So the hard drive crapped out in my iMac, hardware diagnostic confirmed this. I need to replace it and now that it is out of warranty I will be doing a DIY job on this one. I am wondering what the best hard drive to replace it would be. I want two things. RELIABILITY, and speed. I was looking at the seagate barracuda 1TB 7200. I know there is a ton of variability in hard drives, any can fail, but what are everyones thoughts on a good replacement drive. Also I tried several searches on this topic and the MR search page kept giving me error messages, and mroogle is blocked here for some reason.
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iMac 7,1 new HDD
- Thread starter brendu
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If reliability and speed are your #1 concerns, you should get an SSD. SSDs have no moving parts so they don't physically wear out like HDs do. Speeds are also day and night compared to HDs. The downside is that even 120GB SSD will cost you more than 200$ so if you need a lot capacity, then you must either pay astronomical amount of $ or stick with HDs.
When it comes to HDs, my choice is Western Digital
When it comes to HDs, my choice is Western Digital
"The jury is out" on the Seagate Momentus XT. Some people report it is great, others that its been full of problems. I've got one for my MacBook, and at least for how I use the system, I think the flash capacity is just too small. Boot-ups are faster but not blindingly fast and I think the biggest speedup has been the faster rotational speed. In a iMac you wouldn't get that speedup.
Every brand of drive has its proponents and detractors, and if you look at the reviews on Newegg.com there is certainly no clear winner. Frankly, I've got Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, and Maxtor drives of 1TB or larger running here and I can't really rate one above the other.
Every brand of drive has its proponents and detractors, and if you look at the reviews on Newegg.com there is certainly no clear winner. Frankly, I've got Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, and Maxtor drives of 1TB or larger running here and I can't really rate one above the other.
Thats good to know. Looks like the best bet is just to get a 7200 1TB drive and hope for the best. I have favored WD in the past but the scorpio blue I got for my mbp has been slow as hell, I will never go that route again. either scorpio black or seagate barracuda. I will post back with the results when I do the upgrade this weekend.
Sounds like a normal Caviar Black then. They are high performance drives which are pretty noisy but they are also the most reliable ones.
Apple source their 1TB drives from a variety of suppliers but I understand those of us who find a Caviar Black in our imacs consider ourselves lucky. Yes they are noisier than others but that is partially because WD are prioritising speed in the Black over quietness