[stabsteer]

Hello and thanks for any info!

Just got a Mac Pro and want to load up internal HDs. I've been reading all over these forums trying to figure out what to do without going broke. I do video/Audio production but don;t want to spend $12,000 on a Ext RAID.

As far as internal drives go, the Hitachi's seem to be getting rave reviews for speeds comparable to Raptors which are pretty expensive. ow do the SAS drives compare in terms of speed and price?

* Also, if I go with 7200 drives, does anyone know the difference between a regular old HD and an 'Enterprise' series version? There's obviously quite a price difference!

Thanks again for any info!

[Cadaver]

I think you'll need the $899 Apple RAID card to use SAS drives in the internal drive bays in a Mac Pro.

[mduell]

The 7K1000 disks from Hitachi can keep up with the Raptors for bandwidth and I/Os, but not for seek time (physical constraint there). 15k SAS drives are much higher performance (for I/Os and seek time... bandwidth not so much), but also much higher cost.

The enterprise drives are slightly better than the regular drives; if the price difference (about 10%) isn't a big deal to you, you may as well go with them.

[stabsteer]

How are Enterprise drives better than regular old hard drives?

I've been hearing from others they are exaclty the same just come with different software for servers, etc. Anyone know the real difference?

Thanks!

[Simon]

They're rated for higher MTBF and for 24/7 use. Some are also rated for higher operating temperatures.

Looking at GB/$ and performance I think you should probably go with Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 (7K, 1000GB, SATA). Or the 750GB variant if you want to save money. In the past I bought a couple of Hitachi 7K1000 drives and while most of them were OK (2 DOAs out of a batch of about a dozen), the Seagates are even better: The Seagate 7200.11 beats the Hitachi 7K1000 at pretty much every test. They perform really well even compared to the Raptors (which at 150 GB have seriously limited capacity).
2008 Mac Pro - Best Boot Drive?
For large transfers it actually took a RAID 0 stripe of two Raptors to keep up with a single 7200.11!

If you're interested in raw performance a 3 or 4 disk RAID 0 is the way to go:
Hardmac.com: RAID 0 in a Mac Pro

With RAID 0 the benefit of two over one or three over two disks is a lot larger than going from three to four disks. Of course as always, RAID 0 means you have to think twice about keeping your data safe.

[mduell]

The Seagates win on bandwith, but the Hitachis manage many more I/Os... most people are I/O driven rather than raw transfer rate.

[Simon]

BareFeats was very clear about Hitachi 7K1000 vs. Seagte 7200.11.

AND THE WINNER IS....
... the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 One Terabyte 3G SATA drive (ST31000340AS). It out-performed the other three 1TB drives in 7 out of 8 tests. It's pretty amazing to see a 7200rpm drive transfer at over 100 megabytes per second. Eat your heart out, Raptor 10Ks!

The only test the Hitachi had a tad of chance was the small random writes test. In all others the Seagates scored better - and in some by quite a margin. That includes small random reads.

[mduell]

StorageReview's comparison of the Hitachi 7K1000 and Seagate ES2 (enterprise drive, slightly better than the 7200.11) at 1TB

Hitachi comes in at 917 I/Os per second in the office test compared to 588 for the Seagate. In their "high-end" disk benchmark, the Hitachi is at 735 while the Seagate is at 526. That translates into about 25% better I/O performance in the games they tested.
The Seagate is ahead 104MBps to 87MBps in a peak transfer rate test, but behind 53MBps to 60MBps in the minimum (end of disk) transfer rate test.

[grafphoto]

Samsung Spinpoint F1 HDDs: New Winners? | Tom's Hardware

I got a Samsung F1 750G based on the above review and several others recommending them. Seem to perform favorably with some of the top of the line drives. They are a pretty good deal right now at NewEgg.

[stabsteer]

Anyone know what HD comes in the new Mac Pros? I just got a 500GB one. Just curious.

Thanks for any info!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by stabsteer 

Anyone know what HD comes in the new Mac Pros? I just got a 500GB one. Just curious.

Apple uses different vendors.

In the new MPs I've seen the 320GB drives have been Western Digital and Seagate. The 500 GB drives were Seagate.

[grafphoto]

My 500 GB that came with my 2008 MacPro is WD. I guess they swap suppliers all over the place.

Mark

[zeppo]

Originally Posted by grafphoto 

My 500 GB that came with my 2008 MacPro is WD. I guess they swap suppliers all over the place.

Mark

Strange because western digital website seems to indicate that their SATA drives are not compatible with Macs. Here's the link from WD WD Compatibility Guide .

[stabsteer]

I just got my new Mac Pro. Is there any way to tell what 'Brand' HD came installed without actually opening and removing it?

Thanks!

[zeppo]

Originally Posted by stabsteer 

I just got my new Mac Pro. Is there any way to tell what 'Brand' HD came installed without actually opening and removing it?

Thanks!

1: Click the apple icon at top of the screen
2: click about this mac
3: click more info
4: click Serial-ATA

seagate drives will start with ST
Samsung drives will actually say Samsung
Its been a while so I don't remember what western digital drives will say maybe WD

[revMedia]

I currently have a 150GB Raptor, and will be selling it to set up a 4 disk RAID0. For the amount of heat and noise this thing puts out, I think any speed difference will be well worth it.

Go with the Seagates, you won't regret it.

- js