That voids my warranty, though, doesn't it? I've still got a couple years to go on it, and I paid for it. Do you have any reccomendations for which particular drive I should get? I like Fujitsu, and have had a Hitachi and WD fail on me. Or maybe the WD was a Seagate. I don't even completely know. Which do you like?
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What 2.5" drive is fastest and most spacious?
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That voids my warranty, though, doesn't it? I've still got a couple years to go on it, and I paid for it. Do you have any reccomendations for which particular drive I should get? I like Fujitsu, and have had a Hitachi and WD fail on me. Or maybe the WD was a Seagate. I don't even completely know. Which do you like?
I have the the Momentus XT, and its a little noisy if you're in a silent room, mostly just a wooshing noise like a fan, but apparently this sound is suppose to decrease a few weeks after installation. Have yet to find that out....
Performance is great though. Start up times were pretty much cut in half and everything is pretty snappy.
Definitely the best drive if you don't mind a little noise, but you'll probably get that with any 7200rpm Drive.
Performance is great though. Start up times were pretty much cut in half and everything is pretty snappy.
Definitely the best drive if you don't mind a little noise, but you'll probably get that with any 7200rpm Drive.
Best laptop drive....many factors.
I think its also important to pick a RELIABLE brand. This study, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html, echoes another one I recently read about drive reliability. I have 6 different laptops, Mac/Win/Linux, and have had many over the years with different firms. After a few failures, I learned my lesson, and now I will buy ONLY Hitachi for the internal replacements. One exception, recently I purchased the new Seagate Momentus XT with the 4GB cache section (in addition to the 500GB drive) and I hope to see improvements over the Hitachi 7K500 I have now. Over the years, I have migrated ALL 5400 drives to 7200 and have seen improvements ranging from marginal to substantial, depending on workload and type of data being manipulated. YMMV. I also have 3 SSDs in test sleds for laptops, and I can tell you the key is the controller. Sandforce or Indilinx ARE ABSOLUTE MUSTS, otherwise, don't bother. They are still too costly for most people, and until the controller marketplace levels out at a more advanced capability, implementing SSDs is fraught with trouble. I have one from RunCore working REAL well for the time being in a Fujitsu LifeBook P1620, but I am not willing to purchase something large (300GB or more) for my MacBook Pro 17" unibody until better drives are available. For now the Hitachi 7K500 is doing very well.
I think its also important to pick a RELIABLE brand. This study, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html, echoes another one I recently read about drive reliability. I have 6 different laptops, Mac/Win/Linux, and have had many over the years with different firms. After a few failures, I learned my lesson, and now I will buy ONLY Hitachi for the internal replacements. One exception, recently I purchased the new Seagate Momentus XT with the 4GB cache section (in addition to the 500GB drive) and I hope to see improvements over the Hitachi 7K500 I have now. Over the years, I have migrated ALL 5400 drives to 7200 and have seen improvements ranging from marginal to substantial, depending on workload and type of data being manipulated. YMMV. I also have 3 SSDs in test sleds for laptops, and I can tell you the key is the controller. Sandforce or Indilinx ARE ABSOLUTE MUSTS, otherwise, don't bother. They are still too costly for most people, and until the controller marketplace levels out at a more advanced capability, implementing SSDs is fraught with trouble. I have one from RunCore working REAL well for the time being in a Fujitsu LifeBook P1620, but I am not willing to purchase something large (300GB or more) for my MacBook Pro 17" unibody until better drives are available. For now the Hitachi 7K500 is doing very well.
That's all great, but I need at least a TB, preferably more. Speed is a secondary concern, but still important. Which drive, SPECIFICALLY, do I need to purchase?
I have a WD 640 blue and I´m not that happy with it. First of all you nedd to run a hack to stop the spindle spinning up and down all the time and that makes the drive always spin instead.
I feel my MBP "beachballs" quite a bit and I will change my hard drive to a Momentus XT or Caviar Black.
I wouldn´t recommend the caviar blue for speed.
And I have quite few WD hard drives, externals, 3.5 internals, portables that I´m generally very happy with. (That´s why I bought the Blue)
I feel my MBP "beachballs" quite a bit and I will change my hard drive to a Momentus XT or Caviar Black.
I wouldn´t recommend the caviar blue for speed.
And I have quite few WD hard drives, externals, 3.5 internals, portables that I´m generally very happy with. (That´s why I bought the Blue)
If you look at the charts, all the large capacity 2.5'' drives are pretty much similar in terms of speed. The difference is only a few percent and you will never notice it in daily work.
Figure out your priorities - capacity, budget etc, and buy on that basis. I have a 500GB drive in my macbook (I think its the Scorpio Blue but can't remember) and am very pleased with it.
A 7200rpm 320gb drive was available to me and in my budget, but I needed the 500gb. Also, a 5400rpm 500gb drive with 300gb of data (60% full) on it is far faster than a 7200rpm 320gb drive with 300gb of data on it (95% full).
Check out the graphs showing the decline in speed as the drive gets filled up. you'll be shocked how much and how soon the speed goes down. Consider how much data you plan to put on. You'll realise there isn't all that much difference between drives. Get a cheap large one, and put your money towards a future SSD.
Figure out your priorities - capacity, budget etc, and buy on that basis. I have a 500GB drive in my macbook (I think its the Scorpio Blue but can't remember) and am very pleased with it.
A 7200rpm 320gb drive was available to me and in my budget, but I needed the 500gb. Also, a 5400rpm 500gb drive with 300gb of data (60% full) on it is far faster than a 7200rpm 320gb drive with 300gb of data on it (95% full).
Check out the graphs showing the decline in speed as the drive gets filled up. you'll be shocked how much and how soon the speed goes down. Consider how much data you plan to put on. You'll realise there isn't all that much difference between drives. Get a cheap large one, and put your money towards a future SSD.
I'd highly recommend people stay away from the Momentus XT drives, I put one in my Mac mini and I get beach balls a lot, and so have a lot of other people, a number of threads over on the Seagate website about this and none of the firmware updates have fixed the issue.
Wish I'd never bought the damn thing, I also wish SSD's were a lot cheaper by now. :-(
Wish I'd never bought the damn thing, I also wish SSD's were a lot cheaper by now. :-(
To date I've put 4 Seagate 7200.4 drives into two MBPs and two external enclosures.
All have worked flawlessly, without heat or vibration problems.
Anthro . . . you're an anthropologist? I am.
All have worked flawlessly, without heat or vibration problems.
Anthro . . . you're an anthropologist? I am.
That´s the problems with hard drives. You never know.
I had excessive spinning beachball with a WD Blue 640GB, but others highly recommend it.
I now have a XT and it behaves very well
I had excessive spinning beachball with a WD Blue 640GB, but others highly recommend it.
I now have a XT and it behaves very well
Only if everything else is equal. Bigger drive = higher data density = more bytes per rotation. So a 100 GB 7200rpm drive will be a lot slower than 500 GB 5400rpm. Emptier drive = using the outer, faster tracks = more speed. Again, a 500 GB 5400 rpm drive that is twenty percent full will be a lot faster than an almost full 100 GB 7200 rpm drive.
You might say that. I'm not in the doctoral sense, but I have a bachelor's and master's and currently work for the VA doing qualitative research. Good to know there is another anthropologist who knows something about data storage.
The whole density versus speed thing is new to me. Just another factor to make things more complicated.
I know that the newest generation drives, like late 2010 and new 2011 drives are faster because of the platter technology being better. So look for that.
The 1TB WD drive has 3 platters instead of 2 so it is taller, 12mm instead of 9.5mm and spins at 5200 rpm. This will fit in unibody MBP but not earlier models because of size
I am waiting for Hitachi Travelstar to start shipping their 750Gb (2 platter) 7200 RPM drive which should be faster than the WD 1 Tb and much faster than their 500GB. Hitachi has started shipping their 750 GB 5400rpm drive. I'm a fan of the Hitichi travelstar wa sit seems to keep getting the best reviews for speed, low vibrations, and lifespan. For larger 3.5" drives I like WD - never had a problem and own 3 of them - one for almost 6 years
I am waiting for Hitachi Travelstar to start shipping their 750Gb (2 platter) 7200 RPM drive which should be faster than the WD 1 Tb and much faster than their 500GB. Hitachi has started shipping their 750 GB 5400rpm drive. I'm a fan of the Hitichi travelstar wa sit seems to keep getting the best reviews for speed, low vibrations, and lifespan. For larger 3.5" drives I like WD - never had a problem and own 3 of them - one for almost 6 years
by now i had a momentus XT 500GB as boot disk and a WD 1TB as storage disk in my macbook pro - but the Momentus disappointed me quite a bit, since it was not much faster than the 3-platter WD.
as of today, i'm looking forward to a 2x750GB Scorpio Black RAID0 in a new MacBook Pro, so stay tuned on that as i will post some xBenches
as of today, i'm looking forward to a 2x750GB Scorpio Black RAID0 in a new MacBook Pro, so stay tuned on that as i will post some xBenches
by now i had a momentus XT 500GB as boot disk and a WD 1TB as storage disk in my macbook pro - but the Momentus disappointed me quite a bit, since it was not much faster than the 3-platter WD.
as of today, i'm looking forward to a 2x750GB Scorpio Black RAID0 in a new MacBook Pro, so stay tuned on that as i will post some xBenches
I'd say that's about as fast as you can get with two standard hard drives.
Nope, not really. It depends on many things but fast spindle doesn't always mean faster data...
Speed doesn't mean everything. Some early 7200 rpm drives had slower drive electronics so the spindle speed was just wasted. *POOF* all that heat and speed was wasted.
You all seem knowledgeable about large laptop HDs, so I have a semi-relevant question.
I'm getting some stuttering on iPlayer when playing back a downloaded film from HD. (a skipped frame about once a second). It's intensely annoying.
My MB is easily powerful enough to play back these films (and they're not in hi-def) It still happens after a fresh reboot, third party apps turned off etc.
The most likely cause I can think of is my HD, a 2.5'' 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue. Looking on the interwebs shows a common complaint that Playstations with this drive upgrade stutter on iPlayer, due to drive head parking.
So you be warned! However, I cant find any mention of issues with iPlayer and this drive in MacBooks, or any solutions to my Macbook iplayer problem.
I'm getting some stuttering on iPlayer when playing back a downloaded film from HD. (a skipped frame about once a second). It's intensely annoying.
My MB is easily powerful enough to play back these films (and they're not in hi-def) It still happens after a fresh reboot, third party apps turned off etc.
The most likely cause I can think of is my HD, a 2.5'' 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue. Looking on the interwebs shows a common complaint that Playstations with this drive upgrade stutter on iPlayer, due to drive head parking.
So you be warned! However, I cant find any mention of issues with iPlayer and this drive in MacBooks, or any solutions to my Macbook iplayer problem.