I happened to be able to get a couple of the new Seagate Momentus 2.5″ 7200rpm 320GB laptop hard drives from PC Connection.
After a 20-minute upgrade following these instructions for replacing a MacBook Pro hard drive I ran xbench and below are the results, in case anyone cares.
A couple of tips:
- Don’t get the drives with G-shock if you’re an MBPro user
- No, there shouldn’t be any jumpers set on the drive.
| Xbench Version | 1.3 |
| System Version | 10.5.4 (9E17) |
| Physical RAM | 4096 MB |
| Model | MacBookPro3,1 |
| Drive Type | ST9320421AS |
|
Disk Test: 47.82 Sequential 96.43
Random 31.79
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Responses to “Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB (ST9320421AS)”
August 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
The MacBook Pro has a built-in “Sudden Motion Sensor” that disengages the drive heads in case of a fall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor
Battery life should really be about the same — hard drive usage is the same regardless of storage capacity. As for its power-efficiency itself, I would imagine it to be as good or better than older drives since these are designed for mobile computing.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Did the drive come with jumpers. I installed the drive but my dumba$$ forgot to look to see if there were jumpers.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I had the same question, as the smaller capacity drives I had in the past did have a jumper set. However, if I remember correctly, these 320’s had no jumpers out of the box.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:13 am
Hi - just discovered this post in a google for “macbook pro ST9320421AS” - turns out you’re Rails developers, too!
How do you determine which drives come with the G-shock? I was going to order a ST9320421AS from Amazon (as seen here; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-OEM-ST9320421AS-MOMENTUS-Notebook/dp/B001IKKCHW/ref=cm_cr-mr-title) but I’m worried about getting one with G-shock; does it make the drive completely incompatible with an MBP?
March 11th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
The MacBook Pro has a built-in “Sudden Motion Sensor” that disengages the drive h4ads in case of a fall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor
Battery life should realky be about the same — hard drive usage is the same regardless of storage capacity. As for its power-efficiency itself, I would imagine it to be as good or better than older drives since these are designed for mobile computing.;
August 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Hey,
Thanks for the post. Glad to know it works.
I was wondering why you suggested not to get G shock.
Also did you notice any battery life differences?