Use Apple brand HD as Windows main HD

[Tangerine]

Hello,

I was wondering if it's a bad ideas to use Apple brand Hard Drive that came with my Mac Pro as Windows main bootup Hard Drive? I just replaced the Hard Drive that came with my Mac Pro 150GB to a Seagate 320GB. The option to customize bigger Hard Drive on the Mac Pro is way too expensive for what they are asking. Now I'm using the 150GB Hard Drive as my main Windows XP Hard Drive. I want to know if it's a bad ideas to use Apple brand Hard Drive as Windows main Hard Drive? Is performance and speed going to decreased? What's the benefit of Apple brand Hard Drive? Why they charge so much? I did a benchmark test and find out that the Seagate is a little faster then Apple brand Hard Drive. Should I just replace it all with Seagate Hard Drive?

 

[Macinposh]

Yes.


Inside apple you can find Hitachis,Maxtors and Seagate drives.
Depends what they have had at the factory at the time of manufacturing.
There is no difference between the "apple" disks and the disks that you can find from any store.

None.

Is performance and speed going to decreased?

No.

I What's the benefit of Apple brand Hard Drive?

None.

Actually many times your "apple" brand HDD has a shorter warranty than the drive should have. For example,you can find maxtor HDDs in your MP and normally they have 3 year warranty,but when inside apple,you have one...

IWhy they charge so much?

Because lazy/ill informed people go and by the products with premium,thus making a larger revenue for apple.

IShould I just replace it all with Seagate Hard Drive?

No use. Just use it for your windows. You wont notice the diffrence.

 

[Krevnik]

Well, I presume the 'Apple branded' drive is a Western Digital. The Seagate performing slightly faster than it is normal from what I have read in reviews.

There is no real reason why you shouldn't use an 'Apple branded' drive with Windows. The only real difference is that the sticker on the drive is different than if you bought directly from the manufacturer.

It costs more if you buy it from Apple because Apple is also tacking on an installation fee for the drive. But, yes, it is pretty worthless to buy drives pre-installed by Apple if you know what you are doing. (Same goes for Dell and so on... Dell's pricing on HDD upgrades is actually pretty similar)

 

[2ndPath]

I don't think there is anything special about the hard drives Apple put into their Macs. They don't make them themselves but buy them from other manufacturers. So it should be perfectly fine to use your "Apple hard drive" for XP and use your other one for OS X.

 

[tyr2]

Just to echo the other comments. I use the shipped 'apple brand' drive (it's a Western Digital) as my Windows drive as I wanted to use other disks for OSX. It works the same as any other disk.

 

[aj98]

Hello,

I was wondering if it's a bad ideas to use Apple brand Hard Drive that came with my Mac Pro as Windows main bootup Hard Drive? I just replaced the Hard Drive that came with my Mac Pro 150GB to a Seagate 320GB. The option to customize bigger Hard Drive on the Mac Pro is way too expensive for what they are asking. Now I'm using the 150GB Hard Drive as my main Windows XP Hard Drive. I want to know if it's a bad ideas to use Apple brand Hard Drive as Windows main Hard Drive? Is performance and speed going to decreased? What's the benefit of Apple brand Hard Drive? Why they charge so much? I did a benchmark test and find out that the Seagate is a little faster then Apple brand Hard Drive. Should I just replace it all with Seagate Hard Drive?

There really is no such thing as an "Apple Brand" HD. Apple does not manufacture the OEM HD. (Although your OEM drive may have an Apple sticker added to it, it should have the regular mfrs data sticker, IBM, Seagate, Maxtor, whatever.)

There is no difference between those and HDs installed in Windows based CPUs.

So...no, there's no problems with installing windows on your "old" EOM drive.

There are many factors involved in determining performance/speed, so there's no simple yes/no answer.

There are 2 flavors of SATA drives, 150 and 300. the numbers are data xfer speed related, with the larger number being more expensive.

In the BTO option, 399 for a 500mb drive (compared to 250 average for retail on a similar size drive...C-USA is asking 349 for a 500gb seagate, so an extra 50 for formatting and installation isn't unreasonable - a local computer shop will charge you more than that for the same service)

part of it is markup, part is installation, convenience (of not having to do it yourself), etc.

 

[Tangerine]

Thanks everyone for your help. Is there any way to find out what my Hard Drive Manufacture is without opening it up and check? Also, what's a good program to benchmark the Hard Drive?

 

[2ndPath]

Thanks everyone for your help. Is there any way to find out what my Hard Drive Manufacture is without opening it up and check? Also, what's a good program to benchmark the Hard Drive?

You can user System Profiler to find out (in Applications/Utilities folder) what the manufacturer of the drive is. Where it says Serial-ATA it lists the drives properties including the manufacturer (Toshiba in my MBP).

 

[patrick0brien]

-Actually guys...

You are correct, there is no "Apple Brand" HD, but they do modify the drives somewhat, ergo part of the explanation of the increased price. Usually, it's a heat management and/or noise suppression modification, but they don't crack the case of the drive.

You should be able to return the drive to the manufacturer if there is an issue though. But it's a PITA.

 

[Tangerine]

You can user System Profiler to find out (in Applications/Utilities folder) what the manufacturer of the drive is. Where it says Serial-ATA it lists the drives properties including the manufacturer (Toshiba in my MBP).

Hmm...I check and it doesn't say anywhere about manufacture. Maybe it because I have replace it with a Seagate or System Profiler won't list it.

 

[synth3tik]

I got a 10K drive to use as my system disk and am using the stock drive (mine is a seagate) to run Win 2k, Vista, and Ubuntu with no problems. It's just an OEM sticker that makes them "Apple" drives.

 

[szark]

-Actually guys...

You are correct, there is no "Apple Brand" HD, but they do modify the drives somewhat, ergo part of the explanation of the increased price. Usually, it's a heat management and/or noise suppression modification, but they don't crack the case of the drive.

I believe there might also be slight firmware differences, to ensure that all of the commands are behaving according to specifications -- but that certainly won't prevent someone from using the drive with Windows.

 

[apfhex]

Hmm...I check and it doesn't say anywhere about manufacture.

Under Serial-ATA, it should say something like "Model: WDC WD2500JS-41SGB0". In my case that means I have a Western Digital Caviar. You can always Google the model number if you can't figure it out, should find the manufacturer's product page.