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Hitachi 250/5400 vs 200/7200 Traverlstar HDD

Agurri

Agurri

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Hi guys,

I'm in the market for a HDD for my Macbook since my 80gb is just too small. I was looking on the OWC website and I saw these two models

250gb 5400 version
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A53329/

200gb 7200 version
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A50940/

So I would like to know any advices or opinions on either drive... if I should go with more capacity or faster harddrive. Also, something different on drives is the cache(16mb on the 200gb and 8mb on the 250gb). Is this going to make a real difference ?

Thanks in advance for any advices. 🙂
 
Well, the 200 will be faster, but if you're anything like me it's capacity you really need...

Personally, I'll be going for the 250 in a couple of weeks =]
 
I have the 250GB 5400rpm drive... I love it. Once in a while, it does make a slight clicking sound when reading (usually when reading/writing simultaneously), but it is plenty fast for doing video editing (of course, there is always faster), and with 250GB in my MBP... Im a very happy camper. Cant speak to the 200GB 7200rpm model... but Hitachi drives were recommended to me by 3 Apple employees & techs.
 
I'd choose the 200GB 7200rpm drive, no question about it.

50GB is nothing -- for the price, I'd rather have the speed.

If you need real storage, 3.5" drives have a much better price/GB ratio. The current 'sweet spot' is 500GB drives, which can be had for a mere ~$110.
 
If you are only using it for running your word processor, e-mail, and such, then sure save some money and go with the 5400.

But, if you will be working with video, or doing anything where a little delay might be annoying, then go with the 7200.

The faster drives are particularly important if you want to capture video from a camera and minimize the number of frames you drop / lose during import.

Of course, the faster interface (as in SATA) and faster speed (as in 7200) are a preferred combination.
 
Yeah, I know the 500gb are damn nice. But what I need in my current laptop is big internal storage. Since I have a nice music library (20gb), since I have a Windows XP, Win95 and Linux VMs, my small 80gb just doesn't cut it. And more.. I would like to have a dedicated partition for Windows .... The 50gb difference between both can be solved by using my current 80gb as a external drive.... that would be nice. Another question is coming to my mind to... is there a big difference between 8mb and 16mb of cache on the HDD ?

Oliver.
 
Agurri said:
Yeah, I know the 500gb are damn nice. But what I need in my current laptop is big internal storage. Since I have a nice music library (20gb), since I have a Windows XP, Win95 and Linux VMs, my small 80gb just doesn't cut it. And more.. I would like to have a dedicated partition for Windows .... The 50gb difference between both can be solved by using my current 80gb as a external drive.... that would be nice. Another question is coming to my mind to... is there a big difference between 8mb and 16mb of cache on the HDD ?

Oliver.
Click to expand...

The cache is used to boost data transfer speed. Larger is better.

Many (if not Most) drives use an intelligent guessing system to predict which what you'll need next based on your previous usage (they are very accurate). If it guesses right, then you'll retrieve it from the cache. If not, you'll pull it from the drive.

The caches also store recently accessed items for immediate re-use. So, they help there.

Ideally, you want a fast interface (SATA), Fast drive (7200 R.P.M. or faster), and a large cache (as large as you can get).
 
I also got the 200GB 7200RPM Travelstar. I am loving it so far. I also agree that the speed is more valuable than the space.
 
Yes, I got the 7K2 200 GB Travelstar, too, and I love it. Much more improvement in performance than I expected.
 
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