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What Hard Drive have you installed in you Unibody MacbookPro?

M

macjunkie33

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 8, 2009
86
0
OH
Im just curious to see what upgrades you have installed in your Unibody MBPs recently. Im going to pick mine up tomorrow and looking to install a 320 gb 7200 hard drive and use the stock 320gb 5400 as a backup. Is there any brand or model to stay away from in particular? Sucess Stories or Problems you've run into installing new drives in the new MBP? Im excited to get my new shiny laptop tomorrow :D
 
Samsugn 500GB. Have not had a single issue with it and has plenty of space for OSX + the occasional windows use.
 
I always use Seagate drives in everything, but when I bought a 320GB 7200rpm drive for my MBP it kind of vibrated too much (pretty sure it was defective, because other forum posters praise that model), so I exchanged it for a 320gb 7200rpm Hitachi (I figured it should be good, because the standard 250GB 5400rpm in the MPB is Hitachi is silent). The Hitachi is much better then my defective Seagate was, but it still noticeably louder then my 5400rpm drive, and it annoys me because I work in quiet environments. So I will be upgrading to an Intel or Samsung SSD in a few weeks.
 
WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM, and loving it :)

And my stock 320GB 5400RPM is my time machine drive now :D
 
Hot Tamale with new Hard Drive

This is my first MBP and it seems like it is getting way too hot just sitting on my wood desk. I installed a Western Digital Scorpio 7200 320 g drive two days ago and it was running so smooth! Then today I decided to try and push some heave video apps and I got my machine up to 90c while running after effects! I popped the battery out and reset SMC control and its still getting really hot really fast. Ive propped it up on a books and its running much cooler now (72c) while ripping a dvd...maybe this is just what these machines need since they are so thin and the fans are so small?

Maybe I should consider going back to the stock drive for a little while and see if that doesn't help temperature wise?

I couldnt find any facts about the warranty being voided by installing a hard drive, so I went for it. it seems absolutely ridiculous that a certain HD could cause overheating...doesnt apple use WD drives? Maybe im just worrying too much...

Any thoughts?
 
Apple uses various drives in there. Toshiba, Hitachi. You should buy an iLap if you use the computer on a desk and in your lab or something else if you just use it on a desk. It should be raised so that it can dissipate heat. Different 7200 RPM drives are going to be warmer than 5400 RPM but it depends on the drive.

FYI, I can easily get my 5400 RPM drive in the 90s watching flash for a while on my MB. The fans do cool it down though. I think the Aluminum MB it is more efficient at cooling than the original plastic MBs. For example, it can cool the computer at 4000 RPM better than the plastic MB at 6000 RPM.
 
Right now I have the 320GB @ 5400 RPM HD. But Im thinking to popout my Time Machine's 1T @ 7200 RPM and switch with the MacBook Pro.
 
Pika said:
Right now I have the 320GB @ 5400 RPM HD. But Im thinking to popout my Time Machine's 1T @ 7200 RPM and switch with the MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

Wrong size. That is a desktop HDD (3.5"). The maximum size of any current notebook HDD (2.5") is 500GB. Not to mention if your enclosure is fitting a 3.5" HDD the switch won't go the other way either.
 
brop52 said:
Apple uses various drives in there. Toshiba, Hitachi. You should buy an iLap if you use the computer on a desk and in your lab or something else if you just use it on a desk. It should be raised so that it can dissipate heat.
Click to expand...

WHy does it not have great big feet sticking out of the bottom then?

You can't use it on a desk, you can't use it on a lap - where CAN you use it? Floating in space?

Doug
 
djellison said:
WHy does it not have great big feet sticking out of the bottom then?

You can't use it on a desk, you can't use it on a lap - where CAN you use it? Floating in space?

Doug
Click to expand...

You can use it however you want, but when it gets hot you know exactly why. It shouldn't be getting warm unless it is being used for an extended period of time or on something CPU intensive in a position where it can't dissipate heat. A flat desk should be fine. In the poster's case it was probably the HDD.

By the way, congrats on 1000 posts. :)
 
WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM, use the stock 250 5400RPM drive as a Time Machien Drive. Will probably get a 500GB 7200RPM drive by the end of the year though.
 
Unibody Macbook Pro 17" running hot with replaced 7200 drive

macjunkie33 said:
Im just curious to see what upgrades you have installed in your Unibody MBPs recently. Im going to pick mine up tomorrow and looking to install a 320 gb 7200 hard drive and use the stock 320gb 5400 as a backup. Is there any brand or model to stay away from in particular? Sucess Stories or Problems you've run into installing new drives in the new MBP? Im excited to get my new shiny laptop tomorrow :D
Click to expand...

I was very happy to get my new 17" MBP unibody, but the base 5400 drive was a step down from my previous MBP (7200). So I followed the Apple manual's instructions and popped in a Hitachi 320GB 7200rpm. Certainly was a bit snappier, but while trying to install all the many programs the system got quite hot (up to 80 degrees C) and I had more freezes and hangs than in my whole mac life. After more than half a dozen times of holding down the power button in one afternoon, I have replaced its original 5400 drive. It is now totally stable and runs significantly cooler. (Changing the drive and seeing all the bits and bobs under the cover was worth it though!)
 
dibble said:
I was very happy to get my new 17" MBP unibody, but the base 5400 drive was a step down from my previous MBP (7200). So I followed the Apple manual's instructions and popped in a Hitachi 320GB 7200rpm. Certainly was a bit snappier, but while trying to install all the many programs the system got quite hot (up to 80 degrees C) and I had more freezes and hangs than in my whole mac life. After more than half a dozen times of holding down the power button in one afternoon, I have replaced its original 5400 drive. It is now totally stable and runs significantly cooler. (Changing the drive and seeing all the bits and bobs under the cover was worth it though!)
Click to expand...

Yeah... I think you just convinced me to not upgrade to the 7200. I've been using 7200 drives and this, technically, is a step down. However, I don't feel that this stock drive performs that slowly anyway.

I think I'm just gonna upgrade to the 500 gb 5400 sometime.

Does the 7200 drive drain much more battery power than the 5400?
 
I only got my MBP 15" last week. I'm still using the stock 5200prm 320GB HDD, but I've ordered the G.Skill 256GB SSD. Hopefully it'll arrive next week. :D
 
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OCZ Apex 120 SSD. So far no complaints.
 
Just put in a WD 500GB, using the stock 250GB either as an external or I'll put it into my PS3 or maybe my mom's MacBook (she has 80GB, which I filled up in like 1 hour of transferring files from my old MacBook :p) And I'm gonna wait until the end of the year for a 512GB SSD to put into there :p
 
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