"Re: My Black 2.4ghz MacBook's drive upgrades.
Following on from my installation of the 640gb WD Scorpio Blue, WD have now released a 9.5mm 750gb Scorpio Blue, so I bought one and fitted it.
So far, (three days) so good. For installation, the original drive was placed in a USB2 enclosure, the new drive fitted to the MacBook, and it all booted via the 10.6 install disk - when booted disk utility was used to restore the original drive onto the new drive. (Restore tab of Disk Utility allows cloning entire drives)
In operation the drive is all but silent, with no clicks or clonks audible in use. The machine sleeps and awakes as normal.
(I asked if the WD drive had a built-in shock sensor (couldn't recall the suffix letters that used to denote that) since per the ASP info apple SMS was also enabled. (Normally I'd disable apple SMS if the drive has its own Shock/Drop Sensor.) Also asked about performance.-Mike)
I honestly do not know for certain, the WD7500BPVT is from the WD Scorpio Blue "SATA 3 Gb/s w/AdvFormat" range of drives, which are all specified as "Reliable and rugged - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks".
Moving on, in the highly (un)scientific dock 'bumps' test for example, Mail starts in two bumps, where it took six beforehand - I can make no claims as to knowing why the drive is quicker than my previously reported 640gb example, except perhaps to guess that the more compactly located data tracks of the new drive enable faster accessing? (thinner height usually means denser (fewer) platters so sustained performance may be higher.)
I was expecting no performance improvements to be felt from the upgrade, the 640gb drive still had 190gb free so was far from being fragmented and packed, but nonetheless the BlackBook is noticeably quicker in use - browsing, compiling sourcecode, operating as a DLNA server for my widescreen TV etc. Unlike many people, my MacBook is my primary machine, called on to perform all tasks anywhere, so consequently I'm using it day in, day out and any speed ups and slow downs become obvious very quickly.
Incidentally I did have an 80gb Windows 7 Boot Camp partition on the old drive that was expanded to a 90gb partition on the new drive, I just used Boot Camp Assistant, followed by WinClone with all default settings to perform the transfer - what a great piece of software! and free/donation-ware too! The drive behaves impeccably in W7 too, allowing all power management to operate as it should (Ahem! Not that I could ever be seen to be using or endorsing Windows you understand? :-) )
Best regards, Robert D.
Model Identifier: MacBook4,1 (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM)
Boot ROM Version: MB41.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.31f0
Sudden Motion Sensor State: Enabled
WDC WD7500BPVT-22HXZT1:
Capacity: 750.16 GB (750,156,374,016 bytes)
Model: WDC WD7500BPVT-22HXZT1
Revision: 01.01A01
Serial Number: WD-WX51A504****
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Rotational Rate: 5400
Medium Type: Rotational
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified"
