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What internal mac mini 09 HDD are you self upgrading to?

500gb - 7200rpm

I am considering the Seagate 7200.4 model 500gb version even if I am getting the Mini (found a barely used one) with 320gb drive, so it is more for speed than space - what do you think about this?
This drive has 16mb cache and seek power is around 1.5watts, just as with the Seagate 5400.6 - 500gb and according to Seagate it should actually be 0.1bels (1db) more quiet than this slower drive.

IF I go for an external fw800 drive - which is the most quiet? Some 2.5" drive surely, but which?
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
I'm going to go for a 7200rpm 320gb, but am stuck between 2 :confused:

Hitachi 2.5" 320GB SATA 7200rpm HDD

http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...&NavigationKey=11154,47250000,50372,371470000

Or

Western Digital 320GB 2.5" HDD
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146083

Both are around £63 delivered. The WD seems like its more popular purchase, but a lot of reviews moan about a loud click it produces...? There are much much less reviews on the Hitachi. Cannot decide?!?!? :eek::eek:
Click to expand...

Toss a coin? Again, to reassure you about the Hitachi, I bought it because it was on sale for only $59 Cdn. Hell of a deal. No clicks or vibration. Works perfectly.
 
bigbird said:
Toss a coin? Again, to reassure you about the Hitachi, I bought it because it was on sale for only $59 Cdn. Hell of a deal. No clicks or vibration. Works perfectly.
Click to expand...

:D:D:D I may just have to do that! If you had said a teeeny weeeny bad thing about your hitachi I would of got the WD :D
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
:D:D:D I may just have to do that! If you had said a teeeny weeeny bad thing about your hitachi I would of got the WD :D
Click to expand...

To reassure you even more about Hitachi, I ordered a Hitachi DeskStar 7K1000.B 1TB HD to replace the main 500GB WD in my Mac Pro. The WD in there is a bit whiney and it does click a bit. It still works fine and I'll put it in an external closure. But after reading several reports about Hitachi, especially here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html
I decided to again go with Hitachi.
 
bigbird said:
To reassure you even more about Hitachi, I ordered a Hitachi DeskStar 7K1000.B 1TB HD to replace the main 500GB WD in my Mac Pro. The WD in there is a bit whiney and it does click a bit. It still works fine and I'll put it in an external closure. But after reading several reports about Hitachi, especially here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html
I decided to again go with Hitachi.
Click to expand...

I've made the decision to go for the Hitachi :D Ordered! £61 delivered is a great deal. Will let you know how it is after i've upgraded it :cool:
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
I've made the decision to go for the Hitachi :D Ordered! £61 delivered is a great deal. Will let you know how it is after i've upgraded it :cool:
Click to expand...

I don't think you'll be disappointed. I installed my new 1TB Hitachi HD in my Mac Pro today. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to make it my boot drive. Performs flawlessly!
 
beatmonkeytwo said:
I've made the decision to go for the Hitachi :D Ordered! £61 delivered is a great deal. Will let you know how it is after i've upgraded it :cool:
Click to expand...

Hi

where did you order this HDD from please mate?

my 09 mini arrives next week and ill be opening it up asap!

also do you know what ram the new mini takes? and the cheapest place to buy 2 x 2GB sticks?

cheers
 
davemulheran said:
Hi

where did you order this HDD from please mate?

my 09 mini arrives next week and ill be opening it up asap!

also do you know what ram the new mini takes? and the cheapest place to buy 2 x 2GB sticks?

cheers
Click to expand...

dabs.com in the UK. I'll find the link for you...
 
bigbird said:
Perfect. It runs exactly the same after the upgrades as before. No hotter, no audible or physical vibration. The only detectable difference is performance, of course. It boots faster, is much more responsive, and the software update progress bar literally flies across its window. I'm very happy with the Hitachi 320GB 7200 rpm HD.
Click to expand...

Bigbird how many seconds does your mini take to boot after you upgraded? I installed the exact same hard drive and ram as you, but i'm sure it does not boot that much faster than the stock 120gb 5400rpm.

Is there some way you have reset the settings (pram maybe)? Does the mini automatically recognize that the hard drive is 7400rpm or does it still think it's 5400rpm :confused:
 
For those who have upgraded to *any* 7200 rpm drives in their 2009 Minis, are you experiencing any heat related problems thus far?

I plan to get a 320GB WD 7200 OEM drive.
 
jdryyz said:
For those who have upgraded to *any* 7200 rpm drives in their 2009 Minis, are you experiencing any heat related problems thus far?

I plan to get a 320GB WD 7200 OEM drive.
Click to expand...

Only a few degrees more. :D Mines working great with A Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm 320GB. Loads more space, snappier apps and loading times. Only thing is though, mine does not seem to boot much quicker than the standard 5400rpm 120GB, even though I have read people with the same upgrades have minis that boot up much faster. Hence why I am trying to find out if you need to reset the pram or something??? :confused:
 
Thanks for the info.

That is curious about your drive. Perhaps it is not directly related to the hard drive itself but rather the OS.

Is your Hitachi a SATA 3.0Gb/s or 1.5Gb/s?


beatmonkeytwo said:
Only a few degrees more. :D Mines working great with A Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm 320GB. Loads more space, snappier apps and loading times. Only thing is though, mine does not seem to boot much quicker than the standard 5400rpm 120GB, even though I have read people with the same upgrades have minis that boot up much faster. Hence why I am trying to find out if you need to reset the pram or something??? :confused:
Click to expand...
 
jdryyz said:
Thanks for the info.

That is curious about your drive. Perhaps it is not directly related to the hard drive itself but rather the OS.

Is your Hitachi a SATA 3.0Gb/s or 1.5Gb/s?
Click to expand...

Serial ATA-300 as far as i'm aware. The link to it should be further back in the post. Why would the OS effect it? People with the same OS as me (as far as I am aware Leopard), same drive and same ram seemed to have a faster boot up time :confused:
 
Not saying just the OS by itself is causing it but perhaps there is some issue with it. Do you have similar slow boots from an external device with the OS installed also?

beatmonkeytwo said:
Serial ATA-300 as far as i'm aware. The link to it should be further back in the post. Why would the OS effect it? People with the same OS as me (as far as I am aware Leopard), same drive and same ram seemed to have a faster boot up time :confused:
Click to expand...
 
I installed the WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200rpm HDD in my Mac mini.

This disk is noticeably faster than the 120GB 5400rpm HDD it came with.
 
jdryyz said:
Not saying just the OS by itself is causing it but perhaps there is some issue with it. Do you have similar slow boots from an external device with the OS installed also?
Click to expand...

Okay I tried booting up and holding the option key so my 2 boot drives came up. Selected the external 120GB 5400rpm os drive and it loaded up in about 40 secs. Then I restarted and did the same process but selecting the new internal 320GB 7200rpm os drive and it loaded up in about 20 secs.

Now heres the strange part. I restarted again and did not hold down any option key, just waited for the mini to load up on its own on the internal 320GB. It took nearly a minute :eek::eek: It's like the system is looking for the new internal drive or something...?

I don't understand why!?!? I used carbon cloner to swap all my info over before inserting the new drive, could this have done a bad copy?
 
That is strange alright. Try removing everything except a mouse just to see if it makes a difference.


beatmonkeytwo said:
Okay I tried booting up and holding the option key so my 2 boot drives came up. Selected the external 120GB 5400rpm os drive and it loaded up in about 40 secs. Then I restarted and did the same process but selecting the new internal 320GB 7200rpm os drive and it loaded up in about 20 secs.

Now heres the strange part. I restarted again and did not hold down any option key, just waited for the mini to load up on its own on the internal 320GB. It took nearly a minute :eek::eek: It's like the system is looking for the new internal drive or something...?

I don't understand why!?!? I used carbon cloner to swap all my info over before inserting the new drive, could this have done a bad copy?
Click to expand...
 
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