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Which 7200 RPM HDD to get?

M

mnsportsgeek

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 24, 2009
4,478
6,997
Hello,

I am buying one of the refurbished macbook pros and it has everything I want except that it comes with a 320gb 5400 RPM HDD rather than a 7200 RPM HDD. I am going to upgrade it to a 500gb 7200 RPM HDD but first I need your guys opinion.

This is the only one available on newegg and I'm wondering if it is the ONLY one or are there better ones that I should be purchasing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374
 
nuckinfutz said:
Or a Caviar Black from WD and you're good 2 go.
Click to expand...

How the heck does a desktop drive fit in a laptop?

Personally I am thinking of getting the 320GB WD Scorpio Black or 500GB WD Scorpio Blue, I'm not sure yet but the 500GB 7200.4 is very sweet.
 
I second the recommendation on the Seagate. I replaced my stock 5400RPM 320GB drive with one and am quite pleased. Performance is good and it's quiet.
 
reallynotnick said:
How the heck does a desktop drive fit in a laptop?

Personally I am thinking of getting the 320GB WD Scorpio Black or 500GB WD Scorpio Blue, I'm not sure yet but the 500GB 7200.4 is very sweet.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the catch reallynotnick. Scorpio is exactly what I meant. I'm looking at the S Black as well..I think i'll do fine with 320GB.
 
Question... I plan on purchasing apple care on this refurbished macbook pro. Does changing the HDD void my warranty on the Unibody MBPs?

Thanks for the help.
 
I read somewhere that the WD 5400 500GB drive (or was it 320GB?) performed better/faster than the Seagate. I remember this because I was looking to upgrade the stock 250GB 5400 in my MacBook Pro and was reading reviews. I'll try to post the link or find out the exact results.
 
the jury is out on the 7200.4 drives from Seagate. There was a techreport.com report and the 7200.4 drives don't perform any faster. I think that it is a firmware issue, but regardless, you can't even get a firmware upgrade should they roll one out apparently. Makes no sense, but that's what people on the forums are saying.

I vote Hitachi 500 gb or the WD Blue 500 gb drive. The Hitachi has better battery life. I had a WD Blue and it made these annoying head moving sounds, while the Hitachi has been dead, dead silent.
 
afurry13 said:
Question... I plan on purchasing apple care on this refurbished macbook pro. Does changing the HDD void my warranty on the Unibody MBPs?
Click to expand...

No, just that the HDD is not covered by Apple.

And personally I have spent about a day looking at graphs for these HDDs and user opinions, I am about to give up. I think I am going with the WD drives though as they supposedly faster in real world usage then the Seagate ones that work better with large file transfers. Though at the end of the day I doubt it matters.
 
Ya, but my HDD will be covered by seagate when I buy from newegg.com correct? So I wouldn't need apple care to cover it.

Thanks
 
unagimiyagi said:
the jury is out on the 7200.4 drives from Seagate. There was a techreport.com report and the 7200.4 drives don't perform any faster. I think that it is a firmware issue
Click to expand...

When comparing the synthetic results of Techreport with other websites, their 7200.4 does not perform worse.

So I don't think it's the firmware. Seagate has poor I/O performance and it's been holding them back since the 7200.1. It's that very few website rely on real world testing, otherwise this would have been known before.
 
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