HDD for MBP

Iomega Man

Hi all,

Want to upgrade my MBP.
My poor old 80GB HDD is feeling the strain..!!
Any thoughts on this?


http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343402

Thanks..IM

J-blk

That drive has WD's own "ShockGuard" anti-shock system so it should probably be avoided - AFAIK, drives with their own anti-shock technology screw with the built-in shock sensors of MBs/MBPs and should be avoided, as using one will lead to kernel panics and other problems. WD supplies some models without it, like this 320GB I got:

http://www.dabs.ie/products/western-digital-scorpio-black-320gb-7200rpm-16mb-s300-3gbs-56MX.html

But the "bad" version of it is this one:

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?...avigationKey=0

However, your best bet is to google the exact drive model number (WD3200BEVT in this case) + MacBook and see what people are saying about it...

Iomega Man

thanks for that j-blk.
That looks good,fair price too.
Did you install it in a MBP?

J-blk

Nope, a unibody MacBook - I wasn't brave enough to dismantle my older MBP and upgrade the HDD before I sold it! If you've got a unibody MBP, the HDD upgrade is exactly the same as the MacBook - dead easy.

BTW, one thing to note is that the 7200RPM drive is notably audible in a quiet room, whereas my stock 5400RPM was almost impossible to hear. Nothing major, but you can hear fan noise when there's not much else making any noise...

Sad Professor

I love how easy it is to change the HDD on the new Macbooks. The hard-drive dying (and the hassle of dismantling the bloody thing) is always my biggest fear with notebooks. But with the unibodies it's as easy as installing RAM.

Elessar

Would you consider a SSD? I recently put an OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD drive (one of the best on the market) into my MBP and the difference is like night and day. The speed of operation is incredible. Regular Hard drives are major bottlenecks in notebooks.

An SSD is so worth it it's not even funny. My 3 year old MBP is like a new machine.

pleasant Co.

Elessar wrote: »

Would you consider a SSD? I recently put an OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD drive (one of the best on the market) into my MBP and the difference is like night and day. The speed of operation is incredible. Regular Hard drives are major bottlenecks in notebooks.

An SSD is so worth it it's not even funny. My 3 year old MBP is like a new machine.

What was the price on that one?

Iomega Man

SSD is a nice idea but yeah,how much?
They're still pretty pricey at the mo.
The noise of the 7200 may be an issue,wonder would the 5400 equivalent be less noisy?
I'm thinking if I have to rip this puppy apart it better be for the biggest drive I can ram into it(it won't be repeated..!!!!),

Sad Professor

Komplett want €379 for the 120GB Vertex SSD. Expensive alright but cheaper than what Apple want anyway.

J-blk

Is the SSD completely silent Elessar? I would think so...

Iomega Man, if you want silence, don't go for a 7200RPM - the 5400RPM should be quieter though TBH, I'm not comparing two identical manufacturer drives. My stock HDD was a Hitachi and it got replaced by the WD so I can't say 100% if a 5400RPM WD is quite as quiet as a Hitachi...

Iomega Man

Know what you mean,think I might opt for the 5400(noise,battery etc..)
I was looking up the 5400 version of the Scorpio and it looks OK.
Thinking strongly about it.
Think the SSD will have to wait for a while...nice idea though!

Elessar

I got it for €365 from MemoryC. Compared to platter based drives it's still expensive, but the price is coming down very fast and later this year you can expect to see 250GB SSDs for close to that. It is completely silent.

But, having used it, I would never go back. These things are the future. To give an example of it's speed, my MBP used to take close to a minute to power up on the old 5400rpm stock drive. With the Vertex, the indicator circles less than twice before I'm on the desktop.

pleasant Co.

I'll wait myself for them to get cheaper, there's no doubt it's superior to HDD but I'm not willing to pay that much more.

Talisman

Misco.ie have the WD3200BEKT in stock. It's slightly more expensive than Dabs.ie but it is available to purchase.

For anyone considering buying a SSD drive, check out Shop4Memory.com - They are cheaper than Dabs and Komplett and delivery is free in Ireland. I considered SSD but I can't afford to spend €600+ on a hard drive at the moment even if it is lightning fast.

ant043

i'm currently waiting on delivery of 128gb samsung ssd for my macbook from ebay. it only cost 220 euro and is the exact same drive apple uses with macbook and macbook pros.