MacBook Pro :: Looking To Get One Or A Hitachi 500GB 7200 16MB Cache?
Nov 11, 2010
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?
Will I notice much difference if I upgrade to the seagate m xt 500 gb with 32cache?
Baring in mind I havnt got my 17" i7 2.8 in the post yet..
I'm thinking I can install the new drive as soon as I get the Mbp and do a fresh install as I'm assuming I'll get the iLife disks with the laptop so I can install it? Aswell as the OS cd's too?
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?
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.
I just installed a new Hitachi 500gb that replaced my old Hitachi 120gb. My hard drive was replaced about 1 1/2 years ago at the apple store. Now that it has died i was told to order a new hard drive less than 1 terribite (i know it's misspelled). I replaced it and pressed alt at boot and the disc appeared and I clicked it...selected ENGLISH and then went next...was ask to select where do i want this to info installed but it had nothing for me to select. it's obvious it's not recognizing my new hard drive. I can't go any further. Then when I select installer from the menu and select start up disc it shows an X on my MAC OX S installation disc 1??Could this be because when they gave me a new hard drive they used their discs...I don't know... I really don't wanna go BACK to the MAC store..
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 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.
I upgraded my Mac Book Pro hard drive to a Hitachi 7200RPM 300GB Hard Drive in November. All of a sudden my Hard drive is full and I cannot explain why. I retrieved the folder size info from the six folders I have on my HD and it claims that I have filled up roughly 100GB on the hard drive. I understand the MAC OS X is roughly 4-5GBs, roughly another 15GB for threading the utility files, so I should still have at least 180GB of space free on the hard drive. I recently downloaded the application known as AZUREUS aka VUZE could this app have put some extraordinarily large hidden folders on my hard drive? I deleted this app but my HD is still stating that I have used up 278GB of space which I know cannot be right. Can anyone out there help me with this situation? I am lost and upset not sure what is going on. According to my hard disk utility I only have 2.6GB of space availble which is insane!
One more note around xmas I found that my MAC had crashed unexpectedly but is working fine right now expect for the fact the HD is full and I can only see roughly 100GB of files on my 300GB Hard drive.
Just got a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB to install in a white MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz. The MacBook can read, write, and format the drive (connected as a USB external) with no problem. It can't seem to boot from it or install OS X to the drive.
I've tried:
1) cloning the current drive using disk utility's restore option while booted from a 10.5 install disk--Seagate drive will not boot after clone even though the MacBook sees it as a boot device when looking at the startup disk options while booted from the 10.5 disk.
2) Time Machine restore to the Seagate drive--fails every time with a long error log.
3) Clean install to the Seagate drive with a retail 10.5 install disk--install fails every time.
The drive could just be defective but I've seen a lot of defective drives and it doesn't feel like that's the case. I haven't run any hardware tests on the drive. (Anyone know if an Intel Mac will boot Seatools?)
Anyone else have any experience with the Seagate Momentus in an older Core 2 MacBook? I seem to vaguely recall reading on Apple's store page around the time I bought the MacBook that the max HDD supported was a 320GB (a size that at the time was larger than anything available to consumers). Not sure if that is the case or not.
I installed the hard drive with no problem and have experienced greater performance, no clicking nor vibration, and no freezeup or rainbow wheel. I also did a clean install of Snow Leopard. I did a PRAM reset at the beginning and calibrated my battery. However, now I noticed my battery is draining FAST, only lasting 2 hours. I looked a little online and discovered I may still need to reset the SMC (shift-control-option + power key), which I will do shortly. The battery lasted 6-7 hours before with my old hdd and is at 96% capacity.
Has anyone tried the 500GB - 7200 PRM Seagate Drive for the Macbook Pro 15" Unibody ?I am considering getting one, but remembered they have 2 versions Which one should i get ?
I need to populate the bays of my new MacPro 2.66 with 5GB RAM. The stock HD turns out to be a Seagate 250GB HD ST3250820A. I've found them online and wonder if I just should RAID three or four of them as opposed to one Seagate 500GBs or 750 with 32GB cache? These would all be a Raid run by Apple software not a RAID card.
I want to replace my 3 year old drives before it's too late.
I have about 200 gigs of data, split between a pair of Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm drives I bought 3 years ago.
I am thinking on going with a single 500 gig drive for my data, and I can't decide between a Caviar Black, or a Baracuda 7200.12.
I have read that the Caviar Black have incredible performance, , but only for the 1TB since it has 3 platters.
How do the 500gig models compare between WD and Seagate? I just don't have the need for more. My OS and Apps are on the SSD at 23 gigs, and all the rest of my work/personal files take up about 200 gigs.
Which is going to be better, the Black, or the Baracuda? 500 gig models only.
Which one of these 500gb drives is better? I've been browsing Newegg for two hours now reading reviews. The Seagate drives seem to come with bad firmware that causes performance and cache recognition issues. The Samsung drives have a high failure rate. Whats the real deal? Has anyone here had any bad experiences with either drives?
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.
But he asked me to find out if it had the G sensor or not. Obviously Macs have there own sensor so he wants to get one without the sensor so it doesnt interfere.
I currently have the seagate 7200.4 500gb but i noticed my load cycle count is already at 8000 after only 3 weeks of use. So I think Im going with the hitachi 7k500. if this has the g sensor built in? if so does this interfere with my macbooks g sensor?
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.
recently I upgraded the HDD of my macbook pro 13"(2009) to a Hitachi 7200RPM 500GB(7K500), it generates clicking noise and the Load_Cycle_Count attribute increases too fast, which has a 600000 limit. I searched on the forum, and saw many people have the same problem, someone suggests LCC is not spin-up/spin-down but Start_Stop_Count is, which is NOT true for laptop, it is only true for desktop with Windows which do not care about power saving so the HDD seldom parks its head.
Today I went to my friends house who has a desktop PC which support SATA HDD, so I plugged my 2.5" HDD in straight away, and booted from Hitachi's Feature Tool(you can google it and find the address), then I was able to adjust the APM level. Here are two photos:
I made it 192, which is the lowest value within Active idle range as I usually use my MBP as a desktop replacement, so battery is not an issue.
Hope this can help people with Hitachi HDD who are annoyed by the clicking noise and worried about the shortened life of HDD.
How do I export pictures from Mac Book Air to a Hitachi external hard drive. I have used the export function from i-photo but it will not transfer. However, when I use the export function to put the pictures onto a 4g usb stick it works?
A couple days ago I upgraded my mid 2010 MBP 13 stock hdd(Hitachi 5400rpm 250gb) to a new one (Hitachi 7200rpm 500gb 7k500). I am still amazed by how much faster and more responsive system has gone.
Some change in noise/vibration was expected, but now I am starting to get a bit annoyed by vibration and HDD noise.
Vibration gets on my nerves- the levels are nowhere high, but there was no vibration in my stock HDD. In addition, the noise of the system on idle has roughly doubled- both fan and HDD are humming at the same level.
The system is still very quiet, but I could not help noticing it anyway. Is this normal?
I tried replacing the old HDD and found out that the problems were not present with it (=I am not likely to have made some awful mistakes putting the hard drive in).
Then I tried tightening all the screws as hard as possible and putting some rubberized washers on the corners of the HDD to ensure snuggly fit. All efforts rendered no change. Are there any other methods to reduce noise and vibration?
Furthermore, I still have one day to return the 7k500 without any loss. Should I get WD Scorpio Blue 500gb instead?
I have read user reports of similar problems with WD SB 640gb drives as well. Since these drives are essentially the same, I would expect similar problems with 500gb as well.
P.S. Is there any chance that the stock HDD is slightly "downclocked" by Apple? It does vibrate a lot inside external cradle. Furthermore, I tested a couple laptops in the local Apple store. Both MBP 15" and MBP 17" where equipped with 500gb 5400rpm drives.
However, MBP 17" was vibrating much more than the MBP 15" (maybe MBP 17 HDD runs at its native speed to increase the performance. The increased size of 17" makes the vibration effects less annoying).
The stock HDD vibrates just like the current one until after 1-2s after the power button is pressed- as if some sort of regulation kicks in after that point.
Got a hitachi 250gig minidrive. Would like to use it for the Macbook and a R52 thinkpad. What is the best way to format it. Its for pics and Open office documents. I'm running 10.4.11 and XP PRo