Hey guys,

I am selling off my 160GB Hitachi hard disk that came with my aluminium macbook and i am intending on upgrading to a 320GB hard drive. I am thinking of either:

1. Hitachi 5K500.b hard drive
2. Hitachi 7K320 hard drive
3. WD Scorpio

I am leaning towards the Hitachi as I have had no problems with mine, and I love the fact that it is very quiet and does not produce too much heat.

Between the 5400rpm and 7200rpm, which should i choose, price diff is negligible? My concern is additional heat, noise and vibration. I was told that battery life sacrifice would at most be 10 minutes? Is this true?

If we are looking at 7200rpm, between the Hitachi and WD, which would you choose? I need to decide quick as someone has expressed interest in buying my current hard disk.

Cheers.

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Added on April 25, 2009, 1:37 pmMac: MacBook Aluminum (Late '08) 2.0GHz
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3 PC3-8500 1066MHz 204Pin SO-DIMM, Nanya chip
RAM Model #: not sure, got it via www.ramcity.com.au
Reported by member: n20nine

Remarks: No problems at all so far...running smooth. Did an extended Apple Hardware Test and it did not detect any problems at all.

This post has been edited by n20nine: Apr 25 2009, 01:37 PM

nah there is not 1tb 9.5inch hdd yet, i think...
500GB ones are quite widely available. get the hitachi 5k500.b 500gb version, although its a 5400rpm disk, it supposedly gives comparable performance to a 7200rpm disk.

also, its very very quiet and does not produce much heat. no vibrations/noise that u can hear.

i got the 320gb version for my alubook and its amazing...

as far ram, u can go 4gb + 2gb. not officially stated by apple, but some claim its possible. btw, one 4gb stick is gonna cost u a bomb. i upgraded mine to 2X2gb, really improved my performance.

You can use a 500GB hard drive, people on other forums have done it. Apple probably does not offer a 500GB drive because their options are costly and in turn not many people would choose them.

You cant add another 2GB. The RAM in your laptop is 1X1GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM. You need to buy new 2X2GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM. RAM is so cheap nowadats.

ya you can do that...i personally like hitachi drives. very very quiet and reliable. as far as i am concern, a hard disk in a laptop has to be very quiet, minimal/no vibrations and not produce too much heat.

the hitachi drives do all the above. i looked at the wd scorpio black and blue and the hitachi 7k320 and 5k500.b drives. i didnt want to go seagate as some of my friends who had seagate drives has had some kind of problems, of course many others out there would have had a perfect one, but i guess its something personal.

wd drives..they are ok, but some of the ones i have used are a bit noisy for my liking. my alubook already came with a hitachi drive and i was impressed by it, so i looked up the 7k320 and the 5k500.b drive. the 7k320 is a 7200rpm drive and the 5k500.b is a 5400rpm drive.

i wanted performance but i was not ready to sacrifice on heat and noise. after lots of advice and reading, i decided on the 5k500.b drives. these drives are supposed to be as fast as the 7200rpm drives and in some case, outperforms them. they're really quiet too. check them out, you wont regret it.

This post has been edited by n20nine: May 10 2009, 10:41 AM

i am not sure about availability in lowyat, but i think they should have it. i paid 120aud for mine - 320gb version.
after u install the hard disk, you should boot up from your leopard disc, then go to utilities -> disk utility and reformat the drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). after that, reinstall OS X and you are good to go.