the new 5400RPM's are faster than the previous gen 7200RPM's

Your kidding? Even the WD?

I was looking into this: SATA/300 - 5400 rpm - 8 MB Buffer Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT 1 TB 2.5" Internal Hard Drive

or this : SATA/300 - 7200 rpm - 16 MB Buffer Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT 750 GB 2.5" Internal Hard Drive

noooo the 5400 2.5 is slower than the 7200 2.5. but the speed difference is negligible and you will not be able to see that difference in real-world usage.

so that being said get the 1TB. or if you're really feeling nasty get an ssd and put a 1tb in the optical drive location.

i just bought the wd wd10jpvt for my external - they now use two 500gb platters vs 3 330 gb platters, they now are slightly faster and more reliable

the difference between the 7200 and the 5400 wont make to much of a difference - the latency of the drives is about the same and the heat will be greater with the 7200, also currently the 1tb is largest 2.5" 9.5mm drive you can get. so its pretty much, do you want more heat/faster drive but less space or more space/less heat and about the same performance?

I noticed a difference in replacing my macs stock 750gb 5400rpm drive with a seatgate hybrid 750gb 7200rpm drive... Actually its running much fast when loading tracks and never "pauses" on me anymore. With the old drive i would load a video and serato would "pause" (audio kept playing but the computer would stop responding until the track loaded. It was only ever a second or 2, but long enough to make we freak out every time and it happend on about 90% of the tracks i would load.
Since i put the new drive in it has not happend once. I would get the smaller faster drive and install a 2nd drive if need be.

I went with the Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM 2.5-Inch Mobile Hard Drive and the OWC Data Doubler Optical Bay Hard Drive/SSD Mounting Solution. So I'm just gonna keep my stock 250GB HD and use it for just my OS and thats it. If I need more space then I will pop in the same 750GB drive and use super duper and copy it. This way I now don't have to copy anything and just format the new drive and use it for just MP3's. I wanted to stay with a 7200RPM drive and not have to worry about any lag.

actually because of platter density the NEW 5400rpm's are faster than the older (previous gen) 2.5 7200's

you said it your self " faster than the older (previous gen) 2.5 7200's"

If you gonna buy a new gen 5400 drive why not buy an new gen 7200 rpm drive? 7200rpm ftw

because 1TB is more than 750GB

If you need more space get a 2nd drive internal or external. if the 250gb is gonna kill you you need to re think your music organization.

the extra space is worth more to me than the negligible (and unnoticeable) speed difference

I could always drop a second 750gb as my main. but now I will have my main HD at 250 gb and the optical drive @ 750... I need to trim down on my MP3's anyway. I have so much stuff that I would never play. But I will have my 2TB ext. with me at all times that will have everything I ever had. so for some strange reason I need a odd track that I didnt put on my int. I could just plug in the FireWire drive and get it.

Agreed.

so I guess I made a mistake getting the 750gb 7200rpm over the 1tb ??? damn...

If you don't foresee needing the extra 250gb in the near future, then no.

Though the 5400rpm 1TB WD drives are way more than adequate in speed for DJ-ing. With or without video. Maybe the current 7200rpm drives would load tracks a **tiny** fraction of a second faster.

Biggest "boost" to overall computer speed is using a good SSD for OS/apps. That will make way more real-world noticeable difference than rotational speed.

Ok so here is my next question.... I am now going to replace my stock 250gb hd with a SSD one.

1st question... is there much difference in the OWC mercury electra and the OWC mercury extreme Pro?

2nd question... Does it matter if the SSD drive is installed in the optical caddy drive or where my stock drive is?

I was going to install the WD 750gb in my optical drive and in about a month and put the SSD drive where my stock one is now. I will only be using the SSD drive for my OS and programs. I only use my MBP for Serato and was gonna get the 240gb on vs the 120gb one. Right now with the OS and the Apps I am I'm only using about 40gb... is the 240 over kill? and if I needed to... can I put MP3's on the SSD as well?

The OWC Mercury Elecrtra 240 is way cheaper @ $280 vs $460 so Im trying to decide to get the larger Electra or the smaller 120gb Pro... Ugh... this is a pain in the ass!!!

Or... would I be better just buying a second 750 WD 7200rpm hd and install that as my main? Too many options? I will wait for you guys to chime in before I buy anything.... I just found out my main HD is 5400rpm too, so I might see an improvement buy upgrading to the 750gb as my main... let me know what you guys think. Thanks guys!!!!!!

1st question - not sure
2nd Question - It depends, what macbook pro edition do you have? does it support 6Gbps? I have 2011 edition and the main HD interface support up to 6Gbps, so I have my SSD there, since optical drive interface only supports 3Gbps I have a 1TB 5400rpm Hard Drive that operates at that speed. Overall, I would put SSD where stock is now.

If you have the cash for a 240GB, go for it! ... but just like me, since your only planning to use it for OS and programs, 120GB is enough.... I have the OCZ Vertex 3...

I would stick with an SSD as your Main HD, you can tell the difference.. Mine boots OS like in 7 seconds!

Thanks DJPNUT.... I'm gonna buy the 120 SSD and put it where my main drive is now. I bought the kit with the Enclosure Kit and going to use Super Duper to clone it... then pop in the 750gb in my optical bay. I think the 120gb will be fine. Its just going to be my OS and the few Apps that I have on my MBP. I was worried to put two of the 750gb's in there due to heat and I heard that the SSD drives are a nice upgrade for a boot drive. I was wondering if I can keep my old 250 boot drive in the Enclosure Kit and if my SSD was to ever fail I could use it to boot from if I was stuck in a jam. That... I'm not to sure of cuz it would be a USB hookup. But I'm happy with the options I picked. Tthanks!!!!

SSD + 750GB/1TB is a great combo.

Thank Dj Nyce... I know you would have rather me get the 1 TB but...... lol

Nyce, is this what you have right now?

I see your like a Guru with all this :) care to chim in with my issue

serato.com

(Sorry for thread hijack)

yeah i have the apple 512 ssd and samsung spinpoint 1TB in the optical drive location. apps on the sdd and audio/video on the 1TB.

i'll take a look at other thread.

Damn I should of purchased the spinpoint... I mest up by purchasing this one 2 weeks ago www.newegg.com

Ahhhh... it's not even 5400 rpm! damn, sucks.. + I kind of had to force it to fit, it is a bit ticker than regular 2.5 hd's

Damn.. :(

^ return it to newegg, you need this one for you notebook: www.newegg.com

Found a really good review of the WD 750 vs the WD 1TB

www.silentpcreview.com

Where can I get that ssd and which one should I get? I'm tired of the slight freeze when loading up tracks, the more mixes and music I dl the worse it gets. What latency setting should I be using ? My specs are Late 2010 i5 Mbps 2.53 processor hitachi hd 500 gb 5400rpm. No vids just music & I have a lot of my sets in ableton my library I carry is only about 90gb.

Figure I'll move my os apps to the ssd and us my internal hd for music only

the samsung 830 is one of the best SSD's out right now.

www.maximumpc.com

i also like the Crucial M4 and the OCZ Vertez 4. All available from newegg.com

that review is serious, thanks

my Scorpio blue just arrived today

I noticed it. It made the difference between hang ups and flawless playback.

I just don't want ant lag anymore... and hoping that the combo of the SSD main drive and the 750gb 7200rpm drive will eliminate a lag when loading a track. I have been using ext. FireWire drives and I'm really hoping to see a difference. It was more about performance then space for me. I also am running 8gb of ram so I dont see anything else that I can do to my mid 2010 MBP to make it run any faster then what I have done to it unless anyone can think of anything else???

What drive did you get? my 750gb drive came yesterday and my optical caddy and SSD drive comes next week... kinda scared to do the install but I'm sure I can handle it...

you'll be fine with that setup. if you are still experiencing lag. there is some other issue.

Now I have read that I need to disable the anti shock in the drive.... Does anyone know what I need to turn off? What settings do I need to change on the drives?

You'll not regret doing this update, I had a WD 640Gb as my main drive (13" Mid 2009 mac pro) but just made the switch a few weeks ago to a 160Gb SSD and the 640Gb in the CD caddy.
Its like I've bought a new laptop, boot time is now 13secs and apps open almost instantly (ableton takes about 1 or 2 secs to fully open)

I used CCC to clone the drive www.bombich.com

One point to take note off is its a non-apple SSD drive TRIM will not be enabled by default in Lion as its locked down to only apple drives.
You need to this hack to make it work ...
digitaldj.net

I have been told that I might be getting a lag due to the amount of crates and subcrates.... So I might have to clean up my crates a little to speed it up. I wont really know if that's the issue because I'm not going to be installing all of my crates from my ext. into my new int. Only installing what I really need on my new drive.

So that leads me to a new issue. I am going to copy my most used crates into folders on the new 750gb int. drive. But now I'm gonna run into a major duplicate issue. Because in my crates I have the same MP3 in a few crates. So when I copy my crates over I will prob be duplicating lots of songs over a few times... Thats gonna be my next issue Im gonna have to work out. I was thinking of using Tidy up... I don't use itunes either... any ideas on this problem??? Lol

I'm not on Lion... Im still on snow leopard 10.6.8. Do I need to still do this hack? And I don't even know what "TRIM" is....

you still need to do it on snow leopard but there are packages that will do it rather than having to run the commands from the terminal, but its pretty easy to follow the steps in the link I posted.

some reading on TRIM
en.wikipedia.org

can I use this?
www.groths.org

yeah that's OK for snow leopard...

I'd maybe still run this command before hand so you have a backup of the unpatch file incase anything nasty was to happen. You also need to repeat the TRIM enablement after a major OS patch (i.e. if 10.6.9 was ever released)

sudo cp /System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBl
ockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage/System/Library/Extensions/IOAHCIFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOAHCIBl
ockStorage.kext/Contents/MacOS/IOAHCIBlockStorage.original

To check if TRIM is enabled, open up About This Mac, click the “More Info…” button then the “System Report” button. In the list on the left, choose “Serial-ATA”. Click on your SSD Drive and in the lower half of the screen you should now see “TRIM Support: Yes” instead of “No”.

CRAP... I have never ran a command.... I need to find out how to do all of this :(

its not a big deal if you never ran that command it was just a safety net.

does this TRIM patch also apply to hybrid drives? Or will hardware firmware address this (i.e Momentus XT on Snow leopard)

No... lol I mean I have never ran any command on a MAC and don't know how to. The drive is on its way and not installed yet. So I have time to figure this all out... Thanks so much for letting me know about this!!! what about the shock thing for my new 750gb drive. I have seen posts about turning of the shock protection.. to prevent the drive from stopping....

As you can tell I'm bored at work :)

The Momentus XT drive doesn't need it enabled according this page.

www.overclockersclub.com

The solid state part of the drive is a 4GB SLC NAND flash module. Since the SSD portion of the drive is controlled by the hardware, the drive is platform independent and will function like any ordinary hard drive according to the operating system. This allows it to be used on any computer and OS without a decrease in performance or the need for special commands from the OS such as TRIM.

^ good to know, thanks

To run a command goto Applications\utilities\terminal then just copy and paste the code in.

for the spin down issue you need to install this..
mckinlay.net.nz

when I moved my drive to the caddy I had to edit this file /Library/LaunchDaemons/hdapm.plist
and change the caddy drive to disk1 from disk0 but I'm not sure if you run it the first time with the drive in the caddy it will automatically set it as disk1.

I contacted OWC tech support and this is what they said:

OWC Andy: [8:56:09 AM] Hello jason sckolnik, thanks for contacting OWC Technical Support. This is OWC Andy. How may I assist you?
jason sckolnik: [8:56:09 AM] I just bought your DIY Upgrade Bundle: 120GB Mercury Electra 6G Solid State Drive, OWC Express. I was told that TRIM will not be enabled by default. Is this something I need to change?
OWC Andy: [8:57:02 AM] No it is not. The Sandforce controller accomplishes the same thing but in a more efficient manner.
jason sckolnik: [9:02:31 AM] so I don't need to enable trim in the terminal command line? just install the drive and I'm good?
OWC Andy: [9:02:54 AM] Yes, that is correct.
jason sckolnik: [9:03:29 AM] Ok...thanks!!!

are they correct?

Ugh... I guess Im still new to Mac... I hope I don't mess any of this up lol!! Thanks for the help bobmatic!!!

*boabmatic*

Looks like this sand force controller reduces the need for TRIM, according to the second link

blog.macsales.com

www.anandtech.com

I wouldn't enable it acorrding to this post.

forums.macrumors.com

So from the looks of it... I should be good with my SSD drive. I just have to work on the 750gb drive then.

i got the Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT 1TB - i still got to back up everything and swap it into my external but im pretty happy for $107

i looked at the Momentous Hybrid and the Scorpio black - after reading the review i may have gone with the black instead but im planning on running vids so the extra space is good for me and then eventually prob thunderbolt in raid so ill be replacing all the drives anyway

If you havent yet done the install just watch the video on OWC's website and follow along its really easy.

I did watch the videos... very helpful. But I know someone that works on Macs and hes gonna just do the whole install and dub the drives foe $35. I would have too much anxiety doing it myself... lol

I feel you, I would do the same.