#APPLE SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE LAPTOP MAC#

But a $40 external enclosure can keep your old drive going as a вЂњjust in caseвЂќ backup, or let you choose the specificВ brand new internal drive you want from a great manufacturer.

#APPLE SOLID STATE HARD DRIVE LAPTOP MAC#

In short, if youвЂ™re pulling a hard drive out of a three- to five-year-old Mac thatвЂ™s been left powered on for most of its life, you might be better off disposing of it rather than continuing to use it until it fails. This year, Backblaze updated its findings with new failure statistics, noting that it now has overВ 41,000 drives in use.В It foundВ thatВ SeagateвЂ™sВ latest 4TB drives are much better than onesВ it previously tested -В still about twice asВ failure-prone than Hitachi GST drives, but not 20 times worse (like SeagateвЂ™s 3TB drives).В Western Digital and Hitachi GST drives otherwise remained excellent. ComparingВ Seagate, Hitachi GST, and Western Digital disks of various capacities, Backblaze found that Hitachi GSTвЂ™s drives had the lowest failure rate at any capacity, followed closely by Western Digital, with Seagate ranking a very distant third.В вЂњIf the price were right,вЂќ Backblaze said, вЂњwe would be buying nothing but Hitachi drives.вЂќД«ut nothingвЂ™s set in stone: Western Digital now owns Hitachi GST, and Seagate has been working to improve the reliability of its drives. With over 27,000 drivesВ on hand, Backblaze last year publishedВ theВ most comprehensive independent test results IвЂ™ve seen for consumer-grade hard drives. Hard drives arenвЂ™t all created equal, and they arenвЂ™t built to last forever: good drives typically last for around threeВ years of very active use, and great ones for five years. Without a computer or another enclosure surrounding them, theseВ hard drives are called вЂњinternal hard drives.вЂќ TheyвЂ™re small metal boxes akin toВ old-fashioned record players, withВ one or more spinning disks (вЂњplattersвЂќ) that get accessedВ by a вЂњ read/write headвЂќ (shown above).

The vast majority of Macs in homes have mechanical hard drives (rather than chip-based SSDs) inside. Photo credit Eric Gaba, Wikimedia Commons user Sting A Quick Primer On Internal Hard Drives

Apple solid state hard drive laptop