Is the HDD 5400 so terrible ?

Maccotto said:

Hi guys.i will take a mac mini but into web ppl go directly into ssd .
I have economy problem to buy gb ram and ssd after 800€ for mini . I want know is the hdd 5400 more bad then normal hdd and ssd .
Wha are the really problem with this hdd ?

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When you say "normal" hdd alot of laptops still come with 5400's as standard (including the base model macbook pro) they are perfectly usable.

Given the choice i'm sure you would prefer or faster HD or even an SSD, but look at it this way. I'm going to take a guess that if you drive whatever you currently have isnt as fast as a Porcshe? Everyone wants a fast car, but that doesn't mean your every day Ford is a bad car, it still does the job of getting you from A to B.

You can defiantly tell a difference between HDDs and SSDs, but i use both and the difference isnt as jarring as you might think. I'd consider myself a "power user" but i have a new mini with a 5400HDD, its just as usable as my Windows 8 device at work with an ssd. I just find that applications take a second or two longer to open, or it doesnt boot up quite as fast etc.

Maccotto said:

Thx .
Yeah i don t want ssd (i have installed into my pc windows and is very fast) but my fear was the 5400 because every site review it as a very slow and bad hdd .
The important is that i can read video and office files without wait eternity .

But between ( so i can understand bdtter) 5400 and 7200 rpm : is it a really difference?

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Good question. Due to the faster rotation of a 7200rpm drive they do have faster seek times when benchmarking, but in my experience they don't always feel faster in use.

For example; My last mac was a late 09 iMac with a 7200rpm drive, however my late '12 Mini with a 5400rpm drive feels much more responsive when opening applications/files. I was in a similar scenario as yourself, I needed a new mac but was on a budget and was worried about "trading" down to a slower drive. Especially after reading lots of forum posts and reviews!

Trust me, if you are mainly working on office documents & watching video files the only thing you may notice is when you open an application it may bounce in the Dock for a second before opening up

I was impressed with the read/write of the 1TB 5400 RPM drive that came with my 2012 mini. A little over 100 MB/s read/write. Compared to my 2007 MacBook which had 30 MB/s and it was a 5400 drive as well. So hard drives are improving as time goes on. It still doesn't come close to the 400 MB/s for an SSD but for everyday use the 5400 Disk that comes stock works just fine. There is no problems using one.

COrocket said:

I was impressed with the read/write of the 1TB 5400 RPM drive that came with my 2012 mini. A little over 100 MB/s read/write.

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Yep sounds the same as the 500GB model that ships in the base Mini 🙂