# Great Deal on HDD for Macbook and Macbook Pro at Costco



## speed300km (Feb 4, 2005)

This Western Digital SATA Laptop is absolutely an amazing deal for Macbook and Macbook Pro upgrades. It even comes with an usb external case, so you can swap your existing harddrive to use it for back up.
Really easy to swap.
Highly recommended.

Descriptions:
The Western Digital® WD Passport™ portable 120 Gb external hard drive is an ultra-portable, yet very stylish drive that provides excellent performance for both PC and Mac®. It is light, rugged and does not require an external power adapter. It is ideal for getting your files from point A to point B safely and the USB 2.0 high-speed connection will handle MP3s, photos and DVD creations.

Features:

Hi-speed USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 compatible)
Up to 480 Mbits/s transfer rate
5,400 RPM
12 ms seek time
Bus powered
No driver required
Plug-and-play
PC and Mac® compatible
What’s Included:

120 Gb WD Passport™ portable drive
USB cable
Quick install guide

http://www.costco.ca/en-CA/Browse/P...l_CNEmail_EN_99


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## Another_Paul (Sep 20, 2005)

The page cannot be found ?


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## Fox (Oct 4, 2002)

Staples had this same drive on sale last week. What I don't like about it is that you can't (at least I couldn't) get the full set of specs on the included drive. In particular, these external deals often include drives with only a 2 meg cache, and interestingly enough, when you go to look up the specs on WD's website, there is no spec provided on the cache. I also wondered whether the case can be easily opened and the drive easily changed.


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## Hodge (Feb 2, 2007)

From what I understand, some of these are SATA while others are ATA but as the poster above said, there's no way to tell from the packaging.

It looks like the drive is no longer on the costco.ca website, but I have seen them in store as recently as last weekend...


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

What happens to your warranty if you install this drive in a MBP? My 80 G is far too small for my basic use and I could use a much bigger drive.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

SINC said:


> What happens to your warranty if you install this drive in a MBP? My 80 G is far too small for my basic use and I could use a much bigger drive.


If you install it yourself, and leave no evidence of internal tampering (somewhat unlikely, unless you're very technically inclined and can remember exactly where everything goes back), your warranty will still be set in stone. If, however, you break a component part-way through, your warranty then grows wings and flies away.  If you have an AASP install it, your warranty will definitely stay intact, but of course, AppleCare warranty will not cover a third-party hard drive, if it were to fail during your AppleCare coverage period -- nor will it cover the labor involved to replace it a second time.


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## ericssonboi (Jan 26, 2005)

Whats the price at Costco?


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## archimed (Jan 10, 2007)

Price is $110 at Costco, $120 online. Not a bad deal at all. I bought one of these drives, and I love it. I archived all of my Windows games on it, and when I boot camp to XP I can play pretty much anything I want.

The hard disk inside is apparently (usually) a western digital scorpion SATA. It's fast, and it's as good as the drive supplied in the stock MBP C2D 2.13

Read this thread for swap tips:
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397435&highlight=western+passport


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

I tried three of these and all were ATA and not SATA. I gave up after that and got one for $110 on ncix.com

Good Luck,
D


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## speed300km (Feb 4, 2005)

This is intresting,
All 3 hard drives that I've brought from Costco on Mavis Rd. in Mississauga were SATA drive and were used for Macbook upgrade....
I wonder if they are slowly replacing the IDE model with the SATA drives a batch at a time..


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## archimed (Jan 10, 2007)

I was told that everything at Costco was SATA - correct me if I'm wrong. Staples and other retailers only carried the ATA editions.


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## Digital_Gary (Sep 18, 2003)

One word of caution for Macbook Pro users. 

I had a customer bring in his MBP 15" and one of the WD External USB 120GB drives. He asked if we could pull the WD 120GB and install it in the MBP. When we looked at the drive, there is a vent hole that would be covered by a cable when put internally. Not a good idea.

Seems okay for a Macbook since it installs in a different place with nothing covering the vent.


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

archimed said:


> I was told that everything at Costco was SATA - correct me if I'm wrong. Staples and other retailers only carried the ATA editions.


As was stated before, maybe they are rotating out the IDE stock slowly. I bought 3 at Costco here in St. John's and when I pugged them in and researched the model numbers given is system profiler, they were all IDE.

D


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## TheBat (Feb 11, 2005)

*What is IDE, SATA?*

I wondered what IDE and SATA are. For anyone else with this lack of knowledge, I found this link.


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## satchmo (May 26, 2005)

Can you visually tell from outside the package as to whether it's SATA or ATA? Or do you have to crack it open to find out?


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

You have to plug it in and find the serial in System Profiler.....or you can crack it and check the connector


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