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What FAST spinning HDD for MBP 13"?

C

Cubytus

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 2, 2007
1,444
25
Hi there,

Now that Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales are in full swing, I am looking for a replacement to my not-very-old 500GB Scorpio Black that Western Digital refuses to cover.

Since two years are an eternity in technology matters, I am now looking for a FAST spinning HDD for my 13" MBP. Spinning means no SSD as budget simply isn't there for a 500GB SSD.

What are your recommendations among 2.5" 7200RPM drives?
 
In fact these where high on my list, but I feel confused since I read conflicting performance review on them. One reputable site said they performed great, other said they were not worth the (probably smaller now) premium upon ordinary HDD.

Besides, would only 8GB of NAND provide any significant benefit? The OS is much larger than that.
3-year warranty? I am feeling a bit worried about that one. Granted, WD wouldn't honour the 5-year on the Scorpio Black when they didn't tell me about not receiving the failed one, but still.
From http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd_list.php, the performance of one of them seems only marginally better than the one currently installed in my machine.
 
I am surprised really non one seems to be knowledgeable about hard drives :(
 
Cubytus said:
I am surprised really non one seems to be knowledgeable about hard drives :(
Click to expand...

Maybe because we focus our attention on SSDs instead. For your needs, any of the major manufacturers 7200 rpm drives will perform about the same. The hybrid’s performance will depend on your workflow. If you bootcamp, it can really suck since little gets cached between reboots.
 
Cubytus said:
Hi there,

Now that Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales are in full swing, I am looking for a replacement to my not-very-old 500GB Scorpio Black that Western Digital refuses to cover.

Since two years are an eternity in technology matters, I am now looking for a FAST spinning HDD for my 13" MBP. Spinning means no SSD as budget simply isn't there for a 500GB SSD.

What are your recommendations among 2.5" 7200RPM drives?
Click to expand...

Try the Hitachi HTS7250? This one came with my 15" MBP when I ordered it back in 2011. It's a 500GB 7200rpm.

But honestly, there isn't a such thing as a fast HDD. My 7200rpm only topped 90MB/s read/write. As soon as the Samsung 840 Pro came out, I switched to it and got 510/480 MB/s read/write.

Unless, you plan to use several 7200rpm drives in an RAID array. Then you can get SSD speeds that way.
 
I have to add to the hybrid drive recommendation. I used one for a little over a year, and I loved the speed improvement. I was using a 750gb with 8gb of cache space, which I've heard is a decent amount better than a model with 4gb of cache space.
 
Hehe, but a 13" laptop cannot possibly use an internal raid. 90MBps is not great but enough. This is a budgetary constraint that has to be respected. I don't have Boot Camp, but since reviews on hybrid drives are mixed and sometime give opposite results, I am unsure. What is the tested speeds of these drives, considering they don't even have a 7200rpm drive to supplement the 8GB SSD? Hybrid is a speed improvement of what? 5400rpm, that's for sure, but on 7200rpm?
 
When I could not get what I was asking for my 2009 13" with two SSD's in it, I parted it out and put a brand new Seagate 500GB SSHD and was really impressed with the drive to be honest. It was quite fast and really quiet, booted almost as fast as the 160GB Intel X25M I had in it.

I'd say that if your MacBook Pro is an older one like my 2009, then you are bottlenecked at SATA-II anyway so just get the SSHD and be good to go.
 
No, actually this is an early 2012 (really mid-2011) machine. What about the SATA-III performance with a SSHD inside for that one? I don't care about boot times, I am talking about speed in real usage.

What about it?
 
It doesn't really matter if you care about boot times. Faster boot times is an expected result when you have a boot drive that has higher performance. The fast boot times just another bonus of a faster drive.
If you can't really afford the SSD storage that you want, there's other possible solutions, such as removing your DVD, installing a nice spinning HD in that slot, maybe 500GB, or 1TB,and putting a relatively smaller SSD in the original HD slot, maybe 128, or 256GB, if you can swing that. Setup the two drives as a fusion drive (several sites have the steps for a fusion setup). I think you will find that fusion setup will be quite fast, without needing to spend a huge amount on one SSD to handle all of your storage needs.
 
The Seagate SSHD's are excellent budget upgrade for a MBP - just avoid the first generation Momentus XT 500 Gb model which I've found a right PITA in Macbooks/Pro. I would stick with Seagate cos they've sorted out the problems with their first generation drive, the second gen XT 750Gb was absolutely fine.
 
Well I asked about transfer speed as measured by hdparm. But fusion doesn't work on Snow Leopard and early-2012 MBP, does it?
 
When it comes to mechanical hard drives, there is nothing faster than a WD Scorpio black in the 2.5" factor, apart from a WD Velociraptor 10,000 RPM 2.5", but they are not designed for laptops. Your only other options are the Seagate hybrids already mentioned, or the WD Black2 hybrid, which is over-priced anyway.
 
Considering how WD has treated my warranty request, only if their drive are markedly more performant would I dare to buy them. That was the goal of my question on SSHD (from Seagate) performance.

Does a SSHD beat a WD Scorpio Black, or should I simply give in and buy from a manufacturer that shows no respect for its customers?
 
Cubytus said:
Considering how WD has treated my warranty request, only if their drive are markedly more performant would I dare to buy them. That was the goal of my question on SSHD (from Seagate) performance.

Does a SSHD beat a WD Scorpio Black, or should I simply give in and buy from a manufacturer that shows no respect for its customers?
Click to expand...

In some uses it does and in others it does not. Sorry, but that is the true answer. I have owned both a couple of years ago. To be fair, maybe the current Seagate SSHD thingies are faster, but there is nothing in the specifications to suggest this would be the case.

Large sequential file copy

The 2009 MBP had a Seagate Momentus XT in it (top line)
The bottom lines represent the test for the WD Scorpio Black

121 seconds for the Momentus XT vs 86 for the WD


copyfile.png


But that isn't something that you would be doing all day, every day. The Seagate SSHD will be slightly faster for opening files/applications and everyday tasks when you're using your computer.
 
Hm fair enough. Of course a large file copy isn't a "typical" task, and since I intend to build the NAS precisely to speed transfers on the LAN, it would be counterproductive to add a slower drive in the MBP. I guess the relatively small SSD part accounts for conflicting test results. I perceived hdparm as being more neutral in reporting speeds.

If my heaviest daily-use application is Firefox, would the SSHD automatically cache every Firefox part, including user profiles, in its SSD?
 
I've found the XT 750 2nd gen to be slightly faster in terms of raw read uncached performance than the newer design - most likely because it spins at 7.2k rpm whereas the 3rd gen is 5.4k.
 
Good to know. Is it still available, however? How much SSD cache does it have?
 
I think they all have 8 GB? I am sure you can check on the Seagate site.

----------
Cubytus said:
Hm fair enough. Of course a large file copy isn't a "typical" task, and since I intend to build the NAS precisely to speed transfers on the LAN, it would be counterproductive to add a slower drive in the MBP. I guess the relatively small SSD part accounts for conflicting test results. I perceived hdparm as being more neutral in reporting speeds.

If my heaviest daily-use application is Firefox, would the SSHD automatically cache every Firefox part, including user profiles, in its SSD?
Click to expand...

In theory, yes. However, the caching logic is only known to Seagate engineers.
 
Cubytus said:
Hm fair enough. Of course a large file copy isn't a "typical" task, and since I intend to build the NAS precisely to speed transfers on the LAN, it would be counterproductive to add a slower drive in the MBP. I guess the relatively small SSD part accounts for conflicting test results. I perceived hdparm as being more neutral in reporting speeds.

If my heaviest daily-use application is Firefox, would the SSHD automatically cache every Firefox part, including user profiles, in its SSD?
Click to expand...

I've found it caches the boot files and your most frequently used apps and data. Needs a couple of boots to get the startup files right, and after using it it learns your usage. Within day or so and a couple more restarts it should all be done.

They are all 8Gb still I think..
 
EITHER

This one @ $ 120 (NewEgg) Seagate Hybrid Drives ST1000LM014 1TB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s NCQ 2.5" Laptop SSHD -Bare Drive if capacity (with increased speed) is the issue

OR

This one @ $ 130 (NewEgg) SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD128BW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) if pure speed is the issue

If you want something fast it is going to be above $ 100. Then the step to SSD is not so great anymore (looking at speed above capacity)...

Then again - you could always go for speed first (smaller SSD) and add capacity later by taking out the optical drive and putting regular HD in it....
 
Apparently the Seagate boasts 8GB, and according to its datasheet averages 100MBps transfer speed, and score available on HDBenchmark gives 649.

The current WD Scorpio Black is rated as 579 (inferior), but not markedly inferior.

Speed is an issue, reliability is another major one, but space isn't as long as it is 500GB, in which case budget is the issue for 500GB SSDs.
 
Cubytus said:
Apparently the Seagate boasts 8GB, and according to its datasheet averages 100MBps transfer speed, and score available on HDBenchmark gives 649.

The current WD Scorpio Black is rated as 579 (inferior), but not markedly inferior.

Speed is an issue, reliability is another major one, but space isn't as long as it is 500GB, in which case budget is the issue for 500GB SSDs.
Click to expand...

Ah sorry - didn't read about the 500 GB requirement. My approach would still be: take an SSD and use the existing HD in an external enclosure for data storage AND Time Machine so you have speed, capacity and security OR use the existing drive in a bracket instead of the optical drive.

I went this way a few years back and to be honest, I simply couldn't believe the speed I got (and couldn't turn back either after getting used to it).

Good luck!
 
Existing HDD is, unfortunately, garbage. Bad sectors. Although I do have the original MBP drive in an enclosure, speed gained with a smaller SSD will be paid back with lower battery life when external HDD is plugged in, and heavier bag due to hauling the drive everywhere. Installing an optical bracket is doable, but doesn't solve battery being drained faster.
 
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