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5400rpm or 7200rpm upgrade?

jgbhardy

jgbhardy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
287
0
England
I have been considering for a long time in upgrading myHDD to increase size, but now i have found two HDDs one is 320GB WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm for £50, the other is a 320GB Hitachi Travelstar™ 7K320 7200rpm HDD for £63.
I'm wondering if it is worth the extra £13 for the 7200rpm in terms of boot speed and general loading times, I have read through the specifications on both but am still not sure whether it is best.
This upgrade is for a 2.4GHz White Macbook which is currently using a Travelstar 5K160 5400rpm 160GB.
So far i have seen that the WD uses 2.5W for Read/write and the Hitachi uses 1.8W for Read/write.
Thanks
 
E

elfxmilhouse

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2008
606
144
Northeast USA
jgbhardy said:
I have been considering for a long time in upgrading myHDD to increase size, but now i have found two HDDs one is 320GB WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm for £50, the other is a 320GB Hitachi Travelstar™ 7K320 7200rpm HDD for £63.
I'm wondering if it is worth the extra £13 for the 7200rpm in terms of boot speed and general loading times, I have read through the specifications on both but am still not sure whether it is best.
This upgrade is for a 2.4GHz White Macbook which is currently using a Travelstar 5K160 5400rpm 160GB.
So far i have seen that the WD uses 2.5W for Read/write and the Hitachi uses 1.8W for Read/write.
Thanks
Click to expand...

you will definitely feel the speed increase with the 7200 drive.
however you will also notice a slight increase in noise. not really a big issue for most but it is there.

ive heard good things about both drives so i really dont think you can go wrong since you mentioned you wanted to upgrade for HD size.
 
jgbhardy

jgbhardy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
287
0
England
elfxmilhouse said:
you will definitely feel the speed increase with the 7200 drive.
however you will also notice a slight increase in noise. not really a big issue for most but it is there.

ive heard good things about both drives so i really dont think you can go wrong since you mentioned you wanted to upgrade for HD size.
Click to expand...

Do you know as to how much the 7200rpm drive will affect battery life as i do tend to use my macbook on the move a lot, so battery life is important but speed is always something useful.
 
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