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    Replacing my MBP's hard drive

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Emerican_Idiot, Jan 3, 2011.

  1. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

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    My Macbook Pro's hard drive just died on me after I dropped it and it wouldn't boot. I'd just hear this clicking sound. Well I just got back from the Apple store and they confirmed with me the hard drive was dead. I was actually surprised at how badly damaged the drive was. Apparently it was so badly damaged that it wouldn't allow external drives or OSX discs to mount.
    Anyway, I'm in the market for a new hard drive. Any recommendations? I'm currently looking into this hard drive. Western Digital Scorpio Black (WD5000BEKT) 500GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" Laptop Hard Disk (OEM) | Canada Computers
     
    Emerican_Idiot, Jan 3, 2011
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  2. GP-SE

    GP-SE Notebook Consultant

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    I had a WD 5000BEKT in my 2010 MBP. It's FAST, but there is some slight vibrations. If you want a stock replacement drive, check out the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640GB, it's an excellent drive, fast, quiet, good battery life. The Scorpio Black is very very Fast, but does cause some vibrations, and will eat about 30mins off your battery.
     
    GP-SE, Jan 3, 2011
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  3. s2odin

    s2odin Merrica!

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    A lot of owners tend to go toward the Seagate Momentus XT, but some of the reviews on Newegg have them has DOA or dying within a month.

    Samsung Spinpoints are another solid drive.
    Honestly, you can't really go wrong with WD or Samsung.
     
    s2odin, Jan 3, 2011
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  4. ifti

    ifti Undiscovered

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    Another vote for WD here - although Ive never had any issues with Seagate either......
     
    ifti, Jan 4, 2011
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  5. cyber16

    cyber16 Notebook Deity

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    Hitachi makes a very nice and fast 16MB cache 7200 rpm drive
    that works very nice in the MBP
     
    cyber16, Jan 4, 2011
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  6. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

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    Wow I'm not liking the 30mins off my battery since I already have the early 2008 iteration of the MBP. Is the speed really noticeably faster than the Scorpio Blue? I really could use the extra speed at boot time, the boot start up time is terrible.
     
    Emerican_Idiot, Jan 4, 2011
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  7. GP-SE

    GP-SE Notebook Consultant

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    I benchmarked using x-bench.
    my transfer speed with the stock hitachi 5400RPM was around 40mb/sec. With the Scorpio Black I was getting 96mb/sec. So double the transfer rate, the computer booted up in half the time, etc. The difference is noticeable, and I'd say worth the sight decrease in battery life.
     
    GP-SE, Jan 4, 2011
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  8. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

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    Okay I just swapped in my new WD 5000BEKT hard drive. Is it best to reinstall OSX and then restore from Time Machine. Or just restore from Time Machines from the get go?
     
    Emerican_Idiot, Jan 5, 2011
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  9. GP-SE

    GP-SE Notebook Consultant

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    put the OSX cd in, it'll boo the installer, then choose time machine restore. That's what I did last time.
    How do you like the drive? any vibrations?
     
    GP-SE, Jan 5, 2011
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  10. ClearSkies

    ClearSkies Well no, I'm still here..

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    Using Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner with the drive in an external enclosure before swap will be faster, but TM restore is slightly more convenient.

    If you use SuperDuper, be sure to go into System Preferences and reset the boot drive to the HDD after swap, else the MBP spends 20-30 sec looking for a network drive during startup.
     
    ClearSkies, Jan 5, 2011
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  11. GP-SE

    GP-SE Notebook Consultant

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    that's exactly how I did it the second time, I used CCC to clone to external, then swapped in. When it booted the first time, it paused at a blank grey screen for 30 seconds or so, then the apple logo appeared and it booted. I didn't even think to check startup disk, I instead did a PRAM and SMC reset, which fixed it.
     
    GP-SE, Jan 5, 2011
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  12. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

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    I like the extra space but I have noticed a very slight battery decrease. In terms of speed, I have noticed a little faster boot times. Faster loading of the icons and faster launching of icons from the dock... they're not bouncing up and down forever. In terms of vibrations there really isn't any. I did however notice the hard drive definitely being louder.
     
    Emerican_Idiot, Jan 7, 2011
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