Recommended Hard Drives

I'm considering adding an additional hard drive to my Mac Pro. What should I look for? Does hard drive buffer size affect latency?

The main thing that will affect latency is the data transfer rate of your drive. Generally, Firewire is fast enough to make latency negligible, but e-SATA is much faster. Don't use USB if you want to avoid latency problems.
You'll get a lot of different/conflicting ideas on what brands to buy, I'd recommend going to amazon.com or somewhere you can read user reviews of the products.

Similar Messages

  • Whats the best recommended hard drive testing tool

    what hard drive testing tool would you guys recommend??
    not just for lenovo's, for all PCs.& Notebooks
    thanks
    this should be easy...?

    I use HD Tune.
    If you're assessing damage, the free HDD Regenerator might be useful.
    W520: i7-2720QM, Q2000M at 1080/688/1376, 21GB RAM, 500GB + 750GB HDD, FHD screen
    X61T: L7500, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD, XGA screen, Ultrabase
    Y3P: 5Y70, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+ screen

  • Recommended hard drive enclosure for use with FCP?

    I will be doing capture and editing from my main HD, but want a firewire HD for backup. ANy recommendations on enclosures?

    I agree with David. Don't capture to your boot drive. External firewire drives are cheap and you also install an extra drive within you G5 case if that is what you are using. If on a laptop.. then firewire drives are the way to do.
    I know you asked about enclosures but I always love to pass along my current drive fav... G-Raid.
    http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-RAID.cfm

  • Hard Drive Failed, MacBook Pro Rejecting Replacement

    On Thursday night my MacBook Pro (2010, 13'') froze and wouldn't respond, so I powered-off using the power button. Upon restart all I got was the Apple logo and the spinner; no matter how long I left it it wouldn't boot any further than that.
    Booting in safe mode wouldn't work.
    Booting in verbose mode and running fsck revealed several issues with the disk including bad blocks and corrupt data in the journal.
    Booting from the installation disk and repairing using Disk Utility failed, as did trying to repair using fsck.
    So, I installed OS X onto an external USB drive and managed to finally get the disk to mount in read-only mode after disabling journaling. I was then able to backup my data.
    As my MacBook Pro is 14 months old and I didn't purchase AppleCare, I went out and bought a Hitachi Travelstar 320gb 7200rpm replacement on Saturday and fit it without any issue following the guide in the Apple manual.
    This is where more issues arose. When booting from the installation disk and being presented with the language selection screen the trackpad and keyboard are not responsive at all. When booting from the external drive whilst the new drive is installed, once I'm at the login screen the trackpad and keyboard are unresponsive. However, when booting I can press C to boot from the CD/DVD and I can hold ALT to be presented with the boot drive selection screen where both trackpad and keyboard work flawlessly. So I can rule out the trackpad and keyboard being damaged. I can also back this up further because if I reinstall the damaged hard drive and boot from either an installation CD/DVD or the USB drive the trackpad and keyboard both work as expected.
    I've tried resetting the PRAM; no change.
    I've tried resetting the SMC; no change.
    I've tried disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor; no change.
    I've tried the new hard drive in an external enclosure with a different Mac and the drive is functioning fine.
    So I'm totally stumpled. Why is the MacBook Pro rejecting the new hard drive? Surely this has to be some sort of compatibility issue, or deeper-lying issue? I've trawled the internet over the weekend but to no avail.
    I'm booked in to see a Genius on Wednesday night but since the device is out of warranty I'm not holding much hope. The only things in my favour are Consumer law sighting it's not fit for purpose, nor has it lasted a reasonable amount of time. The fact that Apple don't provide a list of recommended hard drives anywhere or that the manual doesn't desuade you from manually replacing the drive yourself instead giving you a step-by-step guide.
    Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
    -Mic

    Try getting the same hard drive as the one you pulled out.
    It shouldnt be too hard to find.
    As for your problem, I think were pretty much in the same boat. The same thing happened to my computer and all im getting is a white screen when booting from the new hard drive, yet putting the same one in an enclosure works just fine.

  • New MacBook Pro Hard Drive Slow

    On Monday night I was browsing the internet when my mid 2012 MacBook Pro started running slowly. I have never really had an issue with my Mac running slow and, so, after a particularly long spin of the rainbow wheel of death, I manually shut my computer down. When I tried to restart, all I got was the grey screen with the flashing folder-with-a-question-mark. I looked online with my phone to find a solution and I proceeded to try a number of suggestions from the support community, including trying to manually restart in safe mode, but as I didn't take my OS X installation disk to school with me, there wasn't much left for me to do (especially because I'm just over 3months outside the 1year warranty and live over an hour away from the nearest apple store). The next morning I took it to my college's OIT help desk and was later told my hard drive had failed and I would need to replace it. Thank god I utilize google drive for my work. Thank god. Today, after paying the $122.49 (no pitance on my part-time minimum-wage school salary) for the "apple recommended" hard drive, as opposed to the $55 amazon alternative, I find that my computer is running slowly again. Not even internet slow. 10-minutes-to-adjust-my-dock-preferences-slow. Writing-this-post-took-almost-an-hour-slow. Also, in the middle of writing this the spinning wheel of death reappeared for at least 10mins, and not wanting to manually restart given what happened last time I tried simply shutting my laptop and giving it a little nap. When I opened it I got a blue screen and (after a few minutes of silent sobbing) was forced to manually restart, which luckily brought me to the login. Why is my once-beloved Mac doing this to me? Is it the expensive new hard drive to blame? Has the issue from before held over and may soon kill this new drive? Any explanations or advice would be greatly appreciated as I have final exams and papers due next week and cannot afford to get to the apple store before I need to research and write two 15-page papers.

    Remove the Symantec security software >  Remove Symantec software for Mac OS using RemoveSymantecMacFiles
    About Norton / Symantec >   Viruses, Trojans, Malware - and other aspects of Internet Security: Apple Support Communities

  • What external hard drives are compatible with Airport Extreme?

    I would like to get a 500GB external hard drive and connected it to my airport extreme via a USB cable, but I have heard that the airport extreme doesn't recognize some hard drives. Can anyone recommend hard drives that are known to work well with the extreme and aren't too noisy?
    Thanks

    Once you've got your External HD... See here for Using TM...
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

  • Replacing MacBook Hard Drive - Specification

    I have a 2.4ghz Macbook White Intel Core 2 Duo, could someone advise what the maximum capacity hard drive that I could install in this machine. The exact details of a recommended hard drive would be useful that I could purchase in the UK.

    You are limited to 9.5mm deep 2.5" SATA. Anything higher than 9.5mm will not fit.
    If looking at this site
    480GB SSD
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/SSD2MX480/
    720 GB internal:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD7500BPKT/
    External drives that are bigger will also work:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Price%7c1&Ne=5000&N =6403&Ntt=SATA+2.5
    Be sure if you get external, to get one with its own wall power adapter.

  • Where can I buy a larger hard drive for my late 2008, 15" macbook pro?  From reviewing questions and answers on the support community it would appear that having Apple remove the old and install the new hard drive is recommended.  But how/where?

    Where can I buy a larger hard drive for my late 2008, 15" macbook pro?  From reviewing questions and answers on the support community it would appear that having Apple remove the old and install the new hard drive is recommended.  But how/where?

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    You can install the new hard disk yourself if you want to. You just need a 2'5" SATA II hard drive, which is compatible with your MacBook Pro. You can buy one at OWC > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/ You can filter hard drives by computer, so press a "Click to view all...", choose your computer in the sidebar and it will give you the compatible hard drives.
    There are different brands for the MacBook Pro. The most recommended are HGST and Seagate, which have good reputation. A 7200 rpm hard drive will give you extra performance

  • Can anyone recommend a second hard drive for my PowerPC G5

    Hi,
    Sorry if this question has been asked before but I need the answer in a hurry.
    I need to fit a second hard drive into my PowerPC G5 - and I have never done this before. I phoned a company to buy a drive and they said that there can be compatibility problems with certian drives and Macs. A friend at work also confirmed this and pointed me to the site www.xlr8yourmac.com which has a database of drives and their associated problems.
    Unfortunately I don't have time to digest all of the info. I am letting a friend use my Mac for a project that they are working on and they need the space urgently. They are working to a strict deadline.
    So basically what I would like to know is if anyone can recommend a drive that I can fit without it causing any problems. I need a high quality, fast and very quiet drive for audio and video production. The drive should be 250GB, 7200RPM, 16MB cache. The Mac support pages say it must be a serial ATA drive but I have no idea if you can use ATAII or ATA300 (or any other number???).
    Also - as I have never done this before - I have heard 'jumpers' mentioned - will I need to set the jumpers to a particular configuration?
    Thanks in advance, Byron.

    Xbench results as promised:
    System Info
    Xbench Version 1.1.3
    System Version 10.4.8 (8L127)
    Physical RAM 3072 MB
    Model PowerMac11,2
    Processor PowerPC G5x2 @ 2.00 GHz
    L1 Cache 64K (instruction), 32K (data)
    L2 Cache 1024K @ 2.00 GHz
    Bus Frequency 1 GHz
    Drive Type WDC WD1600JS-41MVB1 (Macintosh HD, 150GB)
    Disk Test 132.10
    Sequential 135.71
    Uncached Write 146.03 60.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 128.75 52.72 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 136.11 21.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 133.10 53.78 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Random 128.68
    Uncached Write 143.27 2.15 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 165.80 37.39 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 103.90 0.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 118.36 24.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Drive Type ST3250620AS (Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB S300)
    Disk Test 103.68
    Sequential 123.43
    Uncached Write 59.04 24.61 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 187.41 76.75 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 214.15 33.90 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 182.96 73.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Random 89.38
    Uncached Write 53.68 0.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 122.95 27.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 96.28 0.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 131.56 27.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Drive Type Maxtor 6 B200P0 (Lacie, 200GB, Firewire 400, External)
    Disk Test 70.52
    Sequential 57.40
    Uncached Write 55.84 23.28 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 46.40 19.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 68.80 10.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 63.74 25.75 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Random 91.40
    Uncached Write 231.29 3.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write 75.37 17.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read 91.20 0.60 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Read 65.76 13.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Feel free to comment!
    PowerPC G5 Dual 2 Ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  
    PowerPC G5 Dual 2 Ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

  • HT4972 I am unsure of this update. Do you recommend putting my entire itunes library onto a separate hard drive while i do the latest update? I was told everything in my itunes library as well as my ipod touch would be lost if i do the latest update. Plea

    Im unsure of this update. Do you recommend putting my entire itunes library on a separate hard drive while i do this update? I was told everthing in my itunes library as well as my ipod touch would be lost if i update it. Please help.

    Who told you that?
    I would stop listen to him if he is providing that kind of advice.
    Allan

  • What external hard drive to you recommend to free up space on an old Macbook Pro?

    My Macbook Pro is approx. 5 years old. I have since gotten an imac, however would like to use my old Creative Suite 2 on the macbook. When I updated it to "Lion" - it denied access to my creative suite apps. I have since contacted Adobe, and they have given me a solution to get it up and running again, however, my startup disk is just about FULL. Therefore I can't upgrade or really even open more than one app without getting the warning pop up about getting rid of some files asap or risk malfunction of the laptop.
    What external hard drive do you recommend to get the most bang for my buck in terms of offloading a massive amount of photos to in order to be able to use the laptop again?

    Your picture folder would have to be 10 times larger and then it would be close to 1 TB in size.  I have an aphorism, 'one cannot have too much storage'.  If the bank account can afford it, follow Ralph's advice and do go for the larger storage drive.  Given enough time, you might just grow into it..
    Now there is an issue that you should consider.  Since these pictures will no longer be on your MBP, do you want to have them backed up?  If so, you then are going to need an additional HDD to store the backups.  All HDDs will eventually fail, you just do not know when.
    Ciao.

  • I need recommendations in purchasing an external hard drive, to back up everything in my computer. What brand and Size?

    I have a mid 2010 iMac, version 10.8.2, memory 4GB, 1TB sata disk.
    Apple sent me an e-mail last year stating that my imac maybe affected to a recall. They said I have to back up my computer before sending it in to them. So its a great excuse to purchase an external hard drive.
    But I am clueless. I would like to know what brand and size of memory is recommened for my imac and my needs. I will be mostly be backing up homevideos and alot of pictures, music, and some documents.
    If someone could also explain about time machine? I guess its a whole separte thing from your media. I also would like to keep it affordable. I just purchased an external hard drive from www.macmall.com Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Drive - Black (STBU1000100).
    But I don't know if that was a really great choice because for it to work with time machine I have to reformat certain things, and Im not sure if I would like to have that hassle.
    I also wanted to know whats the difference between usb 3.0 and firewire. I read some forums saying that if you are to transfer videos you need to use firewire, and some agreed disagreed. Is that true?
    Please help!?
    I definitely would like to know what brands of external hard drives are highly recommended and good at price. The one I purchased is it any good?
    Thank you!
    -wjrlelidepaula

    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
    http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10554
    http://www.newertech.com/storage/

  • I'm an avid Mac enthusiast who works in a creative field. However, I simply cannot afford a new Mac after my old one's internal hard drive failed. Can anyone recommend an affordable Mac option? I don't want to consider a non-Apple product.

    I'm an avid Mac enthusiast who works in a creative field. However, I simply cannot afford a new Mac after my old one's internal hard drive failed. Can anyone recommend an affordable Mac option? I don't want to consider a non-Apple product.

    Macs with a FireWire port will also boot happily from an External drive. You don't even need to open the MacBook.
    Some users buy a drive they would like to have as a future Internal drive, and also buy an external enclosure. They get the External set up the way they want it, then swap with the Internal drive.

  • Is it not recommended to use a partitioned external hard drive for time machine?

    1. i hv a 1 tb seagate  back up plus hard disc ..,,i want to make partitions for  using it for time machine, mac, and window repectively . is it not recommended to use a partitioned drive for time machine? some where i have red that time machine wont be able to restore data from external partioned hard drive  in case internal hard drive crashes.
    2. if i use the seagate back up plus 1tb for mac only and use time machine to take backup (roughly 250 GB) , then the rest space i cant use to transfer movies, pictures from a PC
    3. how should i best use the seagate back up plus hard drive (not seagate back up plus for mac) in a way that i use it for back up , and to work with both mac and PC?

    I use a partitioned external drive for Time Machine as well as other things.
    How you partition it is a function of yoru needs.
    Barry

  • External Hard Drive -- What do you recommend plase

    I use super duper and do not have the backup drive on except when doing a backup. I need a capacity in the 750 to 1 TB size.
    When I look at Amazon or other ratings they are all over the place. One size is good and another is bad for the same manufacture.
    Can anyone please recommend a make or manufacture for me to consider. I have used Maxtor for years with pretty good results.

    I bought OWC's FW hard drive encloser. You can put in your own drive(s) (I bought Seagate drives from OWC) depending on whether you want a single drive backup, dual ot RAID. I bought the OWC Mercury Elite...great encloser rated top in all my Mac magazines. What's nice about these is, if the drive goes bad you can replace it yourself and not have to get rid of the whole unit (like what happened to my Western Digital FW Ext. drive last time!). OWC's enclosers have Oxford chipsets which are totally Mac friendly. They also work for Windows machines. OWC also backs up their products...no arguing involved.
    DALE

Maybe you are looking for