Korean Job Discussion Forums

nathanrutledge · Joined: 01 May 2008 Location: Marakesh

I've got a 2.5" 250 GB drive right now in my laptop and I've hit the limit. Looking to upgrade to 500 GB, 7200RPM and it appears that the two options are the Seagate Momentous or the Hitachi Travelstar.

I've found a lot of reviews on the Seagate and they seem pretty bleak. Loud noise, lots of failures, unpleasantness all around. I've got two Seagate drives now, but they are both external and aren't in a laptop so I'm leery about the Seagate.

Can't find ANY user reviews on the Hitachi. Lots of technical reports but nothing on real world use.

Questions - What do you think? Anyone have experience with either drive? Is there another drive out there that I'm missing? Thanks.

ppcg4 · Joined: 16 Oct 2008

I can't speak for the Hitachi, but I have the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM ST9500420AS. I can say that I have noticed an improvement in speed. I can feel a TINY bit of vibration in my MacBook, which I could probably fix if I just wiggled it around a little (that's what she said), but it's nothing disturbing. I only feel a little vibration where I didn't with my old 5400 RPM drive.

I have my computer running 24/7 and am always seeding on bittorrent, and haven't noticed any real heat issues or freezing. I'm not sure what those reviews were about. I read them myself before buying but decided to just bite the bullet. I think Seagate has since released a firmware update to address those issues, since I've had none of them.

Going from 250GB to 500GB has been awesome. I always have free space for anything, even a 150GB Seasons 1 - 5 House MD 720p torrent I downloaded. With the speed improvements as well, it's bliss.

orosee · Joined: 07 Mar 2008 Location: Hannam-dong, Seoul

aphase · Joined: 27 Apr 2006

I also have the Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM, and I don't have any problems with it. FOr me, it's not noisy at all and certainly doesn't vibrate. Theres a couple of revisions of that model, so maybe that makes a difference? I dunno. But anyways its been working great and i've had it for quite awhile, at least more than half a year. I bought it as a replacement because my original macbook HD failed on me. Everythings been great.

nathanrutledge · Joined: 01 May 2008 Location: Marakesh

Alright... I'll take your word for it. If it fails... Evil or Very Mad

I've read good reviews on the Seagate too, but its those failures that people write about that you worry about, ya know? But I think the Hitachi is only a few months old so I doubt I'd be able to find one around here at a decent price and like I said, I've had no problems with the Seagates before.

I'll let you know how it turns out (well, if it fails, you'll know before I post it here... Wink

)

nathanrutledge · Joined: 01 May 2008 Location: Marakesh

Alright, went to get it and it was about 200k won. If I were home, it'd be a little under 100 dollars. I couldn't pay that huge jump, got the WD Scorpio Black, 320 GB 7200 instead. The markup was much more reasonable and it was won per byte was much better. So far, it's nice. Quiet, fast, very pleasant.

Thanks for the Seagate answers anyway.

ppcg4 · Joined: 16 Oct 2008

I got mine from eBay for about $105 plus like $20 shipping.

The auction I bought it from is here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=400057349929

Good seller.

nathanrutledge · Joined: 01 May 2008 Location: Marakesh

ppcg4 · Joined: 16 Oct 2008

I see how it is. For me, it was my MacBook's factory drive giving me a single hiccup. I have been eyeing a 7200RPM drive for a while, and saw this one was available in 500GB. It took about 1.5 weeks to arrive.

Anyway, I used paypal on my credit card, just as an extra precaution (I'm paranoid about stuff getting 'lost').

All in all, I highly recommend the drive. I noticed a good performance increase and I'm pretty much never in danger of running out of hard drive space.

jonpurdy · Joined: 08 Jan 2009 Location: Ulsan

I upgraded to the Seagate 500GB 5400rpm drive a few months ago and put it in my MacBook Pro. Works great and is quite quiet.

Remember folks, due to the laws of physics a 500GB 5400rpm drive will probably be faster than any 7200rpm drive below 320GB or so. Since higher capacity drives have greater data densities, the drive head reads more data per time interval than lower capacity, lower data density drives when both spin at the same rate. So if you have an old 120GB drive like me, you'll see a big speed difference regardless of whether you go for 5400 or 7200rpm.