What hard drive should I use?

Hello,

I am not an IT person. I have been using Macs ever since 2003 but I am using them, not building them

I have a MacBook Pro with a 320 GB hdd, 5400 rotations, work find after 7 years.
I am about to upgrade another MacBook Pro. My friend did not want it, took the hard, and gave it to me. I would like to make it run.
I bought a SDD Samsung Evo 500 GB for the system. I plan to run IOS latest on it, plus windows 7 for a software I am using for my work.

As the MacBook has a dvd writer, I plan to take it out and use a caddy. Now, I have a friend who will do all this. Replace all the components. he is an IT person. and he has used for an Apple reseller for several years.
Now, my question related to the normal, rotation, hard drive.

He has several Apple certified 1tb hdd, Toshiba (as the one I have on my older MacBook Pro). He has used them a little as external hdd with a caddy. He also has a Samsung 2tb hdd, taken from an ASUS he upgraded with an SDD. The Samsung is new, it was used only as it came from the factory, Funny enough, in the upper left side it says seagate.com.

My question is... Should I get the Toshiba Apple certified or the Samsung?
I usually have only word, pdf and some pictures on my hdd. I don't watch movies on my laptop, very little. I have never experienced a hard drive crash in my life. I even have a 20 gb Dell laptop, still running, (if one is bothered to start it), so never had a problem with a hard drive.

Of course I will have a time machine. but I was wondering what you would recommend.

if I were to buy a new one, I would go for Hard Disk laptop SEAGATE Barracuda Guardian 2TB, 5400rpm, SATA3, 128MB, I cannot afford anything else right now. I would not buy this one either... Really..... Because it's double the price of the one above.

I don't want it to have speed, etc. I am not in a hurry, I don't play computer games, etc.
I just something that, if used decently, has less chances to brake.

Also, the Toshiba and the Samsung are 5400. The Toshiba has only 1tb, the Samsung 2tb. but I would like the one which cold be better, not the one that is necessarily bigger.

Thanks for your consideration

AnaNic said:

...Funny enough, in the upper left side it says seagate.com.

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No real surprise. There are currently only 3 manufacturers of hard drives...and Samsung is not one of them (Seagate is).

AnaNic said:

My question is... Should I get the Toshiba Apple certified or the Samsung?

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Kind of a difficult question to answer. On one hand you may be asking "Toshiba or Samsung"...on the other had you may be asking "1tb or 2tb". One option is brand related...the 2nd option is capacity related. If you need more than 1tb of storage...then the obvious choice is the 2tb drive (regardless of brand).

And then there could be a 3rd parameter to consider...which is price. How much is the friend going to charge you for the 1tb vs. the 2tb drive?

AnaNic said:

I usually have only word, pdf and some pictures on my hdd. I don't watch movies on my laptop, very little. I have never experienced a hard drive crash in my life. I even have a 20 gb Dell laptop, still running, (if one is bothered to start it), so never had a problem with a hard drive.

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Sounds to me your storage needs may not be that high...the 1tb drive would probably be fine.

AnaNic said:

Of course I will have a time machine. but I was wondering what you would recommend.

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Not exactly sure what you mean here. Apple had an older hardware device called a "Time Machine"...and Apple has a backup app called "Time Machine". Not sure if you're talking a hardwae device...or the Time Machine app.

In any case...for doing backups this should be a completely 2nd separate drive...usually an external drive.

AnaNic said:

if I were to buy a new one, I would go for Hard Disk laptop SEAGATE Barracuda Guardian 2TB, 5400rpm, SATA3, 128MB, I cannot afford anything else right now. I would not buy this one either... Really..... Because it's double the price of the one above.

Click to expand...

Not exactly sure how much this 2TB Seagate drive sells for new (or how big your budget is)...but why purchase a new 2TB drive if a new 1TB drive will do (or even a new 500meg drive). Of course all of this is not necessary to discuss if you will be purchasing one of the used drives you mentined above.

AnaNic said:

Also, the Toshiba and the Samsung are 5400. The Toshiba has only 1tb, the Samsung 2tb. but I would like the one which cold be better, not the one that is necessarily bigger.

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Ok...this sort of answers one of the questions I had above...which was if you were interested in quality or quantity. But still...I think we need to know the price of each drive to be able to give you the best answer.

HTH,

- Nick

Hi and thank you for the very kind and informative reply.

I was talking about the app Time Machine, i.e. I will back up the hard drive on an external one, as a Time Machine, probably a Lacie.
The Seagate 2tb is new, and would be around 120 USD dollars.
The Toshiba/Apple is around 37 USD i
The 2tb Samsung will be around 75 USD.

Again, in balancing quantity vs. quality I would definitely go for quality

Thanks for helping.

Anabella

AnaNic said:

The Seagate 2tb is new, and would be around 120 USD dollars.
The Toshiba/Apple is around 37 USD i
The 2tb Samsung will be around 75 USD.

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Thanks for the info Anabella.

You seemed to indicate above that you probably wouldn't purchase a brand new Seagate 2TB drive ($120 USD) since it's a bunch more than the used choices you have. And from what you also mentioned above (storage needs)...it would seem that 1TB of storage would be fine. I say go for the 1TB drive for $37 USD.

I would like to mention one thing. All the drives mentioned so far in this thread are 5400rpm drives. For me personally I like a little bit more speed & these days I usually prefer to get 7200 rpm drives. Within the last year I replaced my older & smaller MacBook Pro's 750 meg 7200rpm hard drive with a new 1TB 7200rpm drive. Don't think I would enjoy a 5400rpm drive in my MacBook Pro. But then again it's what we're all used too.

Just wanted you to be aware of this before making any final decisions.

- Nick