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upgrading internal hard drive on early 2009 mini...

backinblack875

backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
ok so a few Q's about upgrading my internal hard drive on my mini. I'm planning on ordering either a 750GB or 1TB from OWC pretty soon but had a few Questions first....

1)What exactly does the RPM do?? is it the speed it transfers files?? is there really that big of a difference between 5400 and 7200??

2)Also what about the cache?? big difference between 8mb and 16mb???

3)How should i get all of my stuff from old HD to new HD?? i use time machine, should i just restore the new hard drive to a time machine backup???

thanks
 
M

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
1,665
406
1) the RPM is the rotations per minute of the disk. 7200RPM disks are faster. You can look at reviews of drives to see the differences in speed.

3) You could either restore from Time Machine or clone onto the new drive (e.g. using SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner)

What version of Mac OS X are you running?

I would suggest you ensure you have installed the firmware update to support 8GB (2x4GB) RAM and do a RAM upgrade at the same time. OWC links to info on how to check that you've done the firmware update.

Have you considered using a SSD or replacing the optical drive with a SSD (OWC has a special data doubler for the 2009 Mac Minis)? A SSD boot/apps disk and another disk for data would be great.
 
backinblack875

backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
mdgm said:
1) the RPM is the rotations per minute of the disk. 7200RPM disks are faster. You can look at reviews of drives to see the differences in speed.

3) You could either restore from Time Machine or clone onto the new drive (e.g. using SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner)

What version of Mac OS X are you running?

I would suggest you ensure you have installed the firmware update to support 8GB (2x4GB) RAM and do a RAM upgrade at the same time. OWC links to info on how to check that you've done the firmware update.

Have you considered using a SSD or replacing the optical drive with a SSD (OWC has a special data doubler for the 2009 Mac Minis)? A SSD boot/apps disk and another disk for data would be great.
Click to expand...

I'm running lion 10.7.1... I have already upgraded the RAM via OWC to 6GB, so yes i have that covered.

Nah, im gonna keep disc drive, i rip DVD's enough to keep it. i don't really need SSD either, just want more space for windows/iTunes media.
 
M

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
1,665
406
7200RPM will perhaps be a bit noisier, but it'll definitely be faster than a 5400RPM HDD. I would go with a 7200RPM HDD.
 
backinblack875

backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
mdgm said:
7200RPM will perhaps be a bit noisier, but it'll definitely be faster than a 5400RPM HDD. I would go with a 7200RPM HDD.
Click to expand...

in what ways does RPM make it faster?? everything?? or just the rate it transfers files?? will it help with running games at all??
 
M

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
1,665
406
The disk rotates faster so it should be faster at everything where disk speed is the bottleneck. As I said before look at reviews of different drives to get an idea of what the difference is.
 
philipma1957

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,365
251
Howell, New Jersey
the western digital 750gb scorpio black is the fastest 7200 rpm hdd. in long copies of large files or in fast access to small files.


samsung 1tb 5400 rpm hdd and western digital 1tb 5400 rpm hdds are faster in some cases. headroom affects hdd speed the more filled an hdd is the slower it gets. so both a samsung 1tb and a western digital 1tb become faster then the 750 scorpio black at about 600gb of info. if you fill your hdds up fast you might want the 1tb. here are links to the 3 hdds

western digital scorpio black 750gb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136835&Tpk=scorpio black 750gb

on sale use code emckakd24 89 bucks instead of 109

samsung 1tb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291


109

I can't find a western digital 1tb scorpio blue 9.5mm hight
 
backinblack875

backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
philipma1957 said:
the western digital 750gb scorpio black is the fastest 7200 rpm hdd. in long copies of large files or in fast access to small files.


samsung 1tb 5400 rpm hdd and western digital 1tb 5400 rpm hdds are faster in some cases. headroom affects hdd speed the more filled an hdd is the slower it gets. so both a samsung 1tb and a western digital 1tb become faster then the 750 scorpio black at about 600gb of info. if you fill your hdds up fast you might want the 1tb. here are links to the 3 hdds

western digital scorpio black 750gb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136835&Tpk=scorpio black 750gb

on sale use code emckakd24 89 bucks instead of 109

samsung 1tb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291


109

I can't find a western digital 1tb scorpio blue 9.5mm hight
Click to expand...

is the 750GB one apple specified though like the ones on OWC?

***i noticed in one of the reviews a mac user had a bad experience with mac os x with that drive. While that 750GB is more attractive price/performance wise, i think I'm gonna stick with OWC, since it's all up to apple's specs.

***i see a 640GB 7200rpm on owc i might go for....either that or 750GB 5400rpm....very torn
 
Last edited:
backinblack875

backinblack875

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 23, 2010
614
46
USA
ok pulling trigger on 640GB 7200rpm

by the time i outpace that, ill probably have gotten a new mac with bigger HD than that anyways so...thanks for help
 
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