Question: The Mac Pro has a specific hard drive for sale in the Apple Store for $549.00. ?The drive has the following specs:
- Serial ATA
- 3GB per second
- 7200 RPM
Amazon has a hard drive with the same specs for $169.99.
The only difference I can tell is that the Apple hard drive label says it has “Apple HDD Firmware”. ?What exactly is the benefit of this firmware and is there something I am missing that make up for the price difference in these two drives?
Update: ?My initial comparison between the two drive was unfair. ?Apparently 2TB drives that are 3 GB/S and 7200 RPM are quiet a bit more than $169.99. ?Dell has a ?2 TB SATA Caviar Black from Western Digital that is $319.99, which is closer to Apple’s price.
Answer: Ususall they are stock drives (I know folks who have replaced drives in MacBoo/Pro and I have replaced iMac drives). ?This link also suggests this is possible with the Mac/Pro. ?
I personally once had a problem with replacing a drive in a Lenovo laptop, because there Lenovo used a Hitachi drive with a specific BIOS extension (in that case a drive bios to handle phyiscal shock situations), but I never heard of such a thing with Apple, and I have followed the Apple support forums for months last year.
In any case, jump over to the Apple Support forum … folks there are very helpful about such questions.
With the original drive you may just pay for a sticker or a bit of extra quality assurance. ?I know of one maker of SSDs who sells the very same drive with an “Apple ready” sticker for a few extra bucks.
(Also about your update: The Apple drive could very likely be a Caviar Black, they put ?those in the upscale iMacs too).