MacBook Pro :: Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz: Compatible With Hitachi Travelstar 5400/7200 Rpm?
Apr 12, 2012
I have a mid 2009 Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo with 2.26 GHz and will be upgrading both the RAM and hard drive. I've done a fair bit of research regarding which brand and have decided to go with the Hitachi Travelstar.
1) Is my Macbook Pro compatible with the Hitachi Travelstar? By this, I know the physical dimensions fit, but I'm actually wondering if there are any known problems in practice such as the dreaded EFI firmware issue or dropping the 3Gbps SATA to 1.5 speed issue, etc. I'm not sure if my specific Macbook Pro model is the same mid 2009 model that has all these problems so I just wanted to make sure.
2) Assuming the Hitachi Travelstar is compatible, which model is better and why: the 7K500 or the 7K750. I'm especially interested in those who have personal experience of either of these (or both!)
3) Should I buy the 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm version? Why? As of now, I'm trying to decide between 500 Gb, 640 Gb or 750 Gb (is there any difference to performance in regards of which size)?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz
I'm looking to replace my Hard Drive in my 2.4 Unibody Macbook and stumbled across this Hitachi drive on Newegg. I've read great reviews for the Travelstar 7k500 in Macbooks and other Hitachi drives, however the 7K500 isn't available on Newegg anymore.
15" i7 macbook pro to arrive, and I'm looking at which 7200 rpm hard drive to buy to replace the 5400 rpm one with.I've narrowed it down to the Seagate momentus xt and the Hitachi Travelstar 7k500.Not only speed is important, because from what I've read the Seagate is a bit faster. But what i'm more worried about is noise, vibrations, heat and battery life.
I've read all the horror stories about how the mid-09 MBP hard drive firmware update and non-Apple 7200 RPM HDDs don't get along. Most of these seem to be related to the use of a SATA 3.0 drive (which shouldn't matter, since mechanical hard drives can't even make use of the full SATA 1.5, but I digress).
I'm about to buy a new Mac, and, even though the Macbook, which doesn't seem to have these problems, would suit my needs just fine (my camcorder is USB and my digital cameras both use CF), I might spring for the MBP anyway (likely to get the additional 2" of screen space on the low-end 15", which has the closest resolution to what I am used to on my outgoing T60).
Obviously, I could pay Apple to upgrade to one of their 7200 RPM drives, assuming I get the 15". But that seems silly, since I can buy, for less than $100 (i.e., half the upgrade cost from Apple, plus I keep the old drive), a Hitachi Travelstar 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 drive. My questions are:
1) Has anybody successfully upgraded to such a drive (or its 320 GB little brother, which is otherwise speced the same) in a mid-2009 MBP?
2) If so, did you have to downgrade the firmware as suggested in these forums?
3) If so, did you have to "tweak" the drive in any fashion to make it work?
I know there is already a thread about which is better, but I figured itd be nice to see who ended up getting which. I ordered with a 7200, probably don't need it though.
Why did you choose the option you did? Do you think you'll need it? Do you notice the speed increase?
Anyone here have one and truly love it, I was watching some video on Tiger Direct where they put it to a test with a 7200 RPM, SSD, and 10K Drive and the Hybrid HDD was right behind the SSD.
Looking to get one or a Hitachi 500GB 7200 16MB Cache?
Ok so recently I got a 500gb seagate 7200.4 and I loved it except for my high load cycle count. So I exchanged it for the hitachi. Now with this hitachi I am also experiencing high load cycle counts, more power consumption than my seagate and it's louder. Except the seagate did have a faint clicking sound while booting up where the hitachi doesn't. My seagate also seemed a bit faster.
Can someone sway me to either stick with the hitachi or go back to the seagate based on your own thougts and experiences as well as my input.
As a lot of people on these forums are, I am waiting for the next updated MacBook Pro. I want to get the fastest hard drive I can, but I want to ask the people who use the 7200 RPM HDDs if they can notice a difference, and if so how beneficial is it? Its really not a problem to pay the 250 for the 200GB 7200 option (and I do want to do that thru Apple because I want my hard drive under warranty) but I do recall hearing complaints that the 7200 RPM is louder, etc. So here is the basic question. How much faster is the 7200 and is it worth the upgrade? For background, I do Visual Effects/3D Animation. I use the Mac Pro for most of that and will sometimes use the MBP for that kind of work.
Wife needs a new computer and have decided to go MBP. I was set to order a 17 inch I7 with 7200 rpm hd but found out the local store has them in stock with the 5400 rpm HD.
I'm considering upgrading the stock 5400 RPM Hitachi drive in my macbook pro to the Seagate momentus XT (7200 RPM) hybrid drive. I'm curious about the experiences of those who may have done a similar upgrade:
1. Is there a noticeable difference in performance? I seem to do a lot of waiting for the HDD in my day to day usage and I suspect the increased spindle speed will be helpful.
2. Any noticeable tradeoff on battery life (>~10% or so)?
3. Should I expect an increase in heat or vibration?
Finally, for those using the momentus XT I've been reading about issues with the dreaded beachball waiting for the drive to spin up. This lag would obviously defeat the purpose of upgrading and I'd like to hear about any personal experiences in this regard with the drive.
Just curious as to how much of an improvement in performance I would see upgrading my system as it states above, since my 2006 machine is 3 years old and getting close to the end of my apple care, figured I would trade it in and upgrade.
i'm thinking of getting a macbook pro 15" 2.66ghz for use with logic pro mainly.
my question is really about heat.
if a 7200 rpm drive is going to heat up so much (especially when using intensive programs like logic) that it is bad for the disk would a 5400 be better all round?
obviously it would be slower but would it also last longer/ be more reliable?
...or would the difference in heat be negligible compared to the improved speed?
I have a Rev. E 15" MBP with the stock 250GB 5400 rpm HD. I'm getting close on running out of HD space so I'm looking to get a bigger HD. Is it a good idea to replace it with a 7200 rpm HD? Is the speed improvement significant? My MBP is my primary computer, I do a lot of general internet surfing as well as a lot of photo editing (I'm a photographer). I did some quick search and it looks like some HD's have bad vibrations? Does a 7200 HD drain out much more battery than a 5400 one?
I did a quick search at a local computer store and found the following, which one would be best to get?
I recently picked up a couple of external drives, and decided to benchmark them to determine whether the interface and/or drive type made much of a difference. For those that don't want to read the details, here's the bottom line: If you're going to splurge on a FW800 interface, it's well worth fitting this with a 7200 rpm drive to maximize performance. Uncached sequential writes over FW800 were twice as fast on the 7200 rpm drive compared to the 5400 rpm. FW800 is a marked improvement over USB 2.0 as well. Full results are below. For background, when shopping for drives, I was interested in using the FW800 interface on the MBPs, for the simple reason it's rated almost twice as fast as USB 2.0. Some of the drives I was shopping for included 7200 rpm drives. My first thought was this was silly, since the interface limited the throughput to far-below the limits a 5400 rpm drive could produce, so why bother upgrading to 7200 rpm? Well, it turns out it does make a difference. I've got both a FW800 enclosure (G Drive Mini) and a USB 2.0 interface (Nexstar TX) as well as a 320GB 7200 rpm drive (Hitachi) and a 640GB 5400 rpm drive (Western Digital). So, I benchmarked both drives using both interfaces. Some interesting results! Turns out, the 7200 rpm drive does in fact dramatically improve performance in the FW800 interface. For sequential operations, Firewire has a dramatic improvement over USB 2.0; for random read/writes, drive speed seems to be a more important factor. And for large files, the combination of Firewire and 7200 rpm gives a pretty impressive throughput of almost 75MB/s. Full results are below. Note that the drive and interface are noted in the title bar for each drive.
I lean to the standard drive at 5400 rpm. Why? All my video editing is done with an external firewire drive, and I think the 7200 generates more heat than the 5400.
For web design I don't see how a 7200 speed is much of a benefit, considering the extra heat generated may negate the benefit of a faster drive. I think heat (and dust) is the bane of all electronics.
I'm fixing to order the 15" i7 and will use it for running Adobe CS5 web suite. Final Cut Pro for video- and will use a firewire drive.
I'm purchasing the base model Mini and will be upgrading to a 7200 320 gb hardrive. I can purchase the 7200 Hitachi Travelstar today only for$69.00 Canadian. Since this is a one time thing, is this drive good enough or should I spend $30.00 to $50,00 more on a Seagate or WD. I've done a fair amount of research and read reviews but I would love to have some feedback from experienced Mini users.
Im planning on getting a Drobo S. However, Im torn between getting 5 - 2TB 5400 drives or 5 - 1TB 7200 drives. I plan on using it strictly for data storage and as a capture scratch.
I'll be using it via ESATA but was wondering if I would notice a significant difference between the 5400 and the 7200 and if that difference is worth the loss of space?
Anyone have any idea what drives would be best for use in Drobo S?
No matter how many times I compare and spec out which model to buy, I keep coming back to the 2.66GHz 8 core model (I only want the 8 cores not the quads). Anyway, just looking at various benches the 2.66GHz looks very close in the results to the 2.93GHz 8 core and turbo boost pushes the 2.66GHz up to 2.93GHz. I know its $1400 more than the 2.26GHz model but anyone here make the jump from a 2.26GHz to the 2.66GHz (8 cores) and noticed the huge jump in performance? I just can never shake off the low clock speed of the 2.26GHz even when its turbo boosted up to 2.53GHz with 1 core working.
