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Best internal hard drive for my Mac Pro

Hello, I'm looking to get the quietest and most efficient internal hard drive for my Mac Pro. I've been using Western Digital drives for years but I'm wondering how Seagate or one of the other manufacturers stands up. I want at least a 2Tb internal hard drive, maybe even a 3Tb. I need large amounts storage and fast search times so I cannot use the SSD, not until they grow to at least 2Tbs in size. I use the SSDs for my start-up drives. I do not want a hybrid and it cannot cycle down like one of those green drives as I record music and it needs to be online and available at all times. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR23 FB

Posted on May 30, 2015 8:31 PM

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11 replies

May 31, 2015 5:28 AM in response to rosindabow

You don 't need all your system AND data on one drive, just need the system.

An XP941 or SM951 or ebay an Apple PCIe-SSD blade - and Lycom adapter (what I am using)

Then get 256GB up to 1TB blade


Put all your data on one or more HGST 4TB or larger drive(s) and you can even stripe if you want.

Use SoftRAID 5 to manage your drive volumes.


That is top notch and fast. Blade SSD devices offer same or faster than the Mac Pro 6,1 2013 1100-1500MB/sec

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=21382183#post21382183

May 31, 2015 5:32 AM in response to rosindabow

SM951 or OEM Apple 1TB or even 512GB blade PCIe-SSD


That goes in PCIe slot with $25 Lycom adapter


4-6TB HGST 7.2k drive(s) and you can stripe if you want and use up to 4 along with SSD


There is no need to have everything on the boot drive, not even a good idea.


You can put audio tracks on a separate SSD (or Lightroom or anything desired)


But system? rarely needs 500GB (more than 256GB) as only bare minimum user account (library) would be on boot drive.

May 31, 2015 9:03 AM in response to The hatter

To clarify, I have my system on my 1Tb SSD. I have 3 other 2TB drives inside my computer and another 7 (varying sizes) attached via a Nitro AV Firewire 800 hub. I also have some more drives attached via a Firewire 400 hub. I choose not to use a RAID - I've tried it a number of times and it just does not work for me. I'm just looking to get the fastest and quietest 3Tb or larger bare hard drives. All of these hard drives then need to have backup drives and right now I have a mirrored clone for each hard drive and I use Super Super to do the file management. Also, I use OWC hard drive cases that have no fans and work brilliantly for my setup. SO - I'm just looking to upgrade the size and speed and quiet of the drives, I do not want or need to change my set up.

Thanks.

May 31, 2015 9:16 AM in response to rosindabow

If you are happy enough with WD drives, go ahead and use them, as they will be familiar. All manufacturers have some problems with some of their drives, and as you know, drives do not last forever and can fail suddenly.


Some drives, especially those OVER 3TB have problems with reduced screw depth in the screw holes adjacent to the platters. Newest large drives may have these screw holes moved to a new location (but OWC/Macsales sells a new style Internal Drive sled for 2009 and later Mac Pro that works for the new screw holes location).


Internal Drives over 2.2TB may suffer from a bug in Disk Utility ERASE in 10.8.4 and later. ERASE creates a Logical Volume Group on such drives, and the rest of Disk Utility does not understand what to do with that.

May 31, 2015 9:28 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

HI - thanks for the quick reply. I had heard that 2Tb was the perfect size - to be clear - should I limit my internal drives inside the Mac Pro to 2Tb? Can I still use the 3Tb in my OWC external cases? I wouldn't need to go any bigger than 3Tb for the external cases unless I knew that they were as efficient and as quiet as the 2Tb drives. And last question, do you know anything about noise level? I have looked at the specs but they seem to be misleading because there is a physical search noise as well as just the overall sound of the platters spinning. That's why I as wondering if any of the other companies offered a better-built, quieter drive. Thanks.

May 31, 2015 11:30 AM in response to rosindabow

should I limit my internal drives inside the Mac Pro to 2Tb?

I cannot fathom why there should be anything to such a rumor. Use the size(s) you prefer.


Take the published ambient noise specs at face value. The tiny additional sounds from seeking at these sizes are not very large.


I have not heard that there are any clear winners or obvious dogs in large sized drives. Use the ones you like.


Do not pay extra for rotating drives with SATA III over SATA II -- it is all just specsmanship. Use cache size as a tie-breaker if all other specs seem about equal.

May 31, 2015 11:45 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Check out http://www.macperformaceguide.com


He punishes drives, short-strokes 4TB drives to use half so gets faster tracks, keeps seeks reduced and higher density drives are faster.


(I would never buy "last decade" spec'd drives or anything else unless it was a total compatibility issue, which it isn't)


StorageReview is one of the most trusted sites


PCIe-SSD blades "do some serious kick butt" and transform a Classic Mac into post-6,1 performance and fluid - highest level of performance.

There are 2TB blades for $1500. First 500GB SSD was same price once. They do need PCIe 3.0 to get the 2200MB/sec speed.

So it is possible today to use two 1TB blades (slots 2&3)


No reason to have bad experience with raid.

Best internal hard drive for my Mac Pro

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