" This is for XLR8YOURMAC readers only for the weekend (ends Midnight PST 4/15/2007).
miniG Firewire 400 External drives:

miniG 750GB (7200RPM,16MB Cache) F400: $346 - ($54 off)

miniG 500GB (7200RPM,16MB Cache) F400: $209 - ($20 off)

miniG 400GB (7200RPM,16MB Cache) F400: $169 - ($20 off)

miniG 320GB (7200RPM,16Mb Cache) F400: $145 - ($14 off)

miniG 250GB (7200RPM,16MB Cache) F400: $119 - ($10 off)

miniG 160GB (7200RPM,8MB Cache) F400: $99 - ($10 off)

miniG 80GB (7200RPM,8MB Cache) F400: $79 - ($10 off)

Discounted prices are for the site specials page but for more details on the MiniG drive, see this page. "

The sidebar ads from OWC and Transintl have also been updated for lower pricing on some items.

"Apple MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.9
Just put a brand new 160GB Seagate Momentus 7200.2 (new 7,200 rpm drive!!!) in my 15" MacBook Pro C2D 2.33GHz. Installation was a total breeze, not quite as easy as a MacBook or old PowerBook G3 Pismo, but about 10x easier than trying to swap out the hard drive in the old 12" aluminum PowerBooks and about 20x easier than trying to swap one out on an old 12" iBook.

I purchased the drive from OWC as the 160GB Mercury On-The-Go Bus Powered Firewire 800/400/USB 7200rpm external 2.5" portable drive. So, it was the new Seagate drive in the enclosure. Cost, as of now, is $279.99. I figured it would be cheaper for me to buy the packaged 160gb Momentus 7200.2 in the enclosure, as opposed to buying the drive separately and then having to buy an enclosure to put my old hard drive in. Indeed it was, I saved about $20-$40 depending on which vendor I would have bought the drive and/or enclosure from.
(If you don't have an external drive or case already that takes a 2.5in SATA drive, this is a good way to reuse the original drive for backups, something many don't do but can really pay off in the future.-Mike)

So, I got the drive today, unpacked the portable drive. Hooked it up to my MBP via Firewire-800 just to test it out. It came with some complimentary OWC utilities and software loaded on it, didn't matter much to me as I was going to wipe the drive anyway. Opened up Disk Utility and erased the drive, then I opened up Carbon Copy Cloner and cloned my current drive system (which was the stock Hitachi Travelstar 160GB 5k160 that came with the machine when I ordered it from Apple) to the external drive (the Seagate Momentus 7200.2). Everything went well. I test booted off the drive externally a couple times just to make sure the volume was ok. Everything checked out fine.

I then shut everything down, powered off, unplugged cables, took battery out, etc. I first took the Mercury On-The-Go external drive apart so as to remove the new Seagate drive. Got that out and sat it aside. Then using the OWC 15" MacBook Pro hard drive installation video -Medium resolution videos found here: http://media.macsales.com/medres.html. (Higher and lower res versions are available at OWC's QT Installation Videos page and ifixit has take-apart guides for some models here) I slowly took my machine apart and swapped out the stock Hitachi Travelstar 5400rpm drive with the new Seagate 7200prm one. Reassembled, booted up . . . everything looked good. The only somewhat difficult part of the assembly/reassembly process, was getting the top bezel off (the one with the keyboard and tracking pad). You kind of have to gently alternate your angles as you try and pull it off, as there are these snap latches in the front that stubbornly are holding on to it. I was just patient about it, didn't want to bend the metal of the body or bezel. Eventually I used a credit card to very very gently pry it up, while gently pulling the bezel up to. Anyways, this is the only part I can imagine giving most readers a headache. Just be gentle and patient, with continued, relaxed effort it will eventually snap up. Putting the top bezel back on, you want to start in the front, trying to snap it back into place, then work your way around the sides, to the back, lining the screw slots up.

Performance wise, everything is a little snappier. The machine used to boot up in about 23-25 seconds. Now it seems like it does it in about 19-20 secs. Windows draw up faster and are more responsive. And applications launch faster; FireFox now launches in about 1-1.5 seconds; it used to take about 4-5 seconds. I haven't done any serious computing yet, Final Cut Pro editing or rendering, but so far I'm really pleased. Xbench hard drive scores went up from about 38 with the 5400rpm 160GB Hitachi Travelstar to 45 with the 7200rpm 160GB Seagate Momentus 7200.2. It's nice to have a higher performance drive with larger capacity. Of course, there will always be another larger capacity drive a year from now. A 300-400GB 7200rpm drive would be sweet!
-Wes M"

Fujitsu has 250GB and 300GB SATA notebook drives (4200rpm though), but they're 12.5mm high (too tall). They had to add another platter to exceed 200GB capacity, but in the future there should be denser platters. Toshiba has a 200GB/4200rpm drive that's 9.5mm high that recently had a $41 price drop to $185 at OWC. (One of today's drive db updates includes a MacBook Pro owner's comments on that drive also.)

BTW: A reader asked about the effect on battery runtime with the 7200rpm drive. I wrote Wes to ask but I suspect the difference is small considering the delta in power usage between the two drives as a percentage of the -total- notebook power usage. Your actual usage patterns and settings have the biggest effect on battery runtime and it's extremely hard to compare runtime -accurately- unless a scripted test is used to try and ensure the exact same tasks, duration, load etc. are done on both drives during the testing.
I suspect the difference is small as it has been in the past (typically 10% or less HD power -delta-, a tiny fraction difference in overall power use), but as a FYI I checked the specs on the Seagate 7200rpm 160GB drive vs a 5400RPM Travelstar 160GB 2.5in drive:

• Max (startup/spinup): 5.5W (7200rpm) vs 5W (5400rpm) - 0.5W difference
• Read/Write (avg): 2.1W (7200rpm) vs 1.8W (5400rpm) - 0.3W difference
• Idle: 0.8W (7200rpm) vs 0.85W active idle/0.65W low-pwr idle (5400rpm)
  (7200 rpm sheet I saw didn't note if idle was active or low-power mode)
• Standby: 0.25W on both

Worst case delta per the specs is 1/2W (less after spinup - i.e. in use for read/write, idle, etc.)
Considering the total notebook power usage, that .5W or less increase is a very small percentage of the total notebook battery use (the backlight, CPU, GPU, logic board, wireless adapter, etc.)

" AMUG has posted a review of the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 External 4 Port PCIe SATA II RAID Controller. This is the first SATA host adapter that AMUG has tested that supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 1/0 with SATA PM enclosures. RAID 1/0 has always provided the best crash protection but I never had enough ports to provide true high performance. With the new found ability to connect 16 hard drives to the RocketRAID 2314, RAID 1/0 not only provides the highest crash protection but also extremely high performance.
The RR2314 does not provide boot capability or traditional hot swap but it can provide awesome RAID 5 and RAID 1/0 setups with an Apple Mac Pro.
Michael Bean
TEAM AMUG "

Hard Drives:
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Seagate 160GB ST9160823AS Momentus 7200.2 (7200rpm) in MacBook Pro (OS X 10.4.x)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Toshiba MK2035GSS 200GB in MacBook Pro (OS X 10.4.x)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). The database includes reports on DVD +/-R, CDRWs, Combo DVD-CDRW, DVD-ROM, Hard Drives and Removables (tape drive, ORB, ZIP, MO drives, NAS, CF/Smartmedia readers, etc.) in all interface types (IDE, IDE RAID cards, SATA, Firewire, SCSI, USB, adapters).
If you've added a IDE, SATA, Firewire, USB, or SCSI, hard drive, Optical drive/burner, NAS (including Airport Extreme base connected USB drive), tape drive, etc., send me the details (drive info/mac model/OS used, etc. - *Please take a minute to test for booting from CD with Optical drives*. Thanks.)

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• MacLoggerDX 4.3.1b5
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• Adobe Flash Player 9.0.45 (released 4/12)
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