Hard drive recommendations

[Sofa King]

Hello All,
I’m looking for the largest/most reliable drive to put in the second slot of my G5 DP 2GHZ.

Historically, I would use Lacie D2s as my backup, but I’ve gone through 3 in a year, so I’m looking for plan B.

Thanks for your help.

All the best
Sean

 

[CanadaRAM]

500 Gb or 750 Gb Seagate Barracuda, 5 year warranty.

 

[Sofa King]

500 Gb or 750 Gb Seagate Barracuda, 5 year warranty.

Thanks,
So heres the dumb guy question, thats a SATA drive, correct?

thanks again.

 

[dkoralek]

Thanks,
So heres the dumb guy question, thats a SATA drive, correct?

thanks again.

They do make them in SATA (they may make them for other interaces as well). You can check newegg for example (newegg.com) and look up internal hard drives, and sata/3.

cheers.

 

[timb]

Thanks,
So heres the dumb guy question, thats a SATA drive, correct?

thanks again.

Yup, you'll want to get the "7200.10" series. These use perpendicular recording, fairly fast and quite. They go all the way up to 750 GB. Check NewEgg like someone else just mentioned.

Also, when you get the drive, there's a small jumper on the back. Make sure you REMOVE it to activate 3 Gb/s mode.

 

[Sofa King]

Yup, you'll want to get the "7200.10" series. These use perpendicular recording, fairly fast and quite. They go all the way up to 750 GB. Check NewEgg like someone else just mentioned.

Also, when you get the drive, there's a small jumper on the back. Make sure you REMOVE it to activate 3 Gb/s mode.

Thanks.
hopefully last question.
I assume all the cabling/harnesses are already installed in the G5 for the seond slot?

thanks again
Sean

 

[THX1139]

Hate to rain on everyone's parade, but there are a lot of reported problems with the Seagate drives. Do a search and you will find many forums and reviews that say the Seagates are not the best.

I suggest you look at Western Digital or the Maxtor Maxline Pro series of Drives. The Hitachi drives are supposed to be very quiet and reliable too.

I'm currently running the WD SE500 in my MacPro and it's fast and virtually silent. I also have two RE 320's running in RAID 0 and they are awesome. The only weak link in my system is the stock Seagate and I hope to replace it soon with another Western Digital SE drive.

The Seagates are using new perpendicular recording technology and there were a lot of reported problems with slow transfer. Some of the drives might have been fixed with the lastest firmware update. You gotta do the reasearch! Drive manufactors fall in and out of favor depending on current shipping technology. I used to be a big fan of Seagate, but not with their current shipping models.

 

[timb]

Sorry to rain on YOUR parade, but I'm running 4 of them on my Mac Pro with no problems at all. Some people may have had issues with the initial build, but as of now they're completely stable, and very fast. (A single drive benches a bit faster than the stock Mac Pro drive.)

 

[timb]

Thanks.
hopefully last question.
I assume all the cabling/harnesses are already installed in the G5 for the seond slot?

thanks again
Sean

Yup

 

[DigitalN.]

alternatively you could wait 1-2 months and get a 1TB drive, although that is extreme overkill.

 

[Sofa King]

Hate to rain on everyone's parade, but there are a lot of reported problems with the Seagate drives. Do a search and you will find many forums and reviews that say the Seagates are not the best.

I suggest you look at Western Digital or the Maxtor Maxline Pro series of Drives. The Hitachi drives are supposed to be very quiet and reliable too.

I'm currently running the WD SE500 in my MacPro and it's fast and virtually silent. I also have two RE 320's running in RAID 0 and they are awesome. The only weak link in my system is the stock Seagate and I hope to replace it soon with another Western Digital SE drive.

The Seagates are using new perpendicular recording technology and there were a lot of reported problems with slow transfer. Some of the drives might have been fixed with the lastest firmware update. You gotta do the reasearch! Drive manufactors fall in and out of favor depending on current shipping technology. I used to be a big fan of Seagate, but not with their current shipping models.

I have fifteen of the 120 gb seagates, and seven of the 500 gb that I use in my Data Silo enclosures, and they have been stellar.

My apologies for "not doing the research!!!!!!", im more interested in doing the work.
Thought I might get a few opinions, and not get bogged down in analysis paralysis, as many do.

Thanks again,
Sean

 

[Sofa King]

alternatively you could wait 1-2 months and get a 1TB drive, although that is extreme overkill.

thanks


Sean

 

[THX1139]

My apologies for "not doing the research!!!!!!", im more interested in doing the work.
Thought I might get a few opinions, and not get bogged down in analysis paralysis, as many do.

Uh.. okay, so it's a hassle doing research that takes a few minutes of reading posts on Apple and Hard drive review forums? You'd rather ask a bunch of strangers and then take the first opinion that you agree with? That's a great way to make a decision that could ultimately cost you money AND time. Sounds like you already had your mind made up. Good for you! I'm sorry I wasted my time sharing my opposing viewpoint that was actually derived from research.

 

[trainguy77]

Sorry to rain on YOUR parade, but I'm running 4 of them on my Mac Pro with no problems at all. Some people may have had issues with the initial build, but as of now they're completely stable, and very fast. (A single drive benches a bit faster than the stock Mac Pro drive.)

Sorry to rain your parade but many seagates have slow problems.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/262433/

Yes they almost all work. Just not as fast as other drives. Its a problem with all .9 and .10 drives from what I can tell....Maybe its a xbench problem....But I get the same results I have not seen one person with these drives who get faster results. BUt that being said I don't notice it in day to day use.....

 

[timb]

Sorry to rain your parade but many seagates have slow problems.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/262433/

Yes they almost all work. Just not as fast as other drives. Its a problem with all .9 and .10 drives from what I can tell....Maybe its a xbench problem....But I get the same results I have not seen one person with these drives who get faster results. BUt that being said I don't notice it in day to day use.....

Actually, no...

The first image here is a benchmark with a WD2500JS 250 GB drive (what's stock on a Mac Pro). The second image is a 7200.10 250 GB. Wow, look at that... The 7200.10 has a much higher read speed...

Now, check here: 7200.10 Performance Comparison

If you read all the way through it, the 7200.10 drives are very close performance wise to a 10k RPM Raptor.

Q.E.D.

Edit: I realize other people may be having problems with their 7200.9 and 7200.10 drives, however I'm not. I just purchased these drives and they work flawlessly. It could be you all have old firmware in yours, or it was a Mac Pro problem that Apple has stealth patched... Either way I'm more than willing to post all the model and firmware details of my drive for comparison.

 

[trainguy77]

Actually, no...

The first image here is a benchmark with a WD2500JS 250 GB drive (what's stock on a Mac Pro). The second image is a 7200.10 250 GB. Wow, look at that... The 7200.10 has a much higher read speed...

Now, check here: 7200.10 Performance Comparison

If you read all the way through it, the 7200.10 drives are very close performance wise to a 10k RPM Raptor.

Q.E.D.

Edit: I realize other people may be having problems with their 7200.9 and 7200.10 drives, however I'm not. I just purchased these drives and they work flawlessly. It could be you all have old firmware in yours, or it was a Mac Pro problem that Apple has stealth patched... Either way I'm more than willing to post all the model and firmware details of my drive for comparison.

I understand they are amazing drive in many things. However if you read the thread I posted you may have noticed that its not across the board problem.

Uncached Write 84.47 51.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 139.95 79.18 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 90.56 26.50 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 154.94 77.87 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 36.23
Uncached Write 12.05 1.28 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 98.60 31.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.52 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 151.87 28.18 MB/sec [256K blocks]

As you can see the drives are great for large blocks 256k and very competitive when it comes to 256k and reading 4k. However take a look at random writes for 4k blocks.......This is what explain the inconsistent tests they mention in the article you posted. It is a great drive except for any small files....which OS X is full of. But its really not a show stopper.

By the way the 100 is equal to a 2.0 GHz G5 running Tiger I am not sure the details. But as I was saying its not a show stopper. If you interested in talking more we may want to start a new thread so we don't continue to drag this one off topic. No hard feelings about what I have said....sorry if there is!

 

[timb]

I understand they are amazing drive in many things. However if you read the thread I posted you may have noticed that its not across the board problem.

As you can see the drives are great for large blocks 256k and very competitive when it comes to 256k and reading 4k. However take a look at random writes for 4k blocks.......This is what explain the inconsistent tests they mention in the article you posted. It is a great drive except for any small files....which OS X is full of. But its really not a show stopper.

By the way the 100 is equal to a 2.0 GHz G5 running Tiger I am not sure the details. But as I was saying its not a show stopper. If you interested in talking more we may want to start a new thread so we don't continue to drag this one off topic. No hard feelings about what I have said....sorry if there is!

Hmmmm, that's interesting. Let me edit the source to Bonnie and do some very small file testing.

Another interesting thing of note, I'm currently running RAID on these drives, the stripe is set to 32 K (which means that data is chunked up into 16 K blocks on each drive), I wonder if I would get better performance if I set the stripe size as high as it will go? It would be less space efficient, but might perform much better.

Also, sorry if I came off as an ass, I'm a bit grumpy the last couple of days. (Medication I'm on.) No card feelings.

 

[trainguy77]

Hmmmm, that's interesting. Let me edit the source to Bonnie and do some very small file testing.

Another interesting thing of note, I'm currently running RAID on these drives, the stripe is set to 32 K (which means that data is chunked up into 16 K blocks on each drive), I wonder if I would get better performance if I set the stripe size as high as it will go? It would be less space efficient, but might perform much better.

Well according to that same thread when he stripped them they did improve but still not even close to something that the base system had. The question is...is this a mac pro issue? or a drive issue. And my .9 and .10 drives perform almost the same. .10 is a tiny bit better. The .9 is the stock 160 gb.

 

[DEXTERITY]

Hate to rain on everyone's parade, but there are a lot of reported problems with the Seagate drives. Do a search and you will find many forums and reviews that say the Seagates are not the best.

I suggest you look at Western Digital or the Maxtor Maxline Pro series of Drives. The Hitachi drives are supposed to be very quiet and reliable too.

NOOOOOOO Maxtor drives blow. please don't get a maxtor. I have 4 seagate drives and have no issues. I also have three ocw external hard drives which use seagate drives and have zero problems. However, my G4 went through 4 maxtor drives and my G5 went through one. I dont know why Apple uses those crap drives. Never again. If my next G5 comes with a maxtor i'm trashing it day one to save myself the headache even if it is a waist of money.

 

[Sofa King]

Uh.. okay, so it's a hassle doing research that takes a few minutes of reading posts on Apple and Hard drive review forums? You'd rather ask a bunch of strangers and then take the first opinion that you agree with? That's a great way to make a decision that could ultimately cost you money AND time. Sounds like you already had your mind made up. Good for you! I'm sorry I wasted my time sharing my opposing viewpoint that was actually derived from research.

Dude,
First of all, read my post, I did thank you for your response.
Secondly, im not looking for a debate, arm wrestling or dart throwing, just some input.


Anyway...
thanks again.

all the best,
Sean

 

[trainguy77]

NOOOOOOO Maxtor drives blow. please don't get a maxtor. I have 4 seagate drives and have no issues. I also have three ocw external hard drives which use seagate drives and have zero problems. However, my G4 went through 4 maxtor drives and my G5 went through one. I dont know why Apple uses those crap drives. Never again. If my next G5 comes with a maxtor i'm trashing it day one to save myself the headache even if it is a waist of money.

well sorry to break it too you but the companies are merging. Seagate bought maxtor.....

 

[CanadaRAM]

well sorry to break it too you but the companies are merging. Seagate bought maxtor.....

Which means nada to date because the existing models are still different technology made in different factories...

Just to get back to the original post -- the criteria were Largest and Most Reliable. Not transfer rate on small blocks. 750 Gb is the largest 3.5" drive made today. 5 year warranty is the longest offered today. My own and many others experience is that Seagate drives have been more reliable than Maxtor in the recent past.

If outright seek time and throughput performance is the criteria, then you have to define the nature of use its being put to, as each drives performance is a tradeoff between large or small files, low access time or sustained throughput, under single user load or under multiuser load.

BTW: XBench has to be the single least reliable measurement I know of.

 

[chasemac]

Seagate has been a pioneer in HDs for a long time and you couldn't go wrong with a 5 yr. warranty.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/corporate_information/company_milestones

 

[Sofa King]

Which means nada to date because the existing models are still different technology made in different factories...

Just to get back to the original post -- the criteria were Largest and Most Reliable. Not transfer rate on small blocks. 750 Gb is the largest 3.5" drive made today. 5 year warranty is the longest offered today. My own and many others experience is that Seagate drives have been more reliable than Maxtor in the recent past.

If outright seek time and throughput performance is the criteria, then you have to define the nature of use its being put to, as each drives performance is a tradeoff between large or small files, low access time or sustained throughput, under single user load or under multiuser load.

BTW: XBench has to be the single least reliable measurement I know of.

Let me try and steer this back to topic.

I am looking for an internal to replace two 500 gb lacies.
So like my wife has beaten into my head, "size does matter".

This internal will not be an audio “write” drive, but a temporary backup, or a "hold" drive for digital audio.

I back up my sessions every night to these hold/back up drives.

The only criteria I have is that the data gets there, and stays there.

Hopefully this additional info helps.

Thanks again.
Sean

 

[chasemac]

Let me try and steer this back to topic.

I am looking for an internal to replace two 500 gb lacies.
So like my wife has beaten into my head, "size does matter".

This internal will not be an audio “write” drive, but a temporary backup, or a "hold" drive for digital audio.

I back up my sessions every night to these hold/back up drives.

The only criteria I have is that the data gets there, and stays there.

Hopefully this additional info helps.

Thanks again.
Sean

Like I said Seagate has been a pioneer in HDs for a long time and you couldn't go wrong with a 5 yr. warranty.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/abo...any_milestones

Buy one and quite asking questions.