy, IMHO. Most of us don't cut our own hair, but brakes are simple to replace if you know how to do them and have the tools (and the money you save can more than buy the tools you need). Likewise, replacing a MBP drive is also easy-peasy and takes 15 minutes. I'd never pay someone $50-60 to do it. If I have to take my machine in for warranty repair, I spend 15 minutes to put the OEM drive back in.
Just put the old drive back in,before taking in for repair
You beat me to it,as above
The bigger point was about piece of mind, not saving money. I would do the same thing if I had the time to take out the drive and put it back in when/if something went wrong with my book. But paying $50 to do it an forget about it isn't a bad deal.
Same thing with much of what we do, especially something as important as brakes, not just brake pads, but the whole braking system.
Now, changing my oil, or installing my own RAM is a different story, since car companies/Apple make that easy to do even for the tech/auto inept.
I guess my original post was a bit misleading, the guy quoted me a $60 installation on a drive I would have bought at their store, but their drives were more expensive than MSRP and they don't have anything higher than 250GB in stock. I am not sure if they would charge more for installation if I just brought in a drive I bought elsewhere, but my guess is that they would. I guess I should go talk to them again and see if they can get in a 320GB drive for a reasonable price because I would pay the $60 for installation just to save myself the trouble of doing it.
Bye the way I used to cut my own hair (now my wife does) and I change my own brake pads.
I guess my original post was a bit misleading, the guy quoted me a $60 installation on a drive I would have bought at their store, but their drives were more expensive than MSRP and they don't have anything higher than 250GB in stock. I am not sure if they would charge more for installation if I just brought in a drive I bought elsewhere, but my guess is that they would. I guess I should go talk to them again and see if they can get in a 320GB drive for a reasonable price because I would pay the $60 for installation just to save myself the trouble of doing it.
Bye the way I used to cut my own hair (now my wife does) and I change my own brake pads.
They should, every shop around me does. I bring in whatever drive I want and they replace it, swap the info/OS, and give me the original one back for $50.
It does/should take only 15 minutes to do so, so they are getting a deal as are we. I am sure they just do the swap, setup the transfer, and walk away to do other stuff and come back in an hour or so (depending on amount of info) to give you your machine back. Getting $50 for 15 minutes of work is a deal.
I used to cut my own hair too, but ran out of time to do the cutting and clean up. I'd replace my own brake pads, but again, don't have the time. And the $500 was for brake replacement, the pads and everything else.