4200rpm versus 5400rpm

[Flashmaiden]

Hi,

I'm looking at getting the 17in 1.33ghz powerbook. Is there a big difference between the 4200rpm harddrive and the 5400 rpm??

I only seemed to be able to get the 5400rpm if i buy from apple directly. It's only a $125 upgrade but to buy extra memory from apple direct is very expensive. If I buy from another vendor, I save on memory but will lose the apple care protection if I upgrade the harddrive.

any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, :confused:

[tiktokfx]

Errr... I don't believe installing RAM yourself voids the warranty.

[Flashmaiden]

what i was considering doing was getting the other vendor to upgrade the harddrive. they will do it for $75 bucks but if they swap out the harddrives, i'll lose the apple care. i don't think the memory is an issue. the other vendor is just much cheaper on memory than apple.

thx

[virividox]

memory doesnt void the warranty

but i think the hard disk upgrade will void the warranty, unless you get an apple service center to do, but that defeats the purpose

[Flashmaiden]

i know that i will lose the warranty if i upgrade the harddrive through a vendor.

what i'm trying to figure out is if there is a big performance difference between the 4200rpm and the 5400rpm. Is it worth spending the extra money buying through apple... if i buy it through apple and upgrade the memory through apple it will cost $$$.

i can always buy the memory and install it myself... but is the faster harddrive going to make a big difference...

thanks! :confused:

[virividox]

yeah the performance is noticable, depending on what you do with ur computer, so if your work isnt that intensive 4200 will beokay but if you find yourself making videos doing lots of photoshop work maybe some audio prodcution the 5400 will help

[Flashmaiden]

thanks, yeah i will be doing video editing through and external harddrive most likely. and a lot of photoshop etc...

:)

[Phatpat]

I've got the standard 4200 and it performs perfectly fine for me. That probably doesn't help you compare...but just wanted to add my input.

[Flashmaiden]

thanks! it's fine for video too? ;)

[virividox]

well remember the speed of the data transfer between ur firewire drives and primary drives will be limited by how fast ur laptop hard drive spins, so it doenst matter how fast ur firewire drive is.

but 5400 is good enough for a mobile workstation, you may experience some lag, and i doubt real time renders will be smooth.

[Flashmaiden]

thanks for the advice... got me thinking even more!!

[zip]

Hey, if you don't mind I thought I would ask a question on this thread. Where can you find out which hard drive Apple sent you?

I bought a refub that came with more RAM than it was suppose. I've forgotten what it is called (don't have the pb in front of me right now), but I have looked where it says how many RAM chips and ports there is, but I don't see break down on hard drive. Thanks!

[tiktokfx]

You can always just stick with the stock 4200 RPM drive, and get a nice fast 3.5" 7200 RPM drive in an external FW case for the home/office.

[tiktokfx]

Originally posted by zip
Hey, if you don't mind I thought I would ask a question on this thread. Where can you find out which hard drive Apple sent you?

I bought a refub that came with more RAM than it was suppose. I've forgotten what it is called (don't have the pb in front of me right now), but I have looked where it says how many RAM chips and ports there is, but I don't see break down on hard drive. Thanks!

Apple System Profiler -> Devices

Selecting the hard drive will show you model information.

[virividox]

Originally posted by tiktokfx
You can always just stick with the stock 4200 RPM drive, and get a nice fast 3.5" 7200 RPM drive in an external FW case for the home/office.

it doesnt amtter how fast ur external is its still limited by the speed of the 4200 when transfering data to and from

[tiktokfx]

Originally posted by virividox
it doesnt amtter how fast ur external is its still limited by the speed of the 4200 when transfering data to and from

It doesn't matter how fast the 4200RPM drive is when you ARE NOT COPYING FILES TO IT.

Note that I did not say "use external drives to copy files to."

If video files are stored on an external hard drive, applications read them directly off the drive and do not transfer them to the internal drive first.

[tsk]

If you get another drive for the system, why not tuck the old one on the shelf and if you ever need a repair, just stick the old one back in and send it in.

[virividox]

Originally posted by tiktokfx
It doesn't matter how fast the 4200RPM drive is when you ARE NOT COPYING FILES TO IT.

Note that I did not say "use external drives to copy files to."

If video files are stored on an external hard drive, applications read them directly off the drive and do not transfer them to the internal drive first.

yeah but that doesnt take into account the scratch disk, by default its your primary drive, unless its set to the firewire drive then the data speed will drop because teh data will be processed on the internal

[tiktokfx]

Data is not written to swap space unless it's really really necessary, and when you run out of real RAM, using swap on any speed drive is going to be slow as molasses.

[virividox]

Originally posted by tiktokfx
Data is not written to swap space unless it's really really necessary, and when you run out of real RAM, using swap on any speed drive is going to be slow as molasses.

its going to be wrtiten to swap space because if you do video editing, 1 gig of ram cant handle that

[tiktokfx]

Ummmm.

If someone is doing video editing, then any speed swap drive is going to bottleneck paging memory in and out, no matter what RPM it is.

Getting an external 7200 RPM drive for storing work files on is not a bad idea.