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abielmuren · Jul 3, 2009, 06:48 PM

I am newbie in this forum, and this is my first post, I hope this post come useful for those who have the same question as me.

I have a new macbook white with 4gb ram and intel core 2 duo processor. I would like to buy and install a new hard drive to replace the one from the macbook. I was thinking in two brands, Hitachi and Seagate, but there are more good brands out there, I'm open to new suggestions, of course I want a huge drive, 350gb 7200 at least.

What about a hitachi 500gb 7200 rpm?, the faster the better, cos I playback big resolution videos and manage very big files very often, are the 7200 rmp hd supported by macbooks?

what kind of disk should i buy? which brand is the best for macbook support? which drives are the better for laps?

lets see then

kylef · Jul 3, 2009, 07:01 PM

Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung are renown worldwide for their support, performance and speed. If you want real performance and reliability, it could be worth looking at Solid State Drives - these are, however, much more expensive and have less space. 7200RPM drives are supported, yes.

abielmuren · 04:22 AM

Hi kylef!!, ssd are better... i think, 360gb is the maximum capacity, here I post some videos I fund on youtube about performance between HDD and SSD. If some one know about better brands of ssd for laptops, be welcome to reply.

YouTube - Samsung SSD vs HDD
YouTube - MacBook SSD VS HDD
YouTube - Macbook Aluminum 13" SSD disk boot performance
YouTube - New Macbook pro 7200rpm vs. Solid State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCmLJtITK4

jokell82 · Jul 4, 2009, 10:48 AM

Best brand of SSD is Intel, no question.

Simon · Jul 4, 2009, 11:09 AM

Either a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 HDD (500 GB, 7200 rpm) or an Intel X25-E SSD (64 GB SLC SSD). The former sells for $130, the latter for $767.

Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Intel X25-E Extreme SSDSA2SH064G1 2.5" 64GB SATA II SLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Solid State Disks

macfix · Jul 4, 2009, 11:09 AM

I've been very pleased with a 500GB 7200 rpm seagate I recently put in my macbook.
Quiet, fast and fan rarely kicks in.

abielmuren · Jul 4, 2009, 10:01 PM

Simon.. thanks for the links, ssd, wow!, 64gb for $767 bucks?... , yeah definitively ssd are powerful enough, but the prices are so high, i didn't have idea about that. I put my brain to work a little bit, and realize that space is high-priority to me in this moment, maybe for large videos and files I can use a raid or something, but I'm not shure if it's works with a firewire 400.

Jokell, I will consider to buy a ssd, but maybe in the future, when the technology cost decrease.

macfix, nice, initially, my idea was to buy a 500gb hitachi at 7200rpm, cos I heard that macbooks has a hitachi brand hdd, but now I am not shure, I always had 3.5 seagetes and western digital on pc desktops since I use computers, but now, i don't know wich brand is probably the best for macbooks. What brand do you have? and how's it goes with the battery life?.

Simon · Jul 5, 2009, 04:27 AM

Originally Posted by abielmuren

Simon.. thanks for the links, ssd, wow!, 64gb for $767 bucks?... , yeah definitively ssd are powerful enough, but the prices are so high, i didn't have idea about that.

There are cheaper SSDs if you get the MLC type. 128 GB starts at about $250. But make no mistake, in terms of performance you definitely get what you paid for. SLC is a different class.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...6%201749646481

I put my brain to work a little bit, and realize that space is high-priority to me in this moment,

Then I suggest you get a Seagate Momentus 7200.4. At 500 GB it has the highest capacity of all notebook drives and for a 2.5" HDD it's very, very fast.

http://forums.macnn.com/57/consumer-...-just-arrived/

No other manufacturer has a larger or faster notebook HDD. I have two and can say that I have never used a better HDD in any portable Mac Mac before. The price just came down $10, too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148374

macfix · Jul 5, 2009, 11:29 AM

I have a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 in my black macbook. I have not noticed any problem with battery life since installing it.

Jasoco · Jul 5, 2009, 11:41 PM

I don't trust Seagate anymore. Not with 4 dead ones in the last 4 years.

The other dead one I have is a Western Digital.

Needless to say I just replaced my most recent dead Seagate laptop drive with a Hitachi. I decided to give Hitachi a try this time.

macfix · Jul 6, 2009, 12:58 AM

Good luck. Be sure to have a good back up plan.

ghporter · Jul 6, 2009, 06:31 PM

Originally Posted by Jasoco

I don't trust Seagate anymore. Not with 4 dead ones in the last 4 years.

The other dead one I have is a Western Digital.

Needless to say I just replaced my most recent dead Seagate laptop drive with a Hitachi. I decided to give Hitachi a try this time.

That's extremely out of the ordinary for Seagate. Everything I've seen has indicated that they should be at least as robust as any other brand. This leads me to think that there's something else going on that's causing problems for your drives. If that Hitachi dies, that's something I'd bring up to Apple's service people immediately. It just isn't natural.

SSharon · Jul 6, 2009, 06:54 PM

Are there any direct speed comparisons between the 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm SATA II drives? This thread is beginning to make me regret getting the 500gb 5400 rpm western digital drive. Saving $30-40 was nice and I don't actually need the faster speeds so I'm still happy with it.

Jasoco · Jul 6, 2009, 07:32 PM

Hitachi is the brand Apple used in the MacBook I bought, and that drive is still alive. I keep it in an external case.

I bought a Western Digital 250GB laptop drive to replace it and it died a year later. I bought a 500GB Seagate to replace that one and it died a week and a half ago.

Other than that, I have three Seagates that came in three different LaCie external HD's in three different sizes that are all dead plus my last LaCie is dying now too. Guess what brand drive that one uses? Three were Porsches, the fourth (Well first) was the older SilverKeeper style drive casing. Not that the cases matter. If it were worth it, I could buy replacement Ultra ATA drives to put in those cases and have working drives.

Needless to say, even though I already have, I just don't think I will willingly buy a Seagate again. Not for a while at least.

ghporter · Jul 6, 2009, 08:15 PM

I think I'd blame LaCie for those external drive deaths myself. What external case is your Hitachi in?

Jasoco · Jul 6, 2009, 08:58 PM

You can't blame the case. The case is just a converter for the signal. The drive is the part doing the writing and reading. I blame LaCie for using Seagates. And science for not inventing a cheap alternative that costs the same per megabyte as a disc based HD that never dies ever no matter what you do to it. Damn you, Science! It's 2009! Where's my flying cars and indestructible storage space?

To Seagate's credit, the LaCie SilverKeeper style HD I had lasted the longest. It was only 60GB, but I used it as a boot drive for years.

And the case is one of those OWC clear plastic laptop drive cases.

Simon · Jul 6, 2009, 11:29 PM

Originally Posted by SSharon

Are there any direct speed comparisons between the 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm SATA II drives?

Head over to BareFeats. I'm not so sure what you're looking for though. Every benchmark shows the 7200.4 is faster overall than any other notebook HDD you can buy.

This thread is beginning to make me regret getting the 500gb 5400 rpm western digital drive.

Well, you were told the exact same things when you asked. Nothing has changed since then. Personally, I would have not put the $30 savings over performance, but if you're on a tight budget it's a perfectly legitimate decision.

Simon · Jul 6, 2009, 11:34 PM

And for the record, I have never had a Seagate Momentus die on me. In my personal experience it was the Hitachis that were crap. We had 6 DOAs when we bought a bunch of 1 TB Hitachis for our new MPs a while back.

lpkmckenna · Jul 6, 2009, 11:50 PM

I bought a half-terabyte drive for my MacBook, but still haven't installed it because I need a torx 6 screwdriver. Maybe I'll go buy one tomorrow.

AKcrab · Jul 7, 2009, 12:39 AM

Originally Posted by Jasoco

You can't blame the case. The case is just a converter for the signal.

Put a non-maxtor drive in a maxtor enclosure, and then tell me "The case is just a converter for the signal."

chabig · Jul 7, 2009, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

I bought a half-terabyte drive for my MacBook, but still haven't installed it because I need a torx 6 screwdriver. Maybe I'll go buy one tomorrow.

You don't really need a torx 6 driver. Just use a pair of plyers to grip the head around the outside and loosen, then only tighten finger tight.

lpkmckenna · Jul 7, 2009, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by chabig

You don't really need a torx 6 driver. Just use a pair of plyers to grip the head around the outside and loosen, then only tighten finger tight.

I tried. Too tight.

ghporter · Jul 7, 2009, 07:26 AM

Originally Posted by Jasoco

You can't blame the case. The case is just a converter for the signal. The drive is the part doing the writing and reading. I blame LaCie for using Seagates. And science for not inventing a cheap alternative that costs the same per megabyte as a disc based HD that never dies ever no matter what you do to it. Damn you, Science! It's 2009! Where's my flying cars and indestructible storage space?

To Seagate's credit, the LaCie SilverKeeper style HD I had lasted the longest. It was only 60GB, but I used it as a boot drive for years.

And the case is one of those OWC clear plastic laptop drive cases.

The case converts the data, true, but it also, very crucially, provides power to the drive. Drives don't do well with poorly conditioned power, and while they can be pretty robust in terms of shock and thermal resistance, a few spikes and/or sags on either the 5v or 12v lines could easily kill a drive. I've read far more bad than good about LaCie's external drives lately too.

And I am indeed upset that my flying car hasn't been delivered yet. Walter Cronkite promised me a flying car by the turn of the century... I'm still waiting.

chabig · Jul 7, 2009, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

I tried. Too tight.

Pliers worked for me. I don't think you can damage the head by squeezing too hard. Position the pliers so the ridges grip in the direction of the turn. It might be worth another try before you buy the torx driver.

akulavolk · Jul 7, 2009, 11:00 AM

I won't buy LaCie again. I had two of their external drives die just a month out of warranty. On the last one, it was the enclosure that died...not the power supply, and not the drive. I know because I could take the drive out and install it on an old PC I had lying around. And they made me *buy* a new power supply and later return it instead of doing the normal credit card "we'll charge if you DON'T return the old one" model.

For the amount they wanted to repair the enclosure, I could have bought a whole new external drive & enclosure. Or a handful of cheaper enclosures to replace their poorly-designed one.

The fact that they wouldn't replace an obviously faulty/poorly-design product that was just over a year old, and tried to charge for troubleshooting, reminded me what the cost of bad customer service is.

Better to buy super cheap, then just use redundancy to protect your data. I have multiple backups on good drives with cheap enclosures from NewEgg.

gatesbuster · Jul 12, 2009, 02:17 PM

I just bought a brand new 500GB Seagate 7200; it's not working and I am sending it back; clicking noise and I cannot clone my hard drive. It's the second seagate hard drive that breaks on me; I will stick in the future with hitachi, fujitsu or toshiba hard drive

Jasoco · Jul 12, 2009, 05:03 PM

I guess the moral of the story is hard drives die.

And they die faster if you use them a lot.

But thankfully they're so cheap now.

Now all we need is a 2TB laptop sized drive and I can die happy. No, wait I can't because I want to actually use it first.

macfix · Jul 13, 2009, 11:12 PM

gatesbuster, so sorry to hear of your misfortune!

Jasoco · Jul 16, 2009, 12:03 AM

I was gonna get a 7200 500GB drive for my MacBook but I didn't trust the reviews. It was new technology. That speed at that capacity. I'll wait for it to mature. When more 7200RPM 500 drives for laptops start appearing. Actually, by then there might be bigger 5400's so I might go with that. Have I mentioned I wish someone would make a 2TB laptop drive? Ah, to dream.

macfix · Jul 16, 2009, 01:06 AM

"I was gonna get a 7200 500GB drive for my MacBook but I didn't trust the reviews. It was new technology. That speed at that capacity. I'll wait for it to mature. When more 7200RPM 500 drives for laptops start appearing. Actually, by then there might be bigger 5400's so I might go with that. Have I mentioned I wish someone would make a 2TB laptop drive? Ah, to dream."

I like to dream, too!

Jasoco · Jul 16, 2009, 01:07 AM

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.