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Hard drive reviews - 500 GB w/FW 800
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<blockquote data-quote="bobtomay" data-source="post: 402289" data-attributes="member: 24160"><p>Well, some of you probably already know from a couple of other posts, my WD showed up DOA from newegg. The box had definitely been dropped during shipping as one corner was crushed. But no problem, thanks to newegg, had an RMA # within 4 hrs and only 1 e-mail to them on a Saturday. Great company.</p><p></p><p>Before I could order another, Fry's had a 1 day sale on the retail kit Seagate SATA II 750GB drive for $199 ($280 at newegg and $240 even for the OEM version). At only a couple of pennies more per GB, the ability of storing an additional 40-50 movies on it, and the 5 yr warranty, this was just too good for me to at least not give it a try.</p><p></p><p>My biggest concern with the Seagate were all the reviews talking about how loud the Seagates are for using in a HTPC setup. Have to say they are very misleading. Right now I have it set up in the TV room, sitting on top of my end table, less than 2 feet away from my ears. Sitting next to it, at 3 AM with not another sound around, yes, you can hear it spinning and on occasion you can hear some clicking during heavy writing. But, it is very quiet, and with the TV on is virtually silent. The WD's in my experience are quieter during drive access, but I am hard pressed to find issue with the Seagate in this regard.</p><p></p><p>I have done some testing on the drive related to times on the USB, FW400 and FW 800 connections. Did not get an eSATA card to test that, but as you will see, don't believe I would gain any significant times with it from my MBP. At this point have only run tests mainly related to moving files back and forth betwen the drives. Hopefully, at some point in the not too distant future, I will have further tests related to recording HDTV, editing the resulting files and playback. Keep checking back if you're interested in those results.</p><p></p><p>Ran most of these at least twice just to verify the times were repeatable, particularly where the times were very close. </p><p></p><p>I also ran tests in both directions; from the internal drive to the external and back. The times in both directions were identical or so close that it could be user error since I was just using the system clock for my tests. Ex. I saw a 1 sec difference on FW800 on both the 1.32GB and the 7.57GB folders</p><p></p><p>My Pictures folder: only 70MB - about 100 photos, mostly wallpapers</p><p>USB - 8 sec</p><p>FW400 - 7 sec</p><p>FW800 - 6 sec</p><p></p><p>Copying a folder at 1.32GB, with 97 files, mostly .dmg's:</p><p>USB - 1 min 26 sec</p><p>FW400 - 59 sec</p><p>FW800 - 50 sec</p><p></p><p>My iTunes folder - 4.03GB, some music, but mainly podcasts in mine, some an hour long and some video, pretty good mixture of file sizes</p><p>USB - 4 min 10 sec</p><p>FW400 - 2 min 45 sec</p><p>FW800 - 2 min 41 sec</p><p></p><p>A movie file at 7.57GB:</p><p>USB - 8 min 9 sec</p><p>FW400 - 4 min 39 sec</p><p>FW800 - 4 min 11 sec</p><p></p><p>Using <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/best-free-dvd-rippers" target="_blank">Drive-in</a> to copy a DVD to hard drive:</p><p>Movie without copy protection at 4.36GB</p><p>To the internal drive - 10 min 29 sec</p><p>To external w/FW800 - 10 min 39 sec</p><p></p><p>Movie with copy protection: approx 7.6GB</p><p>To the internal drive - 34 min 30 sec</p><p>To external w/FW800 - 34 min 38 sec</p><p></p><p>So, bottom line translation:</p><p>1) Don't buy USB external enclosure. FW400 enclosures are competetively priced nowadays and will consistently cut your transfer times by 1/3 to 1/2.</p><p></p><p>2) FW 400 vs FW 800 - we are seeing the limitations of the internal 5400 RPM drive in these tests. FW800 with only a 3-15% improvement is probably not worth the extra investment for most of you with a MacBook or MacBook Pro. The FW400 should be quite adequate. For the geeks like me, who just have to have the fastest and/or plan ahead the FW800 probably is worth the litle extra investment.</p><p></p><p>Maybe someone out there with an iMac or Mac Pro could give us some times using a 7200RPM internal drive to give us a comparison on the FW interfaces.</p><p></p><p>3) On just copying something from the optical drive - we are definitely seeing how slow these drives are that Apple is using. Even my 3 1/2 year old Sony 4X burner is faster than the drive in my MBP as you can see <a href="http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48686" target="_blank">here</a>. I did not run a test with FW400 on this, but for most work, based on my other tests, do not believe it would be significantly slower than copying to the internal drive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bobtomay, post: 402289, member: 24160"] Well, some of you probably already know from a couple of other posts, my WD showed up DOA from newegg. The box had definitely been dropped during shipping as one corner was crushed. But no problem, thanks to newegg, had an RMA # within 4 hrs and only 1 e-mail to them on a Saturday. Great company. Before I could order another, Fry's had a 1 day sale on the retail kit Seagate SATA II 750GB drive for $199 ($280 at newegg and $240 even for the OEM version). At only a couple of pennies more per GB, the ability of storing an additional 40-50 movies on it, and the 5 yr warranty, this was just too good for me to at least not give it a try. My biggest concern with the Seagate were all the reviews talking about how loud the Seagates are for using in a HTPC setup. Have to say they are very misleading. Right now I have it set up in the TV room, sitting on top of my end table, less than 2 feet away from my ears. Sitting next to it, at 3 AM with not another sound around, yes, you can hear it spinning and on occasion you can hear some clicking during heavy writing. But, it is very quiet, and with the TV on is virtually silent. The WD's in my experience are quieter during drive access, but I am hard pressed to find issue with the Seagate in this regard. I have done some testing on the drive related to times on the USB, FW400 and FW 800 connections. Did not get an eSATA card to test that, but as you will see, don't believe I would gain any significant times with it from my MBP. At this point have only run tests mainly related to moving files back and forth betwen the drives. Hopefully, at some point in the not too distant future, I will have further tests related to recording HDTV, editing the resulting files and playback. Keep checking back if you're interested in those results. Ran most of these at least twice just to verify the times were repeatable, particularly where the times were very close. I also ran tests in both directions; from the internal drive to the external and back. The times in both directions were identical or so close that it could be user error since I was just using the system clock for my tests. Ex. I saw a 1 sec difference on FW800 on both the 1.32GB and the 7.57GB folders My Pictures folder: only 70MB - about 100 photos, mostly wallpapers USB - 8 sec FW400 - 7 sec FW800 - 6 sec Copying a folder at 1.32GB, with 97 files, mostly .dmg's: USB - 1 min 26 sec FW400 - 59 sec FW800 - 50 sec My iTunes folder - 4.03GB, some music, but mainly podcasts in mine, some an hour long and some video, pretty good mixture of file sizes USB - 4 min 10 sec FW400 - 2 min 45 sec FW800 - 2 min 41 sec A movie file at 7.57GB: USB - 8 min 9 sec FW400 - 4 min 39 sec FW800 - 4 min 11 sec Using [URL='https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/best-free-dvd-rippers']Drive-in[/URL] to copy a DVD to hard drive: Movie without copy protection at 4.36GB To the internal drive - 10 min 29 sec To external w/FW800 - 10 min 39 sec Movie with copy protection: approx 7.6GB To the internal drive - 34 min 30 sec To external w/FW800 - 34 min 38 sec So, bottom line translation: 1) Don't buy USB external enclosure. FW400 enclosures are competetively priced nowadays and will consistently cut your transfer times by 1/3 to 1/2. 2) FW 400 vs FW 800 - we are seeing the limitations of the internal 5400 RPM drive in these tests. FW800 with only a 3-15% improvement is probably not worth the extra investment for most of you with a MacBook or MacBook Pro. The FW400 should be quite adequate. For the geeks like me, who just have to have the fastest and/or plan ahead the FW800 probably is worth the litle extra investment. Maybe someone out there with an iMac or Mac Pro could give us some times using a 7200RPM internal drive to give us a comparison on the FW interfaces. 3) On just copying something from the optical drive - we are definitely seeing how slow these drives are that Apple is using. Even my 3 1/2 year old Sony 4X burner is faster than the drive in my MBP as you can see [URL='http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48686']here[/URL]. I did not run a test with FW400 on this, but for most work, based on my other tests, do not believe it would be significantly slower than copying to the internal drive. [/QUOTE]
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