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WD 320GB SATA II 2.5" upgrade on Unibody Macbook

The Samurai

The Samurai

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 29, 2007
2,061
772
Glasgow
I'm looking at the possibility of upgrading the hard drive on my Unibody 2.0 macbook. The standard config came with a 160gb (5400rpm) drive.

I came across this and looks like a good deal to me. However, besides the increase in storage - is there any other additional benefit over my current hard drive?

All comments/suggestions welcome.
:D :apple:
 
imo id get a faster drive as opposed to a larger drive for a speed bump. but if you need the extra storage thats a good deal.
 
The Samurai said:
I'm looking at the possibility of upgrading the hard drive on my Unibody 2.0 macbook. The standard config came with a 160gb (5400rpm) drive.

I came across this and looks like a good deal to me. However, besides the increase in storage - is there any other additional benefit over my current hard drive?

All comments/suggestions welcome.
:D :apple:
Click to expand...

There's really no reason not to get a 7200RPM 320GB drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280
 
How much faster is the WD drive compared to the ones that ship with the Aluminum 2.4
 
I'd suggest waiting for the 500GB Seagate 7200 rpm drives to be back in supply. That's what I'm doing, anyway.
 
I'm currently in the process of moving my WD 320 Scorpio Black from my white MacBook to my new aluminum one. The white gets its previous 120GB 7200rpm and the 250GB that came in the aluminum will go into an enclosure.
 
relativist said:
I'd suggest waiting for the 500GB Seagate 7200 rpm drives to be back in supply. That's what I'm doing, anyway.
Click to expand...

Thing is, i'm getting an external 1tb as well - so I don't really need that much space internally. The 320gb is more than enough.

Thanks for the comments everyone, I appreciate it.

Cheers
 
The Samurai said:
I'm looking at the possibility of upgrading the hard drive on my Unibody 2.0 macbook. The standard config came with a 160gb (5400rpm) drive.

I came across this and looks like a good deal to me. However, besides the increase in storage - is there any other additional benefit over my current hard drive?

All comments/suggestions welcome.
:D :apple:
Click to expand...

I just bought this exact drive yesterday and installed it last night. Obviously, I don't have much to report after less than 24 hours of use, but it's nice having double the space of the original drive. I decided not to get the 7200 because of the concerns about shorter battery life, and as someone else pointed out, the battery life on the MacBook isn't all that great to begin with. Besides, I'd recently upgraded to 4 GB, so I figured that a faster hard drive wasn't all that necessary.
 
FotoGenetix said:
agreed id recommend the scorpio black as well, makes quite a bit of difference. However battery life does suffer a bit but its not too bad seeing as the unibody macbooks dont have super stellar battery life to begin with
Click to expand...

how much of battery life do you have to sacrifice?
 
I'm waiting until the 250GB seagate 7200.4 comes available. The 2.5" 7200.4 is a sweet HDD, but I have a mac pro with tons of storage space, and I don't want or need a 500GB HDD in my laptop. Gonna save some money and wait for that 250GB model!
 
bozz2006 said:
I'm waiting until the 250GB seagate 7200.4 comes available. The 2.5" 7200.4 is a sweet HDD, but I have a mac pro with tons of storage space, and I don't want or need a 500GB HDD in my laptop. Gonna save some money and wait for that 250GB model!
Click to expand...

Any idea when this is due out? I also do not need 500GB in my laptop, as I have over 2TB's elsewhere in the house...
 
ddeadserious said:
There's really no reason not to get a 7200RPM 320GB drive.

image-3160356-10521304
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280
Click to expand...

..unless the OP wants the bigger 500Gb version, in which case he/she would have to choose the 5400rpm package over the smaller but faster 7200rpm one.
 
I had put the scorpio black 320gb 7200rpm drive in my unibody macbook. At first it was great, way faster than the original and I really wasnt noticing the vibration. Well over the course of the week I really started to notice the extra noise and vibration until it drove me crazy and I exchanged it for the scorpio blue 500gb 5400. Let me tell you there is absolutly no vibration and it is just as fast as the black was, with an extra 180gb to boot. My xbench score was 132 with the stock drive and 149 with both of the wd drives.
 
Hi I've never upgraded a HD before. With what/how do I connect the other hard drive to the computer so I can clone it?
 
The Samurai said:
Thing is, i'm getting an external 1tb as well - so I don't really need that much space internally. The 320gb is more than enough.

Thanks for the comments everyone, I appreciate it.

Cheers
Click to expand...


Not that you don't know this, you might, but when a larger HD comes out it sometimes mean a denser platter. This is the case with the drive I suggested, so it is faster than a 320gb drive of equivalent RPM. Since it's the latest tech,
you should get it, if you can. I've been waiting for these to get back in stock for some time, and look forward to the upgrade.
 
I got the Hitachi 320 GB 7200 RPM with 16MB of Cache for $64.99 from www.tigerdirect.com

It does make a difference with certain functions as far as speed it is slightly noticable over the 250 GB drive that came with mine, but the Hitachi comes with a 3 year warranty, it is quiet, cool, and runs really nice.
 
I also just got the Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200rpm disk.

Just installed it and am syncing everything now. So far so good. I notice boot time is faster, at least.

Only thing is: I'm very concerned about the free fall sensor. After doing some reading here on MacRumors, I had inferred that I should buy the disk WITHOUT the free fall sensor because if I bought one WITH the sensor, it would conflict with the internal Apple installed free fall sensor.

Sorry, I know that's quite wordy. But do I understand this correctly?

Usually (before I upgraded from my stock 250GB disk), if I'm holding my MacBook and I spin around in my office chair, I can hear the heads lock. I tried doing that just now, and all I heard was a moderate whine/grind for a brief moment.
 
Wicked1 said:
I got the Hitachi 320 GB 7200 RPM with 16MB of Cache for $64.99 from www.tigerdirect.com

It does make a difference with certain functions as far as speed it is slightly noticable over the 250 GB drive that came with mine, but the Hitachi comes with a 3 year warranty, it is quiet, cool, and runs really nice.
Click to expand...

hey, is this drive: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4491975&CatId=2682

similar to the one you got? same model? Its the 7K320 model I am thinking of buying the same one and my stock drive in my UMB is by Hitachi too.

As far as battery life goes, how much decrease do you notice? Are they a bit noisier or do they produce a bit more vibrations compared to the 5400 ones?

Thanks for your advice, gonna purchase based on it.
 
I'm about to insert my new Hard drive in my Macbook. Before I do, I would ideally like to have everything so it automatically syncs all my apps and configurations straight onto this new hard drive (is this possible?). For example, I have quite a lot of software installed on my current machine and I can't be bothered re-installing them again. Is there a way around this?
 
Make a copy of your internal disk to an external Disk (.dmg file) with DiskUtility (you have to start from the CD to do that). Replace the drive, boot with BootCD choose "restore from" in DiskUtility select the .dmg file... wait... you're done.

Or.

Connect the internal "original" Disk to a Mac with a free SATA port and the "new" Disk to another free SATA port. Start CarbonCopyCloner clone "original" to "target" - done.
 
im upgrading my macbook's HD to a WD 500gb one. if i put my old drive in an external usb enclosure can i reimport my data into my new hd when im installing the new OS?
 
yes. the procedure is usually to put the new drive into a USB enclosure, and clone the internal drive with superduper or carboncopycloner. then, replace the internal drive with the one that you copied to. very easy.

i didn't want to buy an external enclosure, so i did it a little different. i took an external drive that i already had, then copied the drive in my macbook to the external. i then took the drive out of the macbook and put in the blank new drive. I booted off the external drive and partitioned the new drive, then copied the contents of the external back onto the new drive.
 
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