New MacBook harddrive, recommendations?

[cr2sh]

I want to replace the tiny 60GB harddrive in my macbook with something much larger.

After reading this dissapointing review over at creativemac, I guess I'm thinking about staying with a cheaper, larger, non-7200 drive, such as a 5400 RPM 160GB Hitachi.

I wanted to ask opinions.. anyone have a 7200rpm hardrive in their macbook and want to disagree with the above review?

 

[PaulinMaryland]

160GB SATA drives

It's been documented in the MacBook Upgrades thread that 7200 rpm fails to boost performance (by much) while shortening battery running time.

Most of us who have been eyeing the 160GB drives are looking for more capacity; faster operation is secondary.

The Hitachi 160GB SATA that you've linked to for $280 is about to drop in price. Mwave.com is selling it for $219.00 plus $8 USA shipping. It's selling on eBay for $239 Buy It Now.
ZipZoomFly will be selling it for $180 shipped!

Others will be happy with the Seagate Momentus 5400.3 SATA 160GB 2.5-inch drive, which is supposed to be available this month. I'm going for the Hitachi; I think it comes with a longer warranty.

 

[fiercetiger224]

I want to replace the tiny 60GB harddrive in my macbook with something much larger.

After reading this dissapointing review over at creativemac, I guess I'm thinking about staying with a cheaper, larger, non-7200 drive, such as a 5400 RPM 160GB Hitachi.

I wanted to ask opinions.. anyone have a 7200rpm hardrive in their macbook and want to disagree with the above review?

Well, I disagree with the review itself. If you're only doing something like encoding video, then yes, it will NOT improve overall performance. BUT, if you're doing several things at once that use the hard drive, such as encoding video AND copying files, then yes, it WILL be faster. I compared the stock hard drive of the MacBook with that same Hitachi 7200 RPM drive. And I've got to say if you're doing a lot of multitasking, it's a hell of a lot faster. It doesn't hiccup as much either. But personally, I'd also use an external hd in combination with a faster internal hd. Less waiting, etc. It's just too bad you have to sacrifice a lot of hard drive space when using a notebook...... *sighs*

-EDIT-
Just remember that faster rotational speed doesn't always mean faster performance; it usually means that it can access "random" data (meaning multiple instances of data) faster. So faster rotational speed equals faster juggling of files.

 

[generik]

It may be just me, but since a few years back I've completely weaned off Hitachi drives and my life is probably brighter because of that decision.

It may be anecedotal, but those drives are a real ****ed unrealiable ****s! They perform well, they are cheap, but hey.. where does the drawback come in? Probably their reliability. Over the last 4 years I bought 4 HGST drives originally for use in a RAID array, and one after another they all just died. A friend of mine owns a laptop with a HGST drive in it, and the drive died shortly after her warranty expired too.

In fact Apple doesn't use HGST drives, and if what people say are worth anything, Apple use good quality components.

I'd recommend Seagate or Toshiba, with a slight leaning towards the Seagate, these two manufacturers make generally high quality stuff.

 

[PaulinMaryland]

Upgrading a SATA hard drive

Here's another useful thread that answers some upgrade questions.

 

[cr2sh]

Here's another useful thread that answers some upgrade questions.

Thanks for the link and the heads about about the price drop... I'll keep an eye out. Exactly the info I was looking for.

 

[PaulinMaryland]

I just ordered a 160GB SATA from mWave

I just ordered my Hitachi SATA 160 from mWave; I need it by Saturday, and mWave's site claims it's in stock, which would make them the only site to have them aside from the $279 seller and the eBay seller who has several for sale... for $400 each!

ZipZoomFly has quietly raised their out-of-stock price from $179 shipped to $191 plus shipping, several other vendors are now listing it with the caveat to wait 2 or 3 weeks; and there's no sign of the Seagate 5400.3 SATA. I wanted to wait a couple days and see if lower-priced SATA 160s would become available, but I couldn't risk that mWave would sell out.

The drive, the Mac, the 2GB of RAM, the two AirPort Extremes, and pretty much everything else will all arrive this week. I want to have it all working when my daughter returns from vacation Sunday night.