[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Please source that FUD.
I've never read anything about a read cycle limit for flash, and the write cycle limits are now (within the last few years) incredibly high (~1.5e6 cycles). It would take over 60 years at a (impractically high) average write rate of 100MBps to run out of write cycles with a 128GB SSD.

Apparently the write limit for SLC drives is 100,000 cycles, and for MLC drives (which a 128 GB drive is going to be) it's about 10,000 (link). I could easily see myself running into that.

Fortunately, it seems that many drives use write leveling to even out the writes across the disk so that no individual block is overtaxed.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Apparently the write limit for SLC drives is 100,000 cycles, and for MLC drives (which a 128 GB drive is going to be) it's about 10,000 (link). I could easily see myself running into that.

What's your average write speed? I can't see it being over 10MBps outside the data center; even an average of 1MBps would be pretty high for a laptop. Modern wear leveling keeps the max wear to average wear ratio down in the 1.1x range, so peaking isn't really a problem. SSDs are going to last longer than you're going to keep them.

[CharlesS]

Well 100,000 writes (for SLC) wouldn't bother me so much, but the "1,000 to 10,000" figure for MLC in the Wikipedia article seems kind of worrisome to me, considering how a computer OS is always writing caches, temp files, VM swapfiles, and whatnot to the disk. Perhaps I'm just being paranoid, I dunno, but myself I feel more comfortable just waiting a few years until SLC drives are affordable in decent sizes before I transition to solid-state drives (I agree with the general sentiment that SSDs are most likely the future and are destined to replace traditional hard drives at some point, except possibly for those who need a really huge capacity).

[OreoCookie]

@Charles
SSDs (like harddrives) have reserve space that is used in case memory cells go bad. You can even increase this reserve space on some. I don't think it's much of a problem, unless you really, really have a lot of write accesses.

[Le Flaneur]

Originally Posted by DCJ001 

320GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 7200RPM SATA Notebook Drive with 16MB Cache - New, 3 Year Warranty - $99.97 after $20 rebate if purchased by 10/30/08:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A57547/

Which is faster & more reliable: the Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 or the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB? Prices are comparable (except for the rebate). The Seagate carries a 5 year warranty, the Hitachi a 3 year warranty. Someone on Macintouch is reporting the following performance statistics for the Seagate:

I just purchased a 320GB Seagate 7200.3 and installed it in my 6GB 2.4GHz Penryn (old-style) MBP. AJA Kona System Test (1 GB file) is giving me the following results:
Filesystem cache off
Capacity 298.1 GB
Free 136.1 GB
Average read rate = 78.37 MB/sec
Average write rate = 76.96 MB/sec

[moep]

You should also consider the WD3200BJKT (“320GB Western Digital WD3200BJKT Scorpio Black 320GB SATA”)

I couldn’t find a real review of it (guess it’s fairly new) but the benchmarks on storagereview.com were impressive enough to make me order one for 95€ shipped (i currently have a 200GB Seagate 7200.2 and need the extra 120GB):

http://www.storagereview.com/php/ben...2=367&devCnt=3

[Le Flaneur]

Originally Posted by moep 

You should also consider the WD3200BJKT (“320GB Western Digital WD3200BJKT Scorpio Black 320GB SATA”)

Judging from everything I've heard, WD drives aren't as good. And they're a relative newcomer to the 2.5" format, aren't they?

[Cory Bauer]

Hey Gang,

So I too am considering picking up a stock 15" MacBook Pro and upgrading the drive myself (after tax and rebates, its cheaper than BTO a unit from Apple). I see that 320GB drives are only about $20 more than 250GB drives, so it seems crazy not go spring for the 320. New Egg has four options; my question is which would people recommend?

Fujitsu

Seagate

Hitachi

Western Digital

Thanks for the input.

[CharlesS]

Seagate usually has the best reputation, and they have a five-year warranty. There was a problem with some of their notebook drives a little while ago that caused a recall, but I'd assume that issue's been resolved by now.

I've also had good experiences with Fujitsu, and Apple uses Hitachi in a lot of their notebooks as well.

[mduell]

Hitachi for IO performance, Seagate for sequential transfer rates.

[moep]

My WD3200BJKT arrived today. First impression is that it’s slightly louder and cooler than my old Seagate 7200.2 200GB but I’m still cloning the drive so I can’t say anything about performance yet.

Meanwhile I found a decent review from Tom’s Hardware that should be helpful:

Link

sequential read/write at 210/320GB, pretty much the same as the graphs in the review:

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Kodachrome_Project 

I would just like to verify something. For those of you who have the new MacBook Pro with the 320, 5,400 or 7,200 RPM, what is the model number on the drive?

Mine is a Hitachi HTS723232L9SA62.

I just like to make sure about these things, I ordered the 2.8 / 320gb, 7,200 rpm.

You find out this information by going to: Finder, About This Mac, More Info, Hardware, Serial-ATA.

This is how it works:

HTS7232ccL9iimb

-Edit- The HST72 part tells you it's a 7200RPM drive -Edit-

Capacity : cc
320GB is “32”, 250GB is “25”, 160GB is “16”, 120GB is “12”, 80GB is “80”.

Interface : ii
For Standard Model
A3 SATA 3Gb
SA SATA 1.5G

Momory Size : m
For Standard Model
6 16MB

Feature Code : b
For Standard Model
0 Standard model
1 Bulk Encryption ( 1.5Gb only )
2 Free Fall Sensor
3 Bulk Encruption and Free Fall Sensor ( 1.5Gb only )

[rickeames]

So I just replaced my stock 320 5400 drive with a Scorpio Black 7200 speed drive of the same size.

Speed is definitely there, but the real bummer is that I can hear the drive spinning unless my hand rests on the palm. If it's sitting on a hard surface, it's magnified. That's a *huge* bummer, so I'm wondering if anyone is also experiencing this -- would placing some foam strip between it and the case help?

[Simon]

You could try sticking a stripe of damping material to the drive so it acts as a cushion between the HDD and the case. Apple has done this with stock drives on some models actually.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by rickeames 

So I just replaced my stock 320 5400 drive with a Scorpio Black 7200 speed drive of the same size.

Speed is definitely there, but the real bummer is that I can hear the drive spinning unless my hand rests on the palm. If it's sitting on a hard surface, it's magnified. That's a *huge* bummer, so I'm wondering if anyone is also experiencing this -- would placing some foam strip between it and the case help?

Get a different brand. Mine is dead silent. Seagate baby.

[Urkel]

Why change the internal drive when you can just add a 7200rpm FireWire drive to your Macbook... oh... wait...

Seriously though, I put a 320GB 5400rpm drive in my Macbook and got a 750GB 7200RPM external Firewire drive for doing "work". So for portability then I have a cheaper, lower power consuming drive with plenty of space. And if I need a faster drive I have the external.