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Advice on hard drives

post #1 of 11
6/17/09 at 1:22am
Thread Starter 
Hi, everyone.

I have a Mac Pro (dual 2.6 GHz core 2 duo) and was looking for some advice on an internal hard drive to install. I want to get a 1 TB drive dedicated to windows xp so I can make it dual boot.

Any advice on a drive (make and model?) that is fast, quiet, runs cool, and not too expensive...(etc).

I would love to hear what worked well (or did not work well) for anyone.

Thanks in advance for any input.

-Dr. Bimane

P.S. I was thinking of getting a Western Digital drive but a lot of the reviews I was reading were hit and miss. Many people said they tend to run very hot and are noisy...
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post #2 of 11
6/17/09 at 8:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Bimane View Post

Hi, everyone.

I have a Mac Pro (dual 2.6 GHz core 2 duo) and was looking for some advice on an internal hard drive to install. I want to get a 1 TB drive dedicated to windows xp so I can make it dual boot.

Any advice on a drive (make and model?) that is fast, quiet, runs cool, and not too expensive...(etc).

I would love to hear what worked well (or did not work well) for anyone.

Thanks in advance for any input.

-Dr. Bimane

P.S. I was thinking of getting a Western Digital drive but a lot of the reviews I was reading were hit and miss. Many people said they tend to run very hot and are noisy...

FWIW:
This doesn't answer your question exactly; however, the author of this MacWorld article suggests an external HDD for use with a Mini. That brand may be good for a MBP internal.

This article may kill two birds with one stone if anyone is considering using a Mini as a media center.

Mac mini media center
by Christopher Breen
MacWorld July 2009
http://www.macworld.com/article/1400...etstarted.html

"The mini’s 5,400-rpm drive is both slow and offers too little capacity to be useful for storing music and movies. In the course of his review of the new Mac mini, my colleague Dan Frakes observed that the mini runs faster when booted from a fast external FireWire drive. A trip to Fry’s put me in possession of a Seagate FreeAgent 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive (with FireWire 800 interface) for $135 (on sale). The drive is reasonably speedy, offers good capacity, and includes a FireWire 800 cable."
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post #3 of 11
6/17/09 at 9:00pm
I like the Seagate 7200.12 1tb for $90 at newegg. The older one that is still out is the 7200.11 which is nice, cause I think the 7200.12 is green initiative. That is up to you. I know personally, July 3rd, I am ordering 2 7200.11 for a Drobo and then 3 more the month after that, why? Because I already have 5 of them and when I bought them the web site listed the warranty as 3 years. But when I registered them with seagate, I got 5 years till 2013. One of them already died, which I just got a return for took 2 weeks total shipping time. Died on June the 2nd, and I got it yesterday (June 16th).

Laters...

"The great warranty isn't so great now. Seagate reduced the warranty period from 5 years with the 7200.11 series to 3 years with 7200.12 series 1TB drives. Now there's nothing to differentiate Seagate's drives from their competitors' drive" - newegg user
Adobe Systems - "Preventing the Case-Sensitive revolution everyday..."
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Adobe Systems - "Preventing the Case-Sensitive revolution everyday..."
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post #4 of 11
6/17/09 at 9:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Bimane View Post

Hi, everyone.

I have a Mac Pro (dual 2.6 GHz core 2 duo) and was looking for some advice on an internal hard drive to install. I want to get a 1 TB drive dedicated to windows xp so I can make it dual boot.

Any advice on a drive (make and model?) that is fast, quiet, runs cool, and not too expensive...(etc).

I would love to hear what worked well (or did not work well) for anyone.

Thanks in advance for any input.

-Dr. Bimane

P.S. I was thinking of getting a Western Digital drive but a lot of the reviews I was reading were hit and miss. Many people said they tend to run very hot and are noisy...

Nope. WD drives have the best technology and reliability. It is only when people want to install windows on it that it runs hot, become noisy and crash in less than 6 months.
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post #5 of 11
6/17/09 at 11:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tauron View Post

Nope. WD drives have the best technology and reliability. It is only when people want to install windows on it that it runs hot, become noisy and crash in less than 6 months.


What do you mean "only when people want to install windows on it..." does it become hot and noisy and crash?

Is this a joke? Are you mocking me?
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post #6 of 11
6/18/09 at 7:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Bimane View Post

What do you mean "only when people want to install windows on it..." does it become hot and noisy and crash?

Is this a joke? Are you mocking me?

It is fact.
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post #7 of 11
6/18/09 at 8:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tauron View Post

It is fact.


So WD drives run hot and become noisy when Windows is run on them but not when OSX is run? Weird.

Any suggestions for me, then, on a drive I should get knowing that I want to put XP on it for a dual boot system?

Thanks,

-Dr. Bimane
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post #8 of 11
6/19/09 at 1:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Bimane View Post

So WD drives run hot and become noisy when Windows is run on them but not when OSX is run? Weird.

Any suggestions for me, then, on a drive I should get knowing that I want to put XP on it for a dual boot system?

Ignore him, he's telling everyone to remove Windows to solve whatever problem they have. I don't know if he's trying to parody a fanboy as a joke or what but it's getting tedious.

Hard drives are one of those things where you will get wildly varied opinions on every manufacturer because they all fail at some point and when it happens to one user, they complain online and vow never to buy that brand again.

Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi are all decent drives. They don't all have the same performance though so check this chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/3...mance,658.html

The Seagate Barracuda is certainly the highest performing 7200 rpm drive and Seagate have a decent track record besides their firmware problem a while back.

As for Bootcamp, you may have problems installing as Bootcamp is meant to work on the boot drive. What you can do though is pull out the first drive a bit and with the second drive in place, boot from the Windows CD and install it on the drive, then shut down and put the other drive back in.
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post #9 of 11
6/19/09 at 7:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Bimane View Post

So WD drives run hot and become noisy when Windows is run on them but not when OSX is run? Weird.

Any suggestions for me, then, on a drive I should get knowing that I want to put XP on it for a dual boot system?

Thanks,

-Dr. Bimane

That is correct.
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post #10 of 11
6/24/09 at 3:43am
I stuffed 2 more of the same drives into my Mac Pro as Apple uses WDC Caviar Blue.
If you are willing to accep just a little more noise during read/write ops you can go with the Caviar Black (hat's what I use as system/boot-drive now).
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post #11 of 11
6/27/09 at 9:57pm
First off, don't listen to anyting Tauron says.

WD makes a good drive, you really can't go wrong with any of the consumer line-- Green, Blue, or Black. Personally I'd go for Green as it's quieter and a bit less power hungry than the other two, but if you want more speed go for the Black version. For a balance, go Blue.

I also like Seagate, but they've been having a few firmware issues as of late.
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