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hard drive upgrade time: speed vs. capacity

GeeYouEye

GeeYouEye

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 9, 2001
1,670
10
State of Denial
My AlBook 15" came with an 80 GB hard drive, and, well, it's full. Really full. Full to the tune of "I have to restart to get over 1.5 GB free". I have to restart BEFORE running software update otherwise it goes to 0 kb free midway during installation.

So, I'm going to get an upgrade. The question, of course, it whether I should get a modest storage enhancement and get the speed boost of a 100 GB 7200 RPM hard drive by Hitachi, or a much higher capacity, but still 5400 RPM hard drive, also by Hitachi.

Which one should I get and why?
 
The Hitachi is the same price at NewEgg. I've always had good luck with Western Digital for desktop hard drives, but I've never had laptop drive from them. Are they generally pretty good as compared to Seagate and Hitachi Travelstars? (I know not to get Deathst... er... Deskstars)
 
Yeah I think the WD are about equivalent to the Hitachi's. I know the price is almost the same (the one I linked to is a whole $1 less!), but I just wanted to give you other options. Seagate is far and above my favorite drive brand -- I've had the least failures with them. I haven't owned a ton of laptop drives, but I've had about 35 desktop hard drives in the last four years, and I've had the most failures with the IBM Deathstars, followed by the Western Digitals (almost 33% failure rate within 3 years of age -- that's horrible). So in general I'm not a huge fan of WD desktop drives, but I've had good luck with their laptop drives.
 
If I had to choose either speed or capacity for an internal HD, I'd always go w/ speed. If I need more storage, I'll get an external HD... But for others, of course, it depends on their typical usage...
 
mrogers said:
Yeah I think the WD are about equivalent to the Hitachi's. I know the price is almost the same (the one I linked to is a whole $1 less!), but I just wanted to give you other options. Seagate is far and above my favorite drive brand -- I've had the least failures with them. I haven't owned a ton of laptop drives, but I've had about 35 desktop hard drives in the last four years, and I've had the most failures with the IBM Deathstars, followed by the Western Digitals (almost 33% failure rate within 3 years of age -- that's horrible). So in general I'm not a huge fan of WD desktop drives, but I've had good luck with their laptop drives.
Click to expand...

After a closer look it seems that the WD is SATA, so it won't work with my PowerBook. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
 
GeeYouEye said:
After a closer look it seems that the WD is SATA, so it won't work with my PowerBook. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
Click to expand...

Oh woops, that was the wrong one...I saw an ATA one, I'll find it again...

EDIT: OK, I had a bunch of tabs open and I got my wires crossed...I was looking for ATA-6 for you, I knew you needed it, I don't know why I pasted that one in. I had found a 160GB ATA-6 drive at Provantage for like $107, but I think the sale ended because I can't find it anymore. Sorry.
 
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