Whose SATA 750Gb internal drive to buy?

I have the Sonnet Tech, TSATA PCI to SATA controller (TSATA), It is a 2-port, 1.5Gb/sec internal.
I am trying to find a compatible 750Gb SATA drive, I was going to buy the Seagate until I read there is a problem with the firmware, something about 32mb cache not being recognized and it running dog-slow, also something about nor being able to flash the firmware form a MAC?
I also read on the Western Digital site they don't support MAC? Do they mean G4 IDE? or G5 SATA?
I'm sure they are not considering what third party interface I might have i.e. Sonnet.
Whose 750 SATA works well with Sonnet?

If this is the Sonnet PCI card you refer to - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposerialata.html.
then this site :-
http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/machine.php?name=powermac-g4-digital-audio#in t-hdd
lists some choices
or
http://lowendmac.com/ppc/digital-audio-power-mac-g4.html
this mentions the correct firmware upgrade
also take a look at
http://lowendmac.com/musings/mm07/1005.html
or try xlr8yourmac
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso

Similar Messages

WD3200KSRTL Caviar 320 GB SATA for internal drive? ok?

Hi all, I just wanted to make sure that this drive would be ok for an extra internal drive (actually it will be my 3rd internal) on my MacPro 2.66. I'll be using this drive for my Bootcamp/Windows partition also.
Western Digital WD3200KSRTL Caviar 320 GB SATA 3.5-Inch Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBSREU/ref=cmcr_pr_producttop
So, I just wanted to make sure it would be compatible with my MacPro?
And was also curious to see if anyone has had any issues with that specific drive?
If someone had another recommendation for a drive in the same price range I'd be curious to hear also. I do need to get it on Amazon though as I have a gift certificate I'd like to use up.
Thanks!
Jeff
Message was edited by: JeffrySG

I always edit out any 'ref' on links.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBSREU/
I think you could do better though for slight more but high performance and excellent drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
http://www.barefeats.com/harper14.html
Boot drives:
http://www.barefeats.com/harper9.html
But as to whether it works, yes.
WD now has new Caviar line. Same price.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=299

Does PPC G5 support SATA II internal drives?

I want to change my 80gb system drive to a Western Digital RE2 500gb, it is a SATA II & I'm not sure if my computer supports that with no problem. I can't seem to get a clear answer. Does anyone know for sure or has one up & running with the second their drive functioning as normal?

I've got an original series G5 1.6 Ghz single processor and I just added a Maxtor 500 GB drive that is SATA II as well as being backward compatible with SATA I as stated by OWC and the manufacturer of the drive.
I'm also using my 500 GB as my "digital audio drive" in my recording studio using MOTU Digital Performer and various other audio applications. I've kept my original 80 GB system drive in place for the moment till I can afford a larger, faster start up drive. I needed to get a large drive for the audio files first.
While I can't speak directly to the Western Digital drives, I can say that the Maxtor with SATA I/II interfaces is fine and seems to be working without any problems. To be completely candid, I've only had the new 500 GB Maxtor drive installed for a little over a week, but I have been using it without any problems so far.
So to answer the SATA II part of your question, I believe that shouldn't be a problem if the Western Digital drive is backward compatible like the Maxtor is. Most are from what I've seen, but I guess you should carefully read the specs on the WD drive to be sure it's backward compatible too.
Hope this helps a bit.
John

Assigning iTunes to a new internal drive

I installed a new 750gb internal drive in my sony vaio. I made a new itunes folder and copied all of my music to that folder in the new drive.
I assigned iTunes to recognize that path as my default, but now when I start iTunes I get an error saying that the song can not be found.
I also am noticing that there are double entries of songs in my itunes. If I bring up an album I see that there are doubles of each song in the album.
I am looking for a step by step way to set iTunes to recognize my internal hard drive and solve this issue of double music please.
I am running a Windows XP Home Edition OS.
Thank you!!!

Resetting the location of the iTunes Music folder in the iTunes preferences, by itself, only sets where future purchases and imports go. In and of itself it won't reset where iTunes looks for tracks already in the iTunes library. Normally what you want to do is reset the location of the iTunes Music folder in the iTunes preferences, then do the Consolidate Library command so that iTunes copies the existing tracks to the new location itself. Then it will reset all the locations so that iTunes can correctly find everything.
As it is now, the easiest thing will probably to delete everything from the iTunes library listing (not the tracks from the external, just the listings in iTunes), then use the Add To Library command and select the folder on the second drive containing your music. You'll have to recreate any playlists and you'll lose all your ratings, etc., but you should get back all your content.

3rd Party SATA raid cards for internal drives?

All --
Apart from the discussion as to if RAID actually benefits a home desktop system, I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
My Mac Pro is still slated to be built at Apple and for now I have the minimum memory and HD spec being requested at Apple, with the plan to upgrade the memory and drives from OWC or another vendor.
I've toyed with the idea of utilizing Disk Utility's software RAID features (e.g. RAID 0 for scratch disks, RAID 1 for boot, RAID 0+1 for all else.) I've also toyed with the notion of searching for a hardware raid solution which would allow me to transfer the internal SATA cable runs from the motherboard to a host adapter card for an internal multi-channel experience (with options to create and break mirrors to external devices for backup purposes.)
So....
Has anyone experience or utilized 3rd party hardware raid controllers which can connect to the internal HD bays? Are there limitations to this (ie, does the boot drive HAVE to reside off the internal motherboard controllers, or can an internal hardware controller successfully boot the system) of which ought be noted?
Finally, in the event that a host adapter card cannot drive the interna bays, can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
Thanks for your time,
Ian Poulin
Richmond, Va

I am wondering if anyone has the lowdown on using 3rd party SATA raid cards to support the INTERNAL hard drives on the Mac Pro series?
There are many 3rd party controllers that support the internal HDs if an internal iPass connector is used. The problem is that some are bootable but most are not.
The Areca ARC-1680ix-12 and the HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 are bootable. However, the system cannot be installed via the Apple DVD. Instead the user needs to clone a boot drive with the proper drivers to the boot volume on the controller and then boot from the 3rd party controller.
The other issue I found is that these controllers do not support Boot Camp. If Boot Camp is desired, my recommendation would be to leave the internal HDs on the Mac Pro internal bus intact and use the 3rd party controller for external storage. This method provides four internal bays that are bootable, support Boot Camp and can be used for system backups. I use the 3rd party controller for external storage for large RAID sets and hot swapping hard disks.
With the internal bays intact and external hot swap RAID storage available the user can support Boot Camp, multiple system volumes and large external RAID sets. From my experience using a 3rd party controller with the internal HD bays always has some limitations. The user usually does not realize it unit later when Boot Camp does not work or the computer fails on a system upgrade or the controller does not work at all with a new version of Mac OS X.
Staying with the standard internal Mac Pro bay configuration will be the best configuration to avoid compatibility issues with future versions of Mac OS X. It is rumored that the new Snow Leopard may require 64-bit drivers. If that is the case, I would expect most if not all existing 3rd party controller drivers to fail. Some drivers will be upgraded after a few months while others may not. Having the internal Mac Pro SATA controller intact should at least allow the Mac Pro to boot if my guess about compatibility issues is correct.
can anyone give feedback to hardware SATA cards to power external drive bays with support for Disk Utility (to allow RAID1 pairings of internal drives to external snapshot-backup drives)?
There are a large number of external controllers that work with Disk Utility. Here are some of my favorites.
1. FirmTek SeriTek/2SE2-E and the SeriTek/5PM
http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata5pm2se2.html
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/5pm/
2. Sonnet Tempo E4P
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/
3. DAT Optic eSATA_PCIe8
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/datoptic/pcie8/
Have fun!

My now erased and repaired SATA 250 GB internal drive

My now erased and repaired SATA 250 GB internal drive is not recognized as a worthy destination for Mac OS 10.8.x. Now running MacBook6,1 (white unibody) on flash drive boot. Help?

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            249.2 GB   disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *15.5 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS BootDisk                14.7 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:               Windows_NTFS TOSHIBA EXT             1.0 TB     disk2s1
   Device Identifier:        disk0
   Device Node:              /dev/disk0
   Part of Whole:            disk0
   Device / Media Name:      TOSHIBA MK2555GSXF Media
   Volume Name:              Not applicable (no file system)
   Mounted:                  Not applicable (no file system)
   File System:              None
   Content (IOContent):      GUID_partition_scheme
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 SATA
   SMART Status:             Verified
   Total Size:               250.1 GB (250059350016 Bytes) (exactly 488397168 512-Byte-Blocks)
   Volume Free Space:        Not applicable (no file system)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes
   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (no file system)
   Ejectable:                No
   Whole:                    Yes
   Internal:                 Yes
   Solid State:              No
   OS 9 Drivers:             No
   Low Level Format:         Not supported
There were errors but I remember no specifics. Reformatted Mac OS extended (Journaled) with no partitions (GUID).
Thanks for your willingness to help.

G4 MDD supports SATA internal drives or ATA/IDE

hi all
I'm looking to add more internal hard drive power into my G4 MDD and was curious if it supports only ATA/IDE drives or can I add SATA internal drives? I was told it can handle larger than 120GB hard drives and will I need to get a fan to cool them down? Thanks, Web dude

you talk about putting larger hard drives on rear bays only
I looked over what I wrote and don't see where I said that. Can you clarify?
Maximum theorectical data transfer rates for ATA100 (aka ATA-6) are a little faster than ATA66) aka ATA-5) but only if the hard drive is fast enough to take advantage--most new ones are more than that at ATA133. One Wikipedia article I read says that, in the Windows world, ATA66 commonly has drive size limitations of 137GB due to the OS and drive controller limitations. I've not seen this in Macs. Nothing I've seen here or elsewhere says you can't put big drives in the front bay.
I personally like to keep the boot drive in the rear bay in case that drive is fast enough to take full advantage of the faster bus. As 2 x 250G is enough space for me today, I tend to use the front bays as temporary mounts when pulling data off drives from some of our older Macs. Those often end up being smaller, older drives between 10G and 120G.

Successfully expanded storage with Seagate SATA/300 500GB internal drive!

*Initially thinking I'd add an external firewire 250GB drive for video production storage, I am thusfar delighted that I went with the Seagate 500GB internal drive they call the Seagate SATA/300. By following the combination of instructions that Seagate and Apple provided with drive and operating system, it worked perfectly the first time! I've never had such an easy upgrade with my Windows computers. I chose just one partition so I'd have all 500GB available for a family video project, which I trust will be somewhat overkill.*
My 85 year old mother has consented to interviews about her childhood memories from both sides of her family tree. Her maternal grandmother apparently once shared how she and her parents learned of President Lincoln's assassination when a man walked up to their Maine farm home to break the several day old news. She, like her descendants, was a distant cousin of the late president. And, there was no such thing as "Breaking News" in the mid 1800's.

Hi! I presume that with all your desire to save important historical information you have provided sufficient backup capabilities to your system? It would be a shame to lose important information for lack of a sufficient backup routine. Tom

Reliable SATA internal drives?

I'm planning to use my Digital Audio G4 (07/2001) as a music server by adding a SATA PCI card and a largeish (~300GB) internal drive. There's a lot of useful info posted about which SATA cards are out there, so I'm all set on that front.
What I need help with is: which manufacturer's drives are the most reliable? Which drives should I consider and which should I stay away from? Or are they all (Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Hitachi, etc) just about the same quality?
I've heard plenty of bad things about Western Digital drives in previous years... is that still the case, or are the drives more reliable?
I've heard there's an issue with Seagate drives taking several minutes to spin up when the machine wakes from sleep. Is that still an issue?
Are manufacturers' warranties worth considering, or do they just use refurbs (which may be more likely to break down?) as replacement drives?
Thanks!
G4 Digital Audio Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Mark,
I have a Firmtek Seritek 1V4 SATA HD controller and in the course of chatting with tech support I was told to avoid Seagate drives. They have issues with the card. This lead to another warning since Maxtor has been acquired by Seagate. Kim went on to recomend a Hitachi Deskstar so I complied and got a 500 GB model. I have been VERY happy with the performance and the warranty is indeed excellent (3 yrs) so... That's my $.02 worth. Also, I have been informed that Sonnet Technologies SATA card is built by Firmtek so I'd assume that the same issues apply. Good luck and don't scrimp on the GB's. The difference betwwen the 300 and a 500 is minimal so go big!
Cheers,
Chris
G4 1.4 GHz "digital audio",1.5 GB RAM,30GB, 500 GB SATA (OS X) Mac OS X (10.4.8) Pioneer DVR-111D,FirmTek SeriTek 1V4, Radeon 9800 Pro

New internal drive for Dual 450

I am looking to add an additional, or replacement internal HD for my old Dual 450 G4. Can anyone tell me which one to get? I am utilizing the machine as a storage and archive device on a local network.
Currnetly runnin OS X - not concerned with needing OS 9

Hi, J2, and welcome to the Discussions!
Your Mac's native drive bus will only recognize the first 128GB of formatted space on any size drive you install on the ribbon cable connected to the logic board, so look for a 120GB or smaller drive if you don't intend to purchase and install a PCI card to overcome this size limitation.
If you intend to connect the drive directly to the built-in bus as above, look for a 3.5 inch ATA (not SATA or SCSI) drive which runs at 7200 RPM, preferably with an 8MB buffer, versus a 2MB buffer, which is somewhat slower.
An ATA drive might be described as Ultra-ATA 133, IDE, EIDE, ATA 100, PATA, or parallel ATA. For shopping purposes, all of these terms basically refer to the same thing, so don't let them confuse you.
The major brands are Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, and Hitachi/IBM. Any of these brands should serve you well and you might shop online for the best "deal" by comparing cost/GB. Sales are common and often change from week to week, particularly amongst the mass merchants like Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry 's (outpost.com), Tiger Direct, Newegg, CompUSA, etc., so it pays to shop around online if you want to save some money. The best deals include a rebate or rebates.
Regarding OS 9, even though you don't intend to use it, when you do format the drive, I'd recommend checking the box in Disk Utility to install the OS 9 drivers anyway, which doesn't take up any usable space on the drive and might come in handy in the future, in case you need to update firmware or perform other tasks which OS X can't handle.
Gary

Time Machine: Must external HDD be a large or larger than internal drive?

I have a 2TB HDD in a new iMac, and I have a couple of spare 500GB SATA drives I can liberate from my previous Mac. Before I buy enclosures for the externals, I'd like to know if TM requires an external drive the same size or larger than the internal drive it is to back up.
Though I have a 2TB internal drive, it has 1.79TB available, and I could probably use a 500GB for quite a while before I need a larger backup drive.
Thanks.
BC
driven

BCDrums wrote:
I have a 2TB HDD in a new iMac, and I have a couple of spare 500GB SATA drives I can liberate from my previous Mac. Before I buy enclosures for the externals, I'd like to know if TM requires an external drive the same size or larger than the internal drive it is to back up.
Though I have a 2TB internal drive, it has 1.79TB available, and I could probably use a 500GB for quite a while before I need a larger backup drive.
If you have only 210 GB on that 2 TB drive, then yes, a 500 GB drive will probably work fine, at least until you put a lot more data on your system.
It does vary a great deal, of course, depending on how you use your Mac. If you frequently change and/or replace a lot of large files, you may fill it up rather quickly; if not, it may not fill up for quite a while.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

IMac won't boot from internal drive (Disk Ult can't see drive)

Yesterday morning my iMac (early 2006) froze while watching a movie. I figured it was because I was running so many things in the background (Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, iCal and Preview). So I restarted the unit by holding down the power button cause it wouldn't responded to any keyboard prompts, tho it did allow me to use the mouse. So I restarted and got a grey screen showing a folder and a question mark. i unplugged the system for a few minutes and started her up again. This time it showed the gray apple but it had a progress bar on the bottom like it was loading something. The system started and took me to the login screen. Just to be safe i restarted it from the login screen. the system booted up fine and i finished watching my movie. I came back from the gym like 2 hrs later and tried to wake my mac from sleep mode and got the usual prompt to enter my password to unlock the screen. As i started to enter my password the screen froze again. This time tho i was unable to restart the unit. i kept getting that grey screen with the folder and question mark. So iI popped in my 10.6 install disk to see if I could repair the HDD. But no matter how many times i try the system does not pick up my internal drive. I'm not really sure what the problem is. I thought it might be hardware failure, but I didn't have this problem until after the latest software update. And the drive never gave me any indication of problems before yesterday. All i can think is that the system update or safari update corrupted something or is not playing nice with something already on the system. But i guess that wouldn't explain the drive not being seen. Can anybody offer and ideas of a solution? I really just wanna get it up so I can salvage my iTunes folder and transfer it to my Macbook.
HELP

Hi MacBoy84
Sure sounds like the HD is worn out, damaged, failing or failed and needs to be replaced.
Take it to your local Authorized Apple Service Provider and have them put a new WD Caviar Blue or Seagate Barracuda 3.5 SATA HD in it. > http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/service/
Given the choice I would choose a WD Caviar Blue, they seem to run a little cooler and quieter than the WD Blacks and most Seagate's. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=3
As for your iTunes Library that depends, some times just before an HD totally fails it is possible to copy the data off of it. Unfortunately most of the time when it's gone it's gone for good and needs to be sent out to a professional data recovery service, you do have a Time Machine backup on an External HD right?
Dennis

My iMac G5 cannot detect my Seagate 160GB SATA II hard drive

Hi,
My mac is iMac G5 1.6G 17 inch with no iSight.
Recently i buy a new Seagate 160GB SATT II(ST3160812AS) and try to replace with my old internal hard drive.
First i use the SuperDupe! software to clone with my old HD.It works fine and can be read the data via a external SATA box.
Then i shut down the Power and follow the instruction provied on the Apple web site to replace the HD.
After i replace the HD and power on the mac, the display only show a gray backgrounp and the apple mark does not show up!
I recheck the install and the data/power cable is well and connected.
I use the Mac OS X install CD to run the disk utility and i found the cd-rom is the only device it found!
I try to reset the PRAM and NVRAM, the problem still exists.
I sent back the HD to the store for fix and they said the HD works fine on a PC!
So, is there anything i missed to replace the new HD or the iMac just does not support a SATA II hard drive?
Thanks a lot
iMac G5 1.6G 17 inch Mac OS X (10.4.4) the new HD is Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160G
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

So that I get this right, you cloned the internal OS X drive onto an external FW-SATA HDD using SuperDuper! ?
There sounds like an issue that the iMac doesn't recognise the SATA II drive for some reason - would've thought it should do.
A quick trawl through the knowledge base should reference any info that the iMac only supports SATA I for your revision, which I'm guessing is A.
Just checked - as you should/could have - the iMac you have only accepts PATA drives. So you'll need to exchange or buy an ATA 6 HDD for your iMac to work, without booting from the external drive.

Need more storage - larger internal drive, or external drive?

Good day...here's a little background before I head into my question.
I have a mid-2010 Macbook Pro with a 320 GB hard drive. I have an 2 GB WD External Hard drive...I've partitioned 500 GB that I use for my Time Machine backups and use the remaining 1.5 TB to store additional files, mainly music and video files. I rarely keep it plugged in to my MBP....I'll plug it in to do the odd Time Machine backup every couple of weeks, but that's about it. I like taking the MBP to the living room to use and the idea of having to plug and unplug an external hard drive several times a day is something I've decided not to do. Additionally, I access most of my photos/music/video through my Apple TV to play them on my TV/receiver. I also have no need to use the cloud as I don't require access to my media files when I'm out of the house.
My internal hard drive has been filling up over the last year and as it has, I've been dumping video files to my external hard drive. If I need them again, I'll simply transfer the odd one back to my MBP and add it back to the Itunes library. However, even with the odd purging, my internal drive is now filling up, mainly due to photos and videos of the little kids. The time has come, I need to do something.
I know that I have the option to store my Itunes library on an external drive (and this would quickly fix my storage issue as about half the 320 GB of space is my Itunes library), but I've been hesitate to do so. I do have an Airport Extreme Base Station downstairs and a PC Desktop as well. In reviewing these forums, I understand that I can transfer my Itunes library to my external hard drive, connect it right to the AEBS and access my Itunes files on my MBP from there. However, as I buy new music/videos from Itunes or add other media files to my Itunes on my MBP, would they automatically transfer to the Itunes library on my External, or would I have to add them each time? Is it still pretty seamless to transition to having my itunes library on an external hard drive without a lengthy list of things that you have to "put up with"?
In an effort to resist too much change, I've been thinking about simply replacing my 320 GB internal drive with a 1 TB internal drive so that I can keep things pretty much as they are...keep the Itunes library on my MBP and continue using the 2 TB external for backups and some additional storage space.
So, with that, I'm curious to hear any feedback on how to approach this...am I complicating things, are there any suggestions on how I could be organizing things way better? And finally, is your advice to increase the internal hard drive, or should I quit overthinking this and just move the ituens library to an external hard drive?
Thanks!
Lee

large external HD
A computer should never be considered a data storage device, only a data creation/ sending/ manipulation device.
All mega-storage should be a "grab and dash" item to store in a fire vault etc. Easily unhooked from a main computer capable of lightning strike, failure, easy erasure, etc.
And never ever rely on one backup ever. Recipe for disaster.
There are currently only 3 HD manufacturers, WD, Seagate, and Hitachi/Toshiba (recently acquired by WD).
No such thing as a "windows" Hard Drive either, .....only a Win formatted HD. A HD is a HD ... whatever it says or is formatted in when you buy it,... you can format it for Mac OSX extended journaled.
All personal conjecture aside, Hitachi/Toshiba are the best 2.5" HD, same used by Apple inside the Macbook Pro
..... also those running literally 1000s of HD in server farms agree on this.
That being said, WD are not recommended as an internal HD for a Mac.
Most reliable 3.5" class HD are Seagate
The LaCie drives carried in the Apple stores contain 3.5" Seagate HD
Most reliable 2.5" class HD are HItachi/Toshiba (same as used by Apple in the macbook Pro).
MUCH empirical data (and my own as well) says that Western Digital are the worst
WD has some compatibility issues with Mac.
Best bang for the buck in external 2.5" HD, is the Toshiba Canvio Basics HDTB120XK3CA 2 Terabytes 2.5" External Hard Drive
I have 4 of these tiny 2TB drives, ....theyre highly rated, and phenomenal
Currently theyre $120
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-HDTB120XK3CA/dp/B00ARJD56K
People running server farms and see 1000s of HD, and failures will all tell you the same, in 3.5" class, get a Seagate, and DONT get a WD.
7 out of 10 HD failures have NOTHING to do with the HD.......if a HD fails (and they all fail) , its usually first 3 months or less
7 out of those 10 failures AFTER 3 months is NOT a bad HD, but a cheap/junk SATA connector and circuitry which connects the external HD to your computer.
Seagate large BACKUP HD 3.5" had gotten, for a while a bad reputation, but it had nothing to do with the HD, rather the cheap SATA connector interface that it was plugged into in the external casing.

Anyone try larger (600-750G or higher) internal drives?

Have any new Mac Pro owners tried internal drives larger than the 500GB Apple-supplied drives?
The 750GB Seagate, for example?
I find my dual 2.5GB GB Mac does not handle larger external drives well, even with an extra PCI card wth added Firewire 800 and USB-2 connections.. My LaCie 500 and 600GB tripple interface drives don't work well with USB-2 at all (neither did a returned USB-2 only "Big Disk" drive), and Firewire 800 runs into trouble fairly regularly when such drives are daisy-chained. And I have the best granite digital cables, etc.
I am hoping the new Mac Pros will do better and am anxious to hear real life exaperiences.
Thanks,
Mark

Barefeats did do some tests on 750GB (noted lots of problems, especially in 4-drive RAID).
Granite advises against down-streaming FW drives, and not surprised. I run each drive off its own port and have two FW800 PCI cards. Not a fan of the "D2" Bigdisk enclosures either.
USB2 is suppose to now be better on Intel, and be bootable, but it is slower on PPCs than FW, and hogs cpu (20-25%).
If you want good solid reliable and were going to go with external and PCI, I would recommend using SATA drives, and either Sonnet or SeriTek controllers.
The Mac Pro has 4 (or 6) internal SATA connectors, all independent. Has to be seen which PCIe cards will work.

Whose SATA 750Gb internal drive to buy?

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