Pin it! elsueco, electrovista, JakeLonergan and 1 other like this
Online backup company Backblaze uses tens of thousands of hard drives in its operations, and periodically publishes its observances of hard drive failure rates. Summary: Buy Hitachi.
elsueco, electrovista, JakeLonergan and 1 other like this
Online backup company Backblaze uses tens of thousands of hard drives in its operations, and periodically publishes its observances of hard drive failure rates. Summary: Buy Hitachi.
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elsueco 10 years, 9 months ago
Oh, great. The HD I just put in my laptop is Seagate. Figures!
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JakeLonergan 10 years, 9 months ago
Interesting. At first I thought solid state Hitachi drives might be skewing the survey but I see that the number of terabytes exceeds the number of HD's so that is unlikely. Hmm...
I used to use Seagate's, too, when they were made in Ireland (I'm from a family of Ulster Scots so I figured, you know, "Support the homies!") but in this millennium I've just been taking whatever the Apple store puts in. Now that solid state drives are coming down a little my next scheduled replacement may be an SSD, if my iMac and Macbook can still provide enough computing power. NOW we're talking drive life!
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elsueco 10 years, 9 months ago
Samsung 840 SSDs are well regarded, fast, and come on sale occasionally. An SSD will breathe new life into your computer.
The Seagate I recently put in my MacBook is a hybrid drive, with 8 GB of SSD combined with 1 TB of spinning HD. The OS and frequently used files are cached on the SSD part for fast access, while the bulk of your file storage goes on the HD portion. It has been noticeably faster than the spinning HD alone.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178340">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178340
iMacs are very difficult to upgrade the newer they are. Certain older iMacs are relatively easy. MacBooks older than 2013 are easy to upgrade, but new models aren't. First thing I do with a laptop is max out the RAM and HD.
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JakeLonergan 10 years, 9 months ago
Hybrid hard drive? Damn, that's brilliant! I'll dive into learning the fine points when I need a new laptop or desktop. My '08 iMac and '09 MacBook keep chugging right along. It's a little depressing, really. I hadn't realized you could put an SSD into either if it wasn't designed for it, like an Air is. They talked about it on the Macworld Podcast a few weeks ago and seemed VERY impressed with the results for "older" computers. Shocked might be a better word.
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elsueco 10 years, 9 months ago
An SSD or hybrid drive will make a HUGE difference in snappiness and felt speed on an older or slower machine especially. That iMac is one that is very difficult to upgrade, but the MacBook is easy.
You'll want a SATA II or SATA III 2.5" drive for that laptop. Take a look at macsales.com for information on how to do it. Their prices are a bit on the high side, but the quality and service are both excellent.
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