Yes you can, as long as the new hard drive is a standard 2.5" SATA drive then you can upgrade the capacity and the rpm. If you want large and fast then you should get a 750GB 7200 rpm hard drive. You are right, those companies are among the top brands. A good place to look for hard drive is OWC. A link to a list of compatible 7200 RPM hard drives can be found here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-driv...

and 5400 RPM here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-driv...

and a wide variety can be found here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-driv...

Hope this Helps