When will 160 Gig hard drives in MacBooks be available?!

[resonator]

Anyone wonder why any of the new MacBook or MacBook Pro's are not offered with the 160 Gigabyte hard drive? I already have a G4 Powerbook with 100 Gig drive - I desparately need more disk space - 20 gig is not worth selling my current laptop. Seagate has had these drives out for 3 months or so now? Any idea why Apple is not offering these?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Seagate has had these drives out for 3 months or so now? Any idea why Apple is not offering these?

For the one-hundred-and-eleventh time: Those 160 GB Seagates are IDE disks and the MacBooks take SATA disks...

As to when Seagate has SATA versions ready it's really anybody's guess... as you want them for your Mac, maybe next Tuesday...

Seriously: If you want the MacBook, get the MacBook, then some time from now, when your disk is nearly full there's a good chance that some HD vendor had released a 160-200GB 5400/7200 rpm disk, and you can just replace your HD with one of them...

 

[Heb1228]

20 gig is not worth selling my current laptop.

You're gonna sell your laptop cause you need a bigger hard drive?

Buy the 160 Seagate drive and put it in your PB. It will work in a PB, but not a MacBook or MBP.

 

[jamesi]

what is all this crazy talk? 160 gig hdd in a macbook now? not all wishes come true buddy, i cant see apple offering 160 gigs for an entry level laptop anytime soon. the price, too, would be too high for most ppl to stomach and since this large of a drive is really a luxury i wouldnt expect in a macbook anytime soon

 

[Pressure]

Seagate should re releasing their Perpendicular Recording drive soon with native SATA.

The Momentus 5400.3 with SATA will feature 160GB.

 

[storage]

Seagate should re releasing their Perpendicular Recording drive soon with native SATA.

The Momentus 5400.3 with SATA will feature 160GB.

Just a little off-topic, but will perpendicular drives be more expensive than regular drives?

 

[Pressure]

Just a little off-topic, but will perpendicular drives be more expensive than regular drives?

Some but since they are transitioning the entire production to perpendicular recording technology for both desktops abd notebooks, any price difference with current models should be neglible down the road.

The 160GB Seagate Momentus 5400.3 is currently under $225 at newegg. For the amount of space you get in a 2.5" package I find the price reasonable.

 

[Josias]

While I was in the US, I saw a commercial saying: "Your Mac can do more". It was some website which I don't remember, where you could get 160 GB, 7.200 rpm. 2.5" drives. I don't know whether this was IDE or SATA, but I guess it somehow is possible to get a 160 gig into a MB.

 

[kgarner]

Next Tuesday!

Someone had to say it.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Next Tuesday!

Someone had to say it.

See post #2...

 

[kgarner]

See post #2...

Curse me for skimming over that one.

I think the rule should be that jokes go in the first line. Makes it easier to pick up on them.

 

[Makosuke]

While I was in the US, I saw a commercial saying: "Your Mac can do more". It was some website which I don't remember, where you could get 160 GB, 7.200 rpm. 2.5" drives. I don't know whether this was IDE or SATA, but I guess it somehow is possible to get a 160 gig into a MB.

No, it isn't. There are no 7200 RPM 160GB 2.5" drives on the market from any manufacturer as far as I know (perhaps they were saying 160GB OR 7200RPM?), and the only 160GB laptop drive you can buy is an IDE one as has been said, so the commercial was almost certainly refering to a PowerBook upgrade, not a MacBook one.

 

[FleurDuMal]

As far as I understand it, if you want 7,200rpm at the moment you can only go upto 100GB. If you settle for 5,400rpm, you can go up to 120GB. And if you don't mind slowing down to 4,200rpm, you can get 160GB.

 

[plinkoman]

have you considered an external drive? I'd love a TB in my powerbook as much as the next guy, but it's just not going to happen for a little while; thats why I have 860GB of external storage space in addition to my powerbooks internal 100GB.

 

[Caitlyn]

Why always wait for something better? No machine is perfect. So, either see if you can find a 160GB HD you can pop into your MacBook after purchase, or order an external 160GB and have even more space. Buy carefully with externals though. I just had a major HD crash from a crappy external HD.

 

[Roads0]

160 Gb for an entry level laptop doesn't seem plausible. I think everyone who waits for the Macbook updates just want to see the MBP components in a Macbook case.

 

[vv-tim]

As far as I understand it, if you want 7,200rpm at the moment you can only go upto 100GB. If you settle for 5,400rpm, you can go up to 120GB. And if you don't mind slowing down to 4,200rpm, you can get 160GB.

The 160GB drive is a 5400rpm drive (with very similar performance compared to a 7200rpm drive, actually). I was going to get it, but as everyone has already pointed out, it's Parallel ATA.

Toshiba(?) is releasing a 200GB 4200rpm 2.5" hard drive in the near future... If the price was right, it would be nice for an external drive.


To the person who said the 160 is too expensive for entry level... $200 isn't that much imho.

 

[Roads0]

To the person who said the 160 is too expensive for entry level... $200 isn't that much imho.

Your right it isn't too much, but there needs to be a fine line between product lines. If the Macbook has all of the same components as the MBP, the why would people spend more on the MBP. It makes business sense from Apple's perspective.

 

[vv-tim]

Your right it isn't too much, but there needs to be a fine line between product lines. If the Macbook has all of the same components as the MBP, the why would people spend more on the MBP. It makes business sense from Apple's perspective.

Apple's not too concerned about RAM and Hard Drives... as you can tell by the MacBook design, they're EXTREMELY user serviceable on the MacBook. By all means, I don't think it's a good idea to buy the MacBook with a 160GB hard drive from Apple (because they'll charge you like $450 for it, haha)... but I don't see them shying away from offering it. They have enough differences already.

One good (although something I'm upset about) differentiation they made was making one MBP 128mb of vram and the other 256mb of vram without offering an upgrade option on the lower one. You had to pay for the extra ram, cpu speed, and hard drive if you wanted that 128mb more of vram...

Sadly, I didn't have the cash at the time. Maybe when a Merom version rolls around I'll sell this one on eBay and upgrade.

 

[YS2003]

Is any SATA 2.5 inch internal HD compatible with MacBook? It seems this http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,667,00.html is a nice replacement HD for MB's small retail-version HD.

Is Sudden Motion Sensor hard-wired on the logic board? Does a replacement HD you can install by yourself keep the sudden motion sensor feature?

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

2.5" 160GB SATA drives exist, they're just really expensive right now. $2/GB or more.

You can buy a MacBook then upgrade the HDD yourself. Either that or you can get a 160GB IDE drive installed in your PowerBook.

 

[imacintel]

Don't use Fujitsu IDE/SATA 100 GB drives!

I have one, it is horribly slow. 4200 RPM

 

[Josias]

Don't use Fujitsu IDE/SATA 100 GB drives!

I have one, it is horribly slow. 4200 RPM

Just because one of their drives are 4.200 rpm. don't mean all their drives stink. Last rev. iBooks anc MacMini's (PPC) used 4.200 rpm. drives.