MacBook Pro :: Getting 128 Gb SSD Or 500 Gb 7200 RPM Disc?
Oct 12, 2010
I'm heading off to college in the fall of next year and I have a feeling I'll be buying a MacBook Pro; I'm already saving some cash for this purpose. My question is whether I should be getting a 128 Gb SSD or a 500 Gb 7200 RPM disc. Speed is the real issue as I don't expect to take up much more than 50 Gb. So, should I go SSD or not?
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.
I am initially purchasing a new 15" Pro with the hope to eventually get a 160 GB Intel SSD for the Optical Drive. So until I do that, I will use the purchased drive for data and the bootable OS.
What I want to know is that if I replace my 160 GB 5400 RMP HDD with a 7200 RPM 500 GB HDD in my MacBook Pro 13' the noise level and vibration become much stronger ?
So I have my new MBP specced out ready for Jobbsy's announcement 26 Jan, principally including 7200 rpm drive - and now I find they're dodgy! I particularly wanted a fast drive for music production but I gather they're glitchy in a bad way. Are they all bad?
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?
Just received the new Macbook Pro 17" with I7 option as well as the 7200rpm HD 500gb. The machine works great so far. However, there is a slight vibration I can feel on the aluminum in front of the keyboard and basically across the machine, though when I moved it from a glass table to a wooden desk it was much decreased. The machine is also much noisier than I thought it would be, though I did know when I went for the 7200 option that it might be noisier.
Is this normal because of the HD or I7 chip? I can return the machine and exchange it, but the anti-glare screen seems ok with no pixel problems, etc., so I don't want to look for trouble without a benefit. Is it possible this is not the HD? (vibration and noise does seem to emanate from the left side-I believe it is a Seagate, ID starts with ST)
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.
I just wanted to do a quick writeup of what I've learned from upgrading my 2006 White Macbook from a 60gb 5400 Seagate drive (came with it) to the 7200 RPM 320 GB Western Digital Scorpio Black.
First of all, there's some discussion of whether the new drive vibrates, and the answer is yes it does to some degree. The 5400 isn't even perceptible, but the Scorpio Black makes the entire machine feel more like a computer instead of just a paperweight. (if that makes sense) Finder seems to work a little quicker now and programs load faster. I think the 16MB cache helps a lot in this respect (vs. 8MB for most 5400 drives.)
My computer has Tiger and boot camp beta installed with a split drive between Windows and Mac. I realized that I could not really rescue the Windows partition using Tiger, but apparently this is possible with a program called winclone on a Leopard machine. So I'm going to put the old drive into an external usb case for when or if I need Windows down the road.
Here's what you need to do this: 1. An External USB drive bigger than your internal drive (or with more space than the stuff you want to keep). Mine is 160GB.
2. Tiny/Jeweler size Philips screwdriver
3. Size 8 Torx driver. This is smaller than most sets provide, so you will probably need to go to Sears or a good hardware store and pick up one of this size for about $4.
4. a coin
A. Connect the USB drive to your macbook. Open Disk Utility and make sure the drive is formatted GUID with OSX Filesystem (Journaled). If you have a Windows files system on your external drive, this WILL NOT WORK.
B. Download Carbon Copy Cloner. Start up the program and start a backup from your original hard drive over to the USB drive. You may get a couple of error messages, but they probably don't matter.
C. Reboot the computer and make sure you can boot into the USB drive. You do this by holding Option when the computer makes the startup sound. D. If everything looks good on the USB drive, you can shut down the computer.
E. Remove the battery with the coin.
F. Take off the metal L-shaped thing that holds in the memory and the hard drive. You need to undo 3 little phillips screws.
G. Pull the white plastic strip to remove the hard drive. Need to be careful at this point to avoid any static discharges, so take at least one shoe off and make sure your foot is on the ground.
H. Use the size 8 Torx to remove the hard drive carriage. Replace the old drive with the new one. Put the old one into the static bag.
I. Put everything back together. Note: when replacing the L-bracket, you should use a small flat-head screwdriver to stuff the memory buffer material back into their slots. Start up the computer.
Should boot into OSX, but you may have to hold the option key to get it to boot up. I've had this problem, but I think I may not have used GUID to format the disk.
Bang for buck wise which has a better speed to price ratio? I'm not talking about benchmarks, I'm talking about noticeable performance. I heard some people say that 5400 drives are so fast nowadays that even 7200 drives can sometimes be slower. Is this true?
Also, if it's a 7200 drive, is it cheaper to BTO straight from Apple the 7200 drive? Rather than buy aftermarket? (bearing in mind that I don't need the space of the two drives, so if I buy aftermarket the old drive will end up being unused )
Is the Seagate (with built-in drop protection) the only option for a 500 Gb, 7200 rpm drive? I bought a 15" MBP a few weeks ago and opted for the 5400 rpm drive since I heard there were lots of problems with the 7200 rpm drive. I see Apple released a patch recently for the 7200 rpm drive, but it sounds as if it's not a 100% solution (Apple says it "reduces" the problem). Are there any 500 Gb, 7200 rpm drives that are recommended (and don't have redundant built-in drop protection)? I can tell my drive is a bottleneck.
I'm looking to buy a 7200 RPM drive but it has to be very quiet...as close to 5400RPM drives as possible. I bought a WD Scorpio Black but it sounded like a jet engine prepping for engines for takeoff and vibrated my whole unibody case which as you might imagine became jarring after a while
I'd get an SSD drive but the drive i see as a suitable replacement (256GB) costs �515 ($838) which is....just not gonna happen
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 ordered one of these early last week from Tiger Direct, and since the whole world has ordered one as well, it's severely back ordered.But I have been getting concerned with all these reviews I am seeing, that it vibrates enough to be a sex toy. the 13" MBP apparently is nuts.. but maybe that was just his drive? I used a friends 13" Sony Vaio last night, and it felt like a jack hammer, and i was like "Please please please don't be like this"my MBP is 15" (see sig), the momentus is juts 7200 RPM right? not any more than another drive? what are your guys experience with 7200 RPM in MBP's (make sure you state your size)
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.
In trying to repair my hard drive, which disc utility said was corrupt, it stopped repairing it because it could not unmount the disc?I booted my macbook pro from my backup hard drive.
Well, my question is very simple: I have a MBA and this other laptop from work, a crappy HP which is old as hell. I'm planning to use Remote Disc to reinstall my Leopard, since the upgrade to 10.5.3 really screwed things here, and I can't figure out why. Point is: instead of running all Leopard installation thru Remote Disc, I would prefer to share Leopard disc 1 over Remote Disc and restore it to a partition on my external HD, making a clone of it, which would install *much* faster. Has anyone tried anything like this? There's any Windows program which allows me to rip a Mac DVD to a Mac partition?
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'm thinking of getting a refurb MBP but they come with a 5400rpm hard drive and I want a 7200rpm. Does anyone about how easy it is to replace the internal hard drive in a MBP and how much it would cost?