[Bumboclott]

I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive to 250 GB.

At macsales they have:

-Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 5400RPM SATA
and
-Western DIgital Scorpio 5400RPM SATA

Any advice on which one to get?

Thanks

[imitchellg5]

Western Digital. Hitachi can have questionable reliability.

[CheesePuff]

Any drive has questionable reliability. You just never know.

I have a Hitachi and works great.

[zerock]

WD has a better record.

[hatim]

Get the one with better warranty. I just bougt a 120GB Seagate with 3 years warrany. I've had 2 macbook drives die in 16 months.

[dowNNshift]

I recommend going with the Western Digital Scorpio; features a 3 year warranty, better shock absorption and vibration tolerance, and sells for a fair price. I've been very pleased with the 160GB model (149GB actual). In my experience, it runs quiet and cool. Not any performance impact on Parallels or Photoshop's load time either.

Lately I've had bad luck with Seagate Momentus drives -- I've gotten two DOA from NewEgg. One didn't power up at all, the other buzzed then clicked...

[SpencerLavery]

I'm loving my WD Scorpio. My MB has a problem whereby it doesn't always go to sleep when I close it, but even after carrying the 'awake' MB around in my bag a few times the drive's still going strong. Fast as hell too.

[redhot_nyc]

I'm deciding between those two drives and the 7K200, which sounds like an incredible drive, but 50GB less capacity. But I think the 5400rpm drives should be plenty fast.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by zerock 

WD has a better record.

That depends on the time scale you use. Lately (the last three years or so), WD has gotten much better. But their prices reflect the fact that they're digging out of an enormous hole that they dug for themselves. I've had three WD drives fail on me, all because they (not the computer) overheated. This was in a very open, very well ventilated PC case. (One of the reasons I got an iMac was I was tired of the jet engine-like noise associated with my PC desktop.) On the other hand, Hitachi now owns the rights to the "Travelstar" and "Deskstar" lines of drives-which they developed with IBM. These drives have a really good track record as a whole. BUT...like anything else, individual items will have their own issues, and of course some products are just plain better than others. Research the model you're interested in before spending the money.

AND ALWAYS KEEP YOUR STUFF BACKED UP. Falling drive prices make it relatively inexpensive to replace a failed drive and to have a backup external drive. Take advantage of it and get yourself a big whopping external drive to back up your laptop and you'll be very happy when you run into problems.

[Chito]

As ghporter said research the drives you're considering and develop a back up strategy. Do your research using the drive compatibility database at:
Accelerate Your Mac! Hard Drive, CDROM, DVD ROM, DVD RAM, CDRom Recorder, and Removable Storage Drive Compatibility Database

[Bumboclott]

Thanks for the advice guys. I went with the WD. So far so good. And the installation was easier than I thought!

[shifuimam]

That's too bad - Seagate all the way - can't beat the five-year warranty.

Also, for the record, you don't have to buy stuff like RAM and hard drives from a Mac place. Apple uses standard hardware in this regard, so you can get good deals from Newegg and whatnot (and be able to buy a Seagate drive, since from what you've said Macsales doesn't carry them).

[tycheung]

reliability always varies. For the current crop of 2.5" laptop drives at 250gb, I went with Hitachi. WD is a smaller company and they tend to have good years/bad years. Seagate - a friend who works at a data recovery center seems to think they have the worst time with the momentus lines; plus their cheap drives are probably the crappy maxtor line that they bought. Samsung is pretty good overall nowadays - actually probably the best as they have apparently poured a lot of R&D into their HD division of late. Hitachi - the only reason I went with it is that their drives were tested as having the lowest heat and power draw...and I figured less heat = somewhat better reliability.

Again - all anecdotal. I'm sure some big megacorp like Google keeps stats on all their HD's but as of yet I haven't been able to find it.

I backup to an external like everyone else.

[thetman]

whenever I hear discussion of a company having a longer warranty than another I think of this quote from Tommy Boy

I can put [crap] in a box and put a lifetime warranty on it, and you still have a piece of [crap].

[mduell]

Read the drive reliability database at StorageReview(.com).

[Simon]

Originally Posted by thetman 

I can put [crap] in a box and put a lifetime warranty on it, and you still have a piece of [crap].

Good point. Exchanging a device under warranty is better than paying for it. But having to exchange it in the first place is a pain.

[Guy Kuo]

Forget 250 gb. Now Western Digital has a 320 gb Scorpio drive

WD Scorpio 320 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD3200BEVT )

Pricing is aggressively set at $200

[Simon]

As of today, you can get a BTO MBP with 250 GB 5400 rpm HDD.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon 

As of today, you can get a BTO MBP with 250 GB 5400 rpm HDD.

So we should see the 320GB/5400RPM drives in another... 5 months?

Didn't Apple used to keep pace with laptop hard drive size/speeds?

[Simon]

Everything used to be better. No seriously, we already 'see' them today, just not as BTO option from Apple. If you get an AASP to put your 320 GB drive in there, your warranty will be fine. Obviously that will cost extra, but hey, if you absolutely need those extra 70 GB, what's a $30 installation fee? I'm glad I don't need 'em (thanks to network storage) so I can just be lazy and order whatever faster drive BTO option they have.

[solmaker]

Western Digital claims its Scorpio drives are "Fast and Efficient - With 5400 RPM spin speed and 12 ms access time ... Quiet - In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive™ combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. These algorithms also optimize the way a drive seeks for data, which significantly improves power consumption. So now silence (and longer battery life) is golden. ... Reliable and Rugged - WD's ShockGuard™ technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. WD's SecurePark™ parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non- operational shock tolerance."

Are the MacBook's standard drives as silent, efficient, reliable, etc. as WD claims for its Scorpios?

[Steve SpotOn]

I've just replaced my 120g drive (Toshiba) that came in my MacBook with a WD 250g Scorpio and all seems fine.... except for a slight feel of vibration on my laptop casing that wasn't there before. Hopefully I fitted it OK and it's nothing to worry about but not as solid as before.

Steve

[SpencerLavery]

I definitely don't get any vibration wit my WD Scorpio 250 so maybe try taking it out and refitting it.

[TheoCryst]

I upgraded from 60 to 120 a while back (currently using a Toshiba 120GB 5400 RPM drive), and planning on upgrading to the WD 250 as soon as I get some money to burn. But 320? Damn... that's tempting.

[mdc]

I bought a MacBook today and put in a 250gb WD drive.
I formatted it, installed 10.5 on it, and everything is going smoothly.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Guy Kuo 

Forget 250 gb. Now Western Digital has a 320 gb Scorpio drive

WD Scorpio 320 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD3200BEVT )

Pricing is aggressively set at $200

Has anybody here actually seen the 320 GB drive in stock anywhere? I did the standard NewEgg and ZipZoomFly check, to no avail. If you hit the "Compare Prices" link on WD's list of retailers, it brings up a pricegrabber page with one result: Not in stock at CDW, with a price of $$270. I'd pay $200 to get the 320 GB drive to go with the MacBook I'm about to order, but it seems quite the mythical beast at the moment.

[Lateralus]

NewEgg had it in stock and shipping up until Friday.

[Jasoco]

Originally Posted by Guy Kuo 

Forget 250 gb. Now Western Digital has a 320 gb Scorpio drive

WD Scorpio 320 GB SATA Hard Drives ( WD3200BEVT )

Pricing is aggressively set at $200

That figures. I replaced my stock MB 80GB HD I got in June with their then current 250 top end Scorpio.

Maybe by the time I replace my MacBook, there will be a 500GB internal.

[Christopera]

I have between my lap top and two externals over over 600GB but I can't image the day that a notebook comuter comes with 500GB of memory. I would guess that they will instead start installing solid state memory when/before hard disc memory becomes that cheap.

[mduell]

500GB laptop drives should be out next year... laptop drives typically max out at about a third of the capacity of desktop drives.
Even at the end of next year flash will probably still be too expensive for a high capacity (>100GB) drive at reasonable (<$200) prices.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

NewEgg had it in stock and shipping up until Friday.

Argh! When I looked today, it just wasn't listed at all. So I can't even backorder it. Maybe when I'm done with grad school apps and allow myself to buy my new toy, the big drive'll be back in stock.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

On the other hand, Hitachi now owns the rights to the "Travelstar" and "Deskstar" lines of drives-which they developed with IBM.

I know this truly doesn't mean anything, but do a search for "IBM Deathstar" or "Hitachi Deathstar."

[Lateralus]

It meant something 5 years ago when the term was coined. It's been completely irrelevant for a while know. Hitachi's desktop drives have been excellent.

[tycheung]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

I know this truly doesn't mean anything, but do a search for "IBM Deathstar" or "Hitachi Deathstar."

this was only for early versions of the 75GXP deskstar model I think.