Which HDD for your Mac Pro?

[GotPro]

No. The Raptor is NOT a good choice for a boot drive.

You are going to spend the same money for 150GB as you would for about 1TB.

I auditioned the Raptor... and the Hitachi 32Meg Cache 1TB drive boots the OS, loads programs, game levels, AND copies files FASTER than the Raptor did...

I quickly returned the Raptor.

PLUS, the Hitachi was 2x as quiet as the Raptor.

The RAPTOR is ONLY continuing to live on Reputation... it is OLD technology... and the higher density platters in the newest drives, combined with the large caches... are really the way to go.

 

[c:\windows]

No. The Raptor is NOT a good choice for a boot drive.

You are going to spend the same money for 150GB as you would for about 1TB.

I auditioned the Raptor... and the Hitachi 32Meg Cache 1TB drive boots the OS, loads programs, game levels, AND copies files FASTER than the Raptor did...

I quickly returned the Raptor.

PLUS, the Hitachi was 2x as quiet as the Raptor.

The RAPTOR is ONLY continuing to live on Reputation... it is OLD technology... and the higher density platters in the newest drives, combined with the large caches... are really the way to go.

Excellent that really helps.

 

[GotPro]

No problem...

Take a look at this previous post I made comparing some hard disk speeds...

Pay attention to the STOCK vs HITACHI replacement benchmarks I did (Real World... i.e., duplicating 10s of Thousands of files and gigabytes of size)...

The Hitachi was literally about 2x as fast... REAL WORLD... not synthetic benchmark!

Hard Drive Real World Tests

 

[c:\windows]

No problem...
Pay attention to the STOCK vs HITACHI replacement benchmarks I did (Real World... i.e., duplicating 10s of Thousands of files and gigabytes of size)...
Hard Drive Real World Tests

Great post, I returned the raptor. Should have checked here before I bought it, luckly no restocking fee. Gotta love micro center.

I went to buy best buy after I left microcenter and they had a a great deal on a 1tb USB external drive only $207! It was the Hitachi 31000u. I wonder if I can take it apart and use the drive? GotPro do you know what type of drive your Hitachi drive is? Even if the drive won't work n the mac (not SATA or something), I am still happy to have 1TB plugged into my Linksys N WRT600N router.

 

[c:\windows]

I wonder if I can take it apart and use the drive?

Cool, it looks like it is a good drive in a bad enclosure, thats why its on sale. In case anyone wants to try this, here is a link to take it apart

And here is a review of the drive inside.

 

[c:\windows]

OK all done, the whole process from taking apart the enclosure to putting it in the MacPro and formatting so the Mac could use it took about 30 mins. Very easy to do. The only tricky mac specific thing you need to do is go into Disk Utility , select the drive, click partition, choose 1 partition in the volume scheme dropdown, then click options and change the partition scheme to GUID partition table. The default scheme is Master Boot Record (for the Windows people). 1 TB on the cheap.

 

[c:\windows]

OK here are the final numbers xbench(Disk Test) after all this hard drive swapping:

Original 500GB drive that came with the MacPro - 57.5
Western Digital Raptor 150GB - 83.5
Hitachi's 7K1000 - 62.7

So the winner is the raptor. The cons as everyone knows
1. Size the raptor is small and the same price as the 1TB drive I got
2. Sound. I don't even hear the Hitachi. The stock drive you could hear a bit, but the raptor was a bit annoying.

Over all they all seem really fast. The Hitachi seems the fastest but I think that is because there is no sound and my brain thinks it is going faster because it is so quite, I don't hear it working.

OK I will shut up about drives for awhile.

 

[jjahshik32]

OK here are the final numbers xbench(Disk Test) after all this hard drive swapping:

Original 500GB drive that came with the MacPro - 57.5
Western Digital Raptor 150GB - 83.5
Hitachi's 7K1000 - 62.7

So the winner is the raptor. The cons as everyone knows
1. Size the raptor is small and the same price as the 1TB drive I got
2. Sound. I don't even hear the Hitachi. The stock drive you could hear a bit, but the raptor was a bit annoying.

Over all they all seem really fast. The Hitachi seems the fastest but I think that is because there is no sound and my brain thinks it is going faster because it is so quite, I don't hear it working.

OK I will shut up about drives for awhile.

I own both the seagate 1tb with the NS ending in the model name for higher mtbf (excellent drive). I installed it on an external hdd enclosure I got from owc and its freaking awesome!

But I have to disagree with you about the noise of the raptor. I think the raptor is quiet except that click noise when its seeking (thinks). IMO, well to me that click noise doesnt bother me and is actually welcomed to me, it reminds me of the good ol days of dos when I had my first cpu. Either way besides the click noise (when its thinking) other than that vibration/constant powered on (you dont hear the difference between the seagate or the WD I have in the mac pro, especially when the mac pro's case is closed and 2-3 ft away from you under your desk).

I really do love the raptor though, it is a very fast drive and as a boot drive I prefer it to the seagate 1tb. Plus I use it for faster seek times. I had a samsung ssd sata-II that I installed in my mbp and I actually tested opening various programs against the 150gb raptor drive and most of the time the raptor opened a second faster (even opening the programs the first time with none in cache, from fresh boot).

Sadly I had to sell my samsung ssd drive.. osx keeps freezing after wake on the ssd.. other than that man.. I sure loved that ssd drive, imagine pretty much instantly opening programs, no noise whatsoever (like you had no hdd at all), and very very cool.

 

[c:\windows]

Sadly I had to sell my samsung ssd drive.. osx keeps freezing after wake on the ssd.. other than that man.. I sure loved that ssd drive, imagine pretty much instantly opening programs, no noise whatsoever (like you had no hdd at all), and very very cool.

That would be ultimate in terms of speed. I think we will start seeing more SSD drives as boot drives.

It looks like the new 320 platters are going to be the next best boot disk. There is a good thread going on right now about this. The drive is the WD Caviar 640 Gig / 16 meg cache w/only 2 drive plates. On some xbench tests it is getting results of about 103 compared to about 52 from the stock drive. And with only two platters it is cooler and cheaper to run. This would make a great boot disk.

 

[GotPro]

Ahhhh not quite!

Here's the rub with using the drive from the EXTERNAL Hitachi... The drive has Acoustic Management Software enabled and set to quietest / slowest performance on the external... So you have to stick it in a PC and download the Hitachi Drive tool from their website and turn AAM OFF and set the slider to Fastest Performance ;-)

 

[c:\windows]

Ahhhh not quite!

Here's the rub with using the drive from the EXTERNAL Hitachi... The drive has Acoustic Management Software enabled and set to quietest / slowest performance on the external... So you have to stick it in a PC and download the Hitachi Drive tool from their website and turn AAM OFF and set the slider to Fastest Performance ;-)

Ahhh, I knew I needed to keep my PC around for some reason. Sounds like fun

 

[c:\windows]

Ahhhh not quite!

Here's the rub with using the drive from the EXTERNAL Hitachi... The drive has Acoustic Management Software enabled and set to quietest / slowest performance on the external... So you have to stick it in a PC and download the Hitachi Drive tool from their website and turn AAM OFF and set the slider to Fastest Performance ;-)

Thanks to GotPro the drive is a little faster now. I pulled the drive from the Mac Plugged in into a PC booted off a ISO I got from the Hitachi web site

Here are the new results after speeding up the drive:

Original 500GB drive that came with the MacPro - 57.5
Western Digital Raptor 150GB - 83.5
Hitachi's 7K1000 - 70.3 (before speedup 62.7)

So it's a little faster now and in the process I learned a bit about creating ISO images, how partitions on OS X work and how to manage disks so I would call it a success.

 

[GotPro]

OK here are the final numbers xbench(Disk Test) after all this hard drive swapping:

Original 500GB drive that came with the MacPro - 57.5
Western Digital Raptor 150GB - 83.5
Hitachi's 7K1000 - 62.7

So the winner is the raptor. The cons as everyone knows
1. Size the raptor is small and the same price as the 1TB drive I got
2. Sound. I don't even hear the Hitachi. The stock drive you could hear a bit, but the raptor was a bit annoying.

Over all they all seem really fast. The Hitachi seems the fastest but I think that is because there is no sound and my brain thinks it is going faster because it is so quite, I don't hear it working.

OK I will shut up about drives for awhile.

Ok... so I came home and ran XBENCH on the Hitachi 1TB I have...

You scored 62. with the Acoustic Management turned on and the drive set by default to "Slowest".

I do not remember what my stock XBENCH was with AAM turned on... but with it turned off... I'm scoring a 73.70.

Still a tick short from the Raptor as far as the benchmarks go... but it's pretty damn close and 16 points higher than the stock drive.

That said... in my "stopwatch" tests that, of course, I don't have anymore... the Hitachi bested the Raptor both in boot-up and app / game load times, as well as copying my files. It didn't best it by much... I think 2-3 seconds in boot time, etc... but for the same price... to have an additional 850 GIGABYTES... much quieter drive, less heat, etc... was a no brainer for me

Hope your scores go up to your satisfaction when you turn off that AAM ;-)

 

[Soop53]

I have two Sammy F1 750s...Ran xbench with a score of 90.02. I only have the stock 2 g of memory and no raid setup. One is the boot drive and the other is a storage drive.

They are fast and extremely quiet.

I decided to go with the 750s because Newegg had them at only $139 a piece at the time I bought them. I have had them over a month now and love them.

 

[LorenK]

Samsung Spinpoint

I've got two 500gb Samsungs in my MacPro, which I moved from an exteranl case. No problems, seem fast, and when I bought them about a year ago, they were rated the quietest and most reliable. They have proven their reliability.

I decided that I needed another drive and was going to buy another 500gb, but New Egg had a 750gb for only $25, so I went with the larger drive. I repeat New Egg has the 750gb Samsung Spinpoints (OEM) for $129, which is a ridiculously good price for storage from a reputable manufacturer. I realize there are others who need to consider access time and other issues for their drives but $129 for 750gb is a ridiculously good price (and I bought it on April Fool's day!).

 

[WardC]

Doesn't get any easier to decide! I'd finally narrowed it down to putting 2 or 3 WD Caviar 500's in my MacPro

So, what's the difference between these three?
All seem to be 500gb 16Mb cache, same access speeds etc etc

Only a few quid difference in price but I'd like to know why they have 3 drives that appear to be identical, just different part numbers?...what am I missing?

WD Caviar SE WD5000KS
Hard drive - 500 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 16 MB V0000275

WD Caviar GP WD5000AACS
Hard drive - 500 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 16 MB A0350143

WD Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS
Hard drive - 500 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 16 MB WESDR480

I have a pair of the WD5000AAKS (500GB) that I am using right now in a striped RAID0 system, which I setup as a software RAID array in Disk Utility...man, it's fast! Really fast. I think this is the way to go, get two of these and configure them in a RAID system. You can boot off the RAID and use it as your main disk. The only issue is you will need a good backup, because if one drive in a RAID0 goes down, the whole system goes down, but the plus is you get double the speed, using both drives combined at the same time. My disk test in XBench soared from an 83 (single disk) to a 120 (using the RAID0 array)...overall it feels like I upgraded my processor, everything seems to load quicker, almost instantly now. I truly believe hard drive access speed is a key setback in having a fast system, more than processor speed.