Which harddrive brand the best?

[nanoboy]

Was thinking of getting the Samsung M6 500 GB 5400 rpm 8 MB cache for upgrading my white MacBook. The massive 500 GB capacity is quite attractive.

But judging from the benchmark here, I may be better of going for the Western Digital 320 GB 7200 rpm 16 MB cache, for speed performance.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

I'm out of space with my little 80 GB harddrive, and can't wait to put iWork 09 and iLife 09 in

 

[kid rock]

This will kick off a big arguement LOL



But I'd go for western digital as the best, all my drives are WD

 

[mgridgaway]

Everyone has a preference. Usually, though, it's between Western Digital and Seagate.

 

[nanoboy]

What about spinspeed vs battery

And they say 7200 rpm eats up more battery (compared to 5400 rpm), how significant would that be?

 

[sickmacdoc]

And they say 7200 rpm eats up more battery (compared to 5400 rpm), how significant would that be?

An equally valid question along those lines is how significant is the speed increase, and more importantly would it speed up anything you do with the computer significantly enough to put up with lower run times in the first place? Has a 5400rpm drive held you back in what you do with your Mac up to this point?

I simply ask that from a practicality side of me- because I hear of so many cases of people just wanting the bragging rights to the fastest setup (one of the more exotic $$$$ RAID setups for example) and then they say they use their Macs mainly for browing the net and email!

 

[yoppie]

I like Western Digital. I own 3 WD drives and so far I haven't experienced any problems.

 

[nanoboy]

An equally valid question along those lines is how significant is the speed increase, and more importantly would it speed up anything you do with the computer significantly enough to put up with lower run times in the first place? Has a 5400rpm drive held you back in what you do with your Mac up to this point?

I simply ask that from a practicality side of me- because I hear of so many cases of people just wanting the bragging rights to the fastest setup (one of the more exotic $$$$ RAID setups for example) and then they say they use their Macs mainly for browing the net and email!

Yeah thanks, I'm thinking about that as well. Taken that into consideration, I probably would prefer longer runtime using 5400 rpm, and having bigger capacity (500 GB).

I am also not too sure about that benchmark page and how close it relates to practical day-to-day process performance. (Samsung is way down on the list).

The processes that hogs my computer's activity the most is watching video online (flash?). I only use Photoshop occasionally and not much else that's data intensive. Incidentally I play online strategy game occasionally but never noticed any performance hogging. I don't even use Parallel.

 

[skye12]

The new 7200's are supposed to be just as energy efficient as the std
5400's. But I will tell you a 7200 does run a little noisier and can vibrate
a little relative to a 5400.

At least thats what I noticed after putting a Seagate 7200 in my MB.
My machine is snappier though.

 

[kellen]

I will reiterate the WD or seagate. Never used samsung. Had a couple of maxtors and they were a pain. Wiped data and lost the drive a couple times. Hitachi seems to have problems online so I have avoided them.

I personally just bought the WD Black 640 for a system drive. Buying the seagate 1tb for time machine.

I don't think you can go wrong in Seagate (except for the 1.5TB) or WD.

 

[Cave Man]

Was thinking of getting the Samsung M6 500 GB 5400 rpm 8 MB cache for upgrading my white MacBook. Any thoughts much appreciated.

If you need lots of random access (e.g., games, reboot a lot, editing RAW photos, etc.) go for a 7200 rpm drive. If you need sustained read/writes (e.g., movies, music, video, web browsing, text editing) go with a larger capacity 5400 rpm drive. For me, it's only Samsung drives when available. Here's my history since I started keeping track:

IBM: none of one failed.
Western Digital: three of four failed (3 yrs, 11 months, 6 months).
Seagate: one of five failed (in 10 days - the new 1.5TB drive and its replacement has been fine for 2 months).
Samsung: none of 7 have failed.

My Samsungs are:
1. 750gb Apple TV drive
2. 750gb boot drive in my hackintosh
3. 750gb test drive
4. 1tb Time Machine drive
5. 1tb Media drive
6. 500gb notebook drive in my Mac Mini
7. 320gb notebook drive in my MacBook Pro

 

[BRyken]

I just put a WD Scoprio Black 7200 320 in my MacBook Pro. I must say there are some significant performance increase as well as slightly faster boot times. Before I had the original stock 5400. Definitely don't regret, if I were to recommend one it would definitely be the WD Scorpio Black.

Brad

 

[numbersyx]

I just put a WD Scoprio Black 7200 320 in my MacBook Pro. I must say there are some significant performance increase as well as slightly faster boot times. Before I had the original stock 5400. Definitely don't regret, if I were to recommend one it would definitely be the WD Scorpio Black.

Brad

How difficult was it to replace the HD then?

 

[jrrdnx]

Western Digital drives have always worked very well for me. I was also loaned a small Seagate as an OS drive from a friend, and it's working out quite well also. I used to use Maxtor all the time and had problems with every single one of them (not sure if they're even around anymore or if they got bought out ). Definitely WD

 

[BRyken]

numbersyx

It was actually really easy to replace the hard drive. Took me 30 minutes. The only difficult part is keeping track of all the screws and making sure to remember where they go. Other than that, everything went perfectly.

 

[sickmacdoc]

Western Digital drives have always worked very well for me. I was also loaned a small Seagate as an OS drive from a friend, and it's working out quite well also. I used to use Maxtor all the time and had problems with every single one of them (not sure if they're even around anymore or if they got bought out ). Definitely WD

They were purchased by Seagate a year or two ago.

 

[carlosbutler]

I will always say Western Digital, especially if its an external FW/USB hard drive. Although Hitachi hard drives, from what i have used and been told are quite nice as well. I would only recommend seagate if it is just a hard drive and not a external hard drive and certainly not if it is a usb memory stick because they put their own software on there, which im sure you can delete but it shouldnt have it on there in the first place!!

Dont go for maxtor, at all.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

WD is trash. I would choose Hitachi, as that is Apple's OEM for hard drives and Hitachi uses IBM's technology. SeaGate is my second choice.

 

[rick3000]

Your best bet is either Seagate or WD. They seem to be the two brands most people like, I don't know about Maxtor recently, but my old Maxtor was trash. I prefer Seagate because of the 5 year warranty, but they now only offer that on some models. I would not get anything with less than a 3 year warranty even if it maybe a bit cheaper.

 

[moniquetx]

Western Digital is by far the best.

I've been using WD hard drives for over twenty years and never had any problems. My first 100 MB WD hard drive still goes strong after all those years.

 

[dukebound85]

well ive only had one hd fail on me and it was wd in not even a years worth of usage

 

[Cave Man]

Western Digital is by far the best.

Puh-lease...

 

[Umbongo]

WD is trash. I would choose Hitachi, as that is Apple's OEM for hard drives and Hitachi uses IBM's technology. SeaGate is my second choice.

Apple use Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi and Fujitsu. Maybe Toshiba too, I forget.

--------

For anyone trying to make a decision based on this thread (or any thread): While I'm sure all these anecdotal accounts are given with the best intentions they are irrelevent in the process of choosing a hard drive. The best you can do is look at benchmarks for performance (storagereview.com can be useful) and consider acoustic and power levels if those are important. Also you should search the specific model you are interested in and see if there are/were any problems and if there are newer revisions that have fixes you should try and get.

 

[moniquetx]

Puh-lease...

IMO

 

[akidd]

Apple use Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi and Fujitsu. Maybe Toshiba too, I forget.

--------

For anyone trying to make a decision based on this thread (or any thread): While I'm sure all these anecdotal accounts are given with the best intentions they are irrelevent in the process of choosing a hard drive. The best you can do is look at benchmarks for performance (storagereview.com can be useful) and consider acoustic and power levels if those are important. Also you should search the specific model you are interested in and see if there are/were any problems and if there are newer revisions that have fixes you should try and get.

Surely, the as near as you will ever find it perfect answer?

 

[nanoboy]

Apple use Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi and Fujitsu. Maybe Toshiba too, I forget.

--------

For anyone trying to make a decision based on this thread (or any thread): While I'm sure all these anecdotal accounts are given with the best intentions they are irrelevent in the process of choosing a hard drive. The best you can do is look at benchmarks for performance (storagereview.com can be useful) and consider acoustic and power levels if those are important. Also you should search the specific model you are interested in and see if there are/were any problems and if there are newer revisions that have fixes you should try and get.

Thanks for the link to storagereview.com it's very useful!
After reading the various tests they performed there for 500Gb drives comparisons, I've come to a conclusion of getting the Samsung SpinPoint T166.

Can anyone confirm that this drive will fit into a white MacBook please? I'm a complete novice in opening up computers, so am a bit timid!

Quote from the site:
"the SpinPoint T166 delivers a great combination of productivity performance, quiet operation, and power economy. It should be at the top of the list for anyone seeking an inexpensive, high-capacity drive."