160 GB drive - Seagate, Samsung, or Hitachi, etc

[Snide]

I'm looking for a 160 GB drive for a Macbook, and am trying to decide what to get.

I've always liked Seagate for the quiet and 5 year warranty, but I saw a whole
lot of negative reviews (failures) in the comments at Newegg. Is the Seagate
160 GB drive problematic? Obviously I want a drive with the 5 year warranty.
Are any of you using the Samsung or Hitachi in this size? Also, for those of you who
had a 160 GB drive BTO from Apple with your 'book, what brand did you get?

I've had a 7200 RPM Hitachi running nearly 24/7 in a Pismo with no problems for
the better part of a year, and at the moment I am using a Seagate 100 GB drive
that I just installed in a 1 Ghz Dell Inspiron PIII (the horror, I know, but I can't take
the dog-slow Pismo's 400 Mhz anymore - plus the screen just broke; Macbook enroute!)

The Seagate is absolutely silent compared to the Hitachi, and seems just as fast.
At the moment the Samsung is $135; Hitachi $140; and Seagate $160.00.
Last I checked the Hitachi warranty was 3 years; don't know about the others.

 

[panzer06]

Hitachi all the way!!

I'm looking for a 160 GB drive for a Macbook, and am trying to decide what to get.

I've always liked Seagate for the quiet and 5 year warranty, but I saw a whole
lot of negative reviews (failures) in the comments at Newegg. Is the Seagate
160 GB drive problematic? Obviously I want a drive with the 5 year warranty.
Are any of you using the Samsung or Hitachi in this size? Also, for those of you who
had a 160 GB drive BTO from Apple with your 'book, what brand did you get?

I've had a 7200 RPM Hitachi running nearly 24/7 in a Pismo with no problems for
the better part of a year, and at the moment I am using a Seagate 100 GB drive
that I just installed in a 1 Ghz Dell Inspiron PIII (the horror, I know, but I can't take
the dog-slow Pismo's 400 Mhz anymore - plus the screen just broke; Macbook enroute!)

The Seagate is absolutely silent compared to the Hitachi, and seems just as fast.
At the moment the Samsung is $135; Hitachi $140; and Seagate $160.00.
Last I checked the Hitachi warranty was 3 years; don't know about the others.

I have Hitachi drives in my Powerbook G4 and my Macbook. I can barely hear the 120GB in the Powerbook and the Macbook 160GB SATA drive is so quiet I must lean down to hear it seek.

I've never had a failure with either (though the 160 is only 2 months old). I also have used the Samsung ATA 120GB and it was whisper quiet too.

You could probably do just fine with any of the brands you've listed.

Cheers,

 

[erkanasu]

I have Hitachi drives in my Powerbook G4 and my Macbook. I can barely hear the 120GB in the Powerbook and the Macbook 160GB SATA drive is so quiet I must lean down to hear it seek.

I've never had a failure with either (though the 160 is only 2 months old). I also have used the Samsung ATA 120GB and it was whisper quiet too.

You could probably do just fine with any of the brands you've listed.

Cheers,

I am about to send back my Hitachi 160 GB for a replacement. Got a week ago, and the think is loud as hell. I think I just got a bad HD, hopefully the next will be quite. I am too debating if I should just get a refund and get the Seagate instead!

 

[phungy]

Tough choice. I was thinking about getting the Hitachi 160GB but opted for a Seagate 100GB 7200rpm and this thing is super quiet and fast! Though I did wish I could have gotten a 160GB 7200rpm (I know its not out...yet)

I'd go for the Seagate...5 yr warranty baby!

 

[dixiehacker]

Avoid Hitachi

While, I am new to the Mac world, I have extensive experience with notebook hard drives. I stronly suggest that you avoid Hitachi drives all together. I have gone through two hitachi's in my personal Gateway. Two friends of mine, and my boss have all had Hitachi drives go bad. That makes for a total of 5 bad hitachi drives I have seen in the last year and a half alone.

My suggestion would be Samsung. While they are a tad slower than hitachi, their reliability makes up for their performance. The two samsung notebook drives I have have not yet failed after 2 years, and are still quiet as the day they were installed. Many people I know in the local software development community have had similar positive experiences with Samsung.

 

[supersuperga]

Go Seagate

I've had hitachi drives fail (2 out of probably 20 over 7-8 years, nothing in the last 3 though) and a Samsung drive fail (out of 1, and in a bad way ... gradual errors that only showed up when I tried to back it up).

I have 7 Seagate drives at the mo and have never had a problem .. plus the 5 years warranty is definitely money-where-mouth-is.

Did read a post recently from a technician saying samsung dire for reliability (20% fail), hitachi a little better and Toshiba a little better still (have lost some of these too...). WD (yup, got 5 spinning in my server now) the best with Seagate nearly as good. My experience defninitely backs this up. Both WD and Seagate make laptop drives btw.

 

[supersuperga]

hmm

... and the one message coming from all of this is .... backup backup backup. Regularly ..!

 

[dixiehacker]

I've had hitachi drives fail (2 out of probably 20 over 7-8 years, nothing in the last 3 though) and a Samsung drive fail (out of 1, and in a bad way ... gradual errors that only showed up when I tried to back it up).

I have 7 Seagate drives at the mo and have never had a problem .. plus the 5 years warranty is definitely money-where-mouth-is.

Did read a post recently from a technician saying samsung dire for reliability (20% fail), hitachi a little better and Toshiba a little better still (have lost some of these too...). WD (yup, got 5 spinning in my server now) the best with Seagate nearly as good. My experience defninitely backs this up. Both WD and Seagate make laptop drives btw.

I agree that WDs are great in the desktop. I currently have 7 of them in various desktops and servers. They are, however, less established in the notebook market. I am not saying they are bad, just new.

 

[erkanasu]

just ordered a 7200 100 GB seagate!

 

[phungy]

just ordered a 7200 100 GB seagate!

Excellent choice!

 

[leroymuc]

I can barely hear the 120GB in the Powerbook and the Macbook 160GB SATA drive is so quiet I must lean down to hear it seek.

Thats interesting. Are we talking about the same drive? I bought a Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 160GB drive and I'd call it loud. It's definitely much louder than the original 80GB drive in my Macbook. I have not thought about returning the Hitachi, tough since I'm not sure what is normal for that drive. The noise I get does not really disturb me but of course I'd have my drive replaced if I knew they're supposed to be quieter...

 

[panzer06]

Thats interesting. Are we talking about the same drive? I bought a Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 160GB drive and I'd call it loud. It's definitely much louder than the original 80GB drive in my Macbook. I have not thought about returning the Hitachi, tough since I'm not sure what is normal for that drive. The noise I get does not really disturb me but of course I'd have my drive replaced if I knew they're supposed to be quieter...

Very interesting. Following this forum there appears to be a wide range of quality issues related to the Hitachi laptop drives. I looked back at the newegg.com reviews and 1 out of 22 complained of a drive failure. I guess I am one of the lucky (or blessed depending on your outlook) ones. So far my Hitachi drives are performing well.

Even so, I do use SuperDuper to create images and a bootable partition on my external 400GB drive on a regular basis.

I think it is safe to say anything with moving parts will eventually fail, some sooner than others.

Cheers,

 

[caribiner23]

I've always avoided the Hitachi drives because of their legacy as the old IBM TravelStar (aka "DeathStar") drives.

For what it's worth, I swapped in a Fujitsu 120 GB 5400 RPM drive in my MacBook and things have been beautiful ever since...

 

[Dave the Great]

Get the Seagate!!

(From personal experience) The Hitachi is loud as hell!!

(From personal experience) The Seagate is quiet and just as speedy, if not more so!!

 

[djejrejk]

Does anyone know which hard drive brands ship with the MBP's ?

I want to upgrade but I think I am going to wait until larger Seagate 7200's (larger the 100g) or the new flash/hybrid drives become available.

 

[10-Dee-Q]

hi, I always use seagate for my computer,
be it desktop, or notebook, be it windows or apple
now i still have:
-2,5" 100GB IDE in my Asus W1N
-2,5" 160GB IDE in my Fujitsu P7010 LE
-2,5" 160GB SATA in my Black MacBook
-2,5" 100GB SATA in external casing for back up on the road.
-3,5" 320GB IDE in External casing for network Storage at Home.

Pfieeeeww i didn't realised that i have too much space now

anyway all of them is SEAGATE MOMMENTUS !
and i never have any problem at all !
i've been very happy with their performance too,
Speed is excelent (but i never tried any 7200rpm before)
Noise is , what noise ? the fan is even louder
heat , they get a bit warm but deffinetly not hot.

so i recommend seagate mommentus for those who want quality, the price is a tad higher than others brand , but hey , u pay for the quality

the only experience i had with other brand is only fujitsu though.
it silent,and cool, but the performance sucks , compared to seagate.

hope it helps.

From what i read on the internet:
-Seagate for overall quality and performance. reccomended on all laptop
-Fujitsu for their low power consumptions (but losses on performance) reccomended for external enclosure and also on ultra mobile laptop
-Hitachi for Speed (but some say noisy and hot) reccomended on gaming laptop.
-Samsung ( have no idea)
-WD (don't even think of getting one)
-Toshiba (have no idea)

Maybe u shoud read more review on the net , such as this :
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=145

 

[itsme92]

I have a hitachi and it works fine

Hi, I have a 160gb Hitachi drive I got off Newegg in my Macbook, it works great for me. It is silent, and I haven't had a problem with it.

I got it because of all the positive reviews I read on Newegg.

It works great.