Hard Drive Selection

[sneezy]

A newbie here. I was going with the CustoMac mATX list. As of May, 2015, I noticed that there is always one drive that is recommended, the Seagate Barracida 1TB.

I decided not to go with the SSD option, so this will be my boot drive. I have always considered a drive to be a drive (warranty, drive speed and throughput being equal). Is there any compatibility (most important) or efficiency reason to stick with this recommended model?

Amazon reports that there is a newer model from Seagate: 1 TB SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB. Any reason to not go with that? Or how about a similar WD model 1 TB 6 GB/s 64 MB?

Both have a larger cache than the recommended Seagate with the same throughput. Both are less expensive and have free shipping vs. the recommended model.

Seems like a no-brainer to me, but I have never done this before.

 

[MacZach94]

It's just an all around average pick for a HDD. Yours that you are looking at will do just fine, any HDD will do fine really. its just ssd's that are picky.

 

[trs96]

You'll likely have to fix a Boot0 when using those 1TB alternate drives. It's an easy
fix so yes, you can use those if you just do some research to learn how to fix that
error when it comes up.

 

[sneezy]

Not being versed in mucking around in the programming, and hoping to do this via the 'cookbook' instructions, I would like to avoid having "to fix a Boot0". I would rather select a drive that avoids doing this step - unless the process is really easy.

So are you saying that any drive other than the specified Seagate Barracuda 1TB may require me to do some extra work? Will that newer model Seagate be OK?

 

[Going Bald]

Not being versed in mucking around in the programming, and hoping to do this via the 'cookbook' instructions, I would like to avoid having "to fix a Boot0". I would rather select a drive that avoids doing this step - unless the process is really easy.

So are you saying that any drive other than the specified Seagate Barracuda 1TB may require me to do some extra work? Will that newer model Seagate be OK?

Seagates are OK, Hitachi drives are OK, Western Digital Black 7200 RPM drives are OK, WD Velociraptors are good boot drives, Toshiba drives are OK.

The problem drives are those like the WD Blue and WD Green drives that have "power saving" firmware and the hybrid ssd/hdd drives. These drives make it hard to install the boot files in the MBE and PBR due to the firmware.
If you are using them for storage only then there is no problem, but stay away from the hybrid SSD/platter drives - they are mostly not suitable as storage drives.

 

[sneezy]

You'll likely have to fix a Boot0 when using those 1TB alternate drives. It's an easy
fix so yes, you can use those if you just do some research to learn how to fix that
error when it comes up.

Now I see the Boot0 thread. It looks like an easy fix with option #1. But a lot of people have trouble with that option. Option #2 looks simple, but I do not have an external empty hard drive shell to slap the new Hackintosh boot drive into.

Still trying to figure out what to do. I leave my Mac asleep, so a fast boot is not that interesting to me. Would prefer to just use the internal HD.

Do all the 1TB drives have the Boot0 issue?

 

[trs96]

Now I see the Boot0 thread. It looks like an easy fix with option #1. But a lot of people have trouble with that option. Option #2 looks simple, but I do not have an external empty hard drive shell to slap the new Hackintosh boot drive into.

Still trying to figure out what to do. I leave my Mac asleep, so a fast boot is not that interesting to me. Would prefer to just use the internal HD.

Do all the 1TB drives have the Boot0 issue?

http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#System_Drives

 

[sneezy]

http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#System_Drives

Thanks, but does not answer my original question - perhaps I am being dense:

From my first post: "Is there any compatibility (most important) or efficiency reason to stick with this recommended model?"

The general consensus of answers seemed to be, 'any will be OK'. "It's just an all around average pick for a HDD. Yours that you are looking at will do just fine, any HDD will do fine really. its just ssd's that are picky."

But then the Boot0 issue was raised.

If your link above back to what instigated my question is the short way of saying, 'all drives except these Seagate Barracuda 1 TB will have to have the Boot0 fix', then that is not obvious to me.

One of the issues that a newbie like me has is figuring out what must be obvious to those of you who are experienced in this process.

Thanks.

 

[sneezy]

Now that I know a little more about this topic:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#System_Drives

These are the recommended system / boot drives. Am I to assume that none of these have the boot(0) issues and can be used as is?

Do other manufacturers such as WD and Seagate have the boot(0) issue with 1 TB drives? Or is this unknown / untested?

 

[SnowLion]

Boot0 is incredibly easy. Just follow the instructions in the guide and type it into terminal exactly like it says to, and you won't have any problems.

Trust me, I use a 2TB Seagate Barracuda and it had the boot0 problem. I didn't know what to do, so I came back to the forums and said, "hey I'm getting some weird boot0 error". And then somebody said "read the guide. [link]". And then I did it. It was easy. Don't sweat it.