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5400 vs. 7200 vs. SSD Question & Obtibay

A

aoaaron

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 4, 2010
468
44
I'm ordering my MBP in about 12 hours time and I'm not sure which route to go down. I am ordering a 2.2ghz 15'' AG.

I have 50GB of music, I want to install OSX and Windows 7. I have 1000GB of videos but they don't need to all be on the laptop.

Do I go for:
a) 750GB @5200RPM
b) 500GB @7200RPM
c) Apple SSD 128GB (for £80)

I was leaning towards the SSD and having a USB harddrive but in reality, does having all my stuff stored on an external USB drive defeat the purpose of having an SSD?

Does an optibay void your warantee? I would consider this if it didn't mess with my apple care.
 
Are you buying the SSD from apple? Because that means your getting ripped off.
As you may know, apple over prices their SSDs.
Its cheaper to get it from a different company and put it in on your own.

Although if you have the money, you should get the SSD.
Depending on what you use, pick the size.
A lot of movies, big files, etc means more space so go for the 512GB.
If just for job and like couple of files, smaller SSD size.

But never get the 750GB 5400.
It is SLOW.
I chose the 500GB 7200rpm and challenged my friend (same MBP 2.2 i7 4GB) with the 5400rpm and he did not stand a chance.
All you lose is 250GB of space and you gain more speed on bootup, restart, read and write.

Also, if I were you I would buy the 500GB 7200.
The Win 7 partition will take a lot of space. It takes up 5GB just for Win7 so you cant use that 5GB.
And 50GB of music is alot. Lets say you chose 40GB for Win 7.
Thats already 90GB. If you have the SSD, you only have 30GB left (since OS X takes up some of your HD space)
 
I thought the 128GB apple SSD was decently priced (500GB @7200RPM + £80).

I cannot afford a bigger SSD which is where the problem lies.

Are you serious on the 5400 vs. 7200? I've looked up a few youtube videos and the difference seems to be seconds between the two?
 
aoaaron said:
I thought the 128GB apple SSD was decently priced (500GB @7200RPM + £80).

I cannot afford a bigger SSD which is where the problem lies.

Are you serious on the 5400 vs. 7200? I've looked up a few youtube videos and the difference seems to be seconds between the two?
Click to expand...

They take money for 7200rpm HDD?
Because here in the US, the 750GB and 500GB are not priced at all. you get to pick.
Actually the video you have seen may depend on how much HDD space they used. Also like what they set up for the bootup applications.
Since my friend and I got the MBP on the same day we did the first bootup (which took nearly 30sec) and then a installed bootup with 490GB of space (my friend was 740GB). And yes i clearly beat him buy atleast 5 sec.
And its not just bootup. but reading and writing. So if I transfer something from the flashdrive or burn discs, 7200 is waayyy faster since the rpm is faster.
 
yusukeaoki said:
Are you buying the SSD from apple? Because that means your getting ripped off.
As you may know, apple over prices their SSDs.
Its cheaper to get it from a different company and put it in on your own.

Although if you have the money, you should get the SSD.
Depending on what you use, pick the size.
A lot of movies, big files, etc means more space so go for the 512GB.
If just for job and like couple of files, smaller SSD size.

But never get the 750GB 5400.
It is SLOW.
I chose the 500GB 7200rpm and challenged my friend (same MBP 2.2 i7 4GB) with the 5400rpm and he did not stand a chance.
All you lose is 250GB of space and you gain more speed on bootup, restart, read and write.

Also, if I were you I would buy the 500GB 7200.
The Win 7 partition will take a lot of space. It takes up 5GB just for Win7 so you cant use that 5GB.
And 50GB of music is alot. Lets say you chose 40GB for Win 7.
Thats already 90GB. If you have the SSD, you only have 30GB left (since OS X takes up some of your HD space)
Click to expand...

Apple SSDs may be over priced, but when purchasing a 15" MBP, they are only an extra $100, show me a 128GB SSD for $100.
 
Macsavvytech said:
Apple SSDs may be over priced, but when purchasing a 15" MBP, they are only an extra $100, show me a 128GB SSD for $100.
Click to expand...

Although as he says, he wants Win 7 and 50GB of music installed. That isnt enough for only 128GB.
I see, in my opinion i couldnt withstand with only 128GB of space.
So if I was going to buy an SSD, I would only look at the 512GB or a different company with bigger space.
 
yusukeaoki said:
7200 is waayyy faster since the rpm is faster.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. Number of platters and platter density play a big part in determining actual performance. Fewer platters and a denser platter at lower RPMs will yield the same or better performance than more platters with lower density and higher speeds. Speeds aren't the only determining factors when it comes to performance.
 
I got a 15" 2.2 Hi-Res AG... and went for the 128GB SSD.

I added a WD 750GB Scorpio Black 7200RPM HDD in the optibay with one of those OWC data doubler frames. (The OWC units are kind of expensive, but very well built.)

I have a 60GB windows 7 partition on the SSD alongside OSX (Boot/Apps/Users).

I put the iTunes/iPhoto libraries on the HDD.

The stock SSD might not be one of the new SATAIII drives that everyone is buzzing about, but it's danged fast. Love that Win7 stuff is instantaneous. (I use SQL server, and Visual Studio stuff, as well as office apps/Outlook.)

If need be, down the road, I'll replace the stock SSD with one of the SATAIII units when they come down in price.

Wonderful machine.
 
this is soooo annoying. i dont think im upto installed an obtibay and messing up my warantee because i've broke/burnout my last 4 laptops. lol.
 
aoaaron said:
this is soooo annoying. i dont think im upto installed an obtibay and messing up my warantee because i've broke/burnout my last 4 laptops. lol.
Click to expand...

I'd never done anything like it before, but there's a vid on the OWC site that walks you through it. Keeping the small screws organized is the only challenge. Super easy.

Take your time and you'll have no problems.
 
my 750Gb/5400 rpm drive vibrates like a MOFO and makes annoying clicking sounds if you move the laptop even the slightest.

I would not recommend this drive.
 
aoaaron said:
I thought the 128GB apple SSD was decently priced (500GB @7200RPM + £80).

I cannot afford a bigger SSD which is where the problem lies.

Are you serious on the 5400 vs. 7200? I've looked up a few youtube videos and the difference seems to be seconds between the two?
Click to expand...

I've owned many, many hard drives, and the higher RPM drives are just slightly faster. Get the Apple SSD. Even a mediocre SDD will be light years faster than any HDD. For $100 it's a no brainer.
 
ic. its just my music collection is like 60GB (just chcked) and i want a windows + OSX partition.

right now i just dont think the space is available. the only thing i can come up with is having a firewire/usb external harddrive (which i'll probably get anyway) and hooking them up. any thoughts on this?
 
There's no need to put either the music or videos on the SSD. They don't require fast access times, and take a lot of space.

The best thing would be to have BOTH an SSD and a hard drive.

Dunno if those doubler arrangements mean you have to remove the optical drive?

I just put in an 80GB optical drive on my Linux system, and it screams. It has the / and /var and /home filesystems. I have a 1TB SATA drive that I mount on /Media and /Backup. I use a tmpfs for /tmp. All the filesystems are ext4 on LVM2. 8GB swap is on the hard drive.

If you can get away with VMWare, that would be a better solution than bootcamp and a seperate Windows partition, because VMWare doesn't need a dedicated partition, and will use only as much space as the Windows system needs at any given time. (It just creates some big files in your OSX filesystem, and they grow as needed.)
 
hmm i don't mind removing the optical drive.

well i think i'll go for the 500GB and then buy a 120GB SSD + optical bay kit unless people think the apple SSD is a safer bet?

or shall i go for the 120GB apple SSD and buy a firewire external harddrive?
 
after thinking about it, i think i'll update the SSD at december some time.

750gb @5400RPM vs. 500GB @ 7200RPM - which would u choose?
 
2.2-2.3 GHZ Quad Core buyers considering an SSD from apple get a $150 dollar discount off their normal BTO drive in exchange for trading in their O.E.M. 2.5" 500GB 5200 RPM rotational drive.

Buying a 2.5" 640GB 7200 RPM HDD to install yourself only costs $60. An Optibay costs $20.

Considering that the going market rate for a 128GB SSD is around $200-$250, you could stand to save $20-$70 by ordering the Apple's SSD and Samsung's HDD. You'll get bonus TRIM (OSX currently only supports TRIM with apple SSDs), 140GB of space and 1800 RPM over buying a third party SSD to boot.

Granted this is all in the U.S. marketplace. I couldn't tell you whether or not it's worth it in the European marketplace. Optibay voids your warranty though, since the optical drive isn't a user replaceable part, so I wouldn't recommend going through with it until your SSD starts looking a bit cramped. Hopefully by that time rotational drives will drop even further in price, allowing you to buy even better ones with the same result. (While SSDs could also drop in price, I doubt it'd go over $100 in any reasonable timeframe, leaving you no worse off at the very least.)

Oh P.S. I'd be cautious about Optibay for another reason too. We don't know how Apple solved the Sandy Bridge bug problem. They might've just moved their HDD over to a SATA III port and figured that people don't use their optical bay enough for it to really be considered a problem within the next three years... You'll be ramping up SATA II usage a lot by swapping out the Optical Bay for a secondary HDD, possibly causing the port to degrade faster, perhaps? I honestly couldn't tell you. All I know for certain is they left the Optical Bay on a SATA II link, which is kinda sad considering Intel normally gives you 2 SATA III links on their motherboards.
 
Last edited:
i just played with the macbook air 11" today at bestbuy.

To be honest i was not that impressed with the boot times and application loading.

I timed the MBA and it took 20 seconds to boot. It took my MBP 13" i5 29 seconds (5400 rpm drive.)
 
yusukeaoki said:
Are you buying the SSD from apple? Because that means your getting ripped off.
As you may know, apple over prices their SSDs.
Its cheaper to get it from a different company and put it in on your own.
Click to expand...

i paid a 120$ for my SSD. i don't think i got ripped off at all.:rolleyes:
 
s.hasan546 said:
i just played with the macbook air 11" today at bestbuy.

To be honest i was not that impressed with the boot times and application loading.

I timed the MBA and it took 20 seconds to boot. It took my MBP 13" i5 29 seconds (5400 rpm drive.)
Click to expand...

thats a faulty air then or something. my friends 11" MBA loads in 11 seconds. my 15" MBP apple SSD loads in 12-13
 
aoaaron said:
after thinking about it, i think i'll update the SSD at december some time.

750gb @5400RPM vs. 500GB @ 7200RPM - which would u choose?
Click to expand...

Really need to look at the specs. Look at sustained read and sustained write at inner/outer tracks. Look at seek time.

7200 generally will run hotter, use more power, noisier.

It's a balancing act.
 
im referring to the default apple HDD.

i'm really torn here. I want to have windows through VM now, OSX, applications and i also have 60GB of music. I'm not sure if 120GB is enough for me.

I don't mind storing my photos/videos on an external harddrive but i can't find many good external harddrive reccomendations. every single one i click on has A LOT of reviews of failing.
 
aaron - the single biggest upgrade I EVER made on my MBP was the SSD. Speaking as someone who has had a 5400 RPM HDD, 7200 RPM HDD, and an SSD, the SSD is lightyears faster and it simply is in a category of its own.

To truly get the maximum performance your computer will offer you, you need to use an SSD. The SSD will serve as your primary boot and application drive. So your system and application files will load lightning fast. To be perfectly blunt - if you're storing media (e.g., videos, pictures, songs) on an HDD, even an external HDD, no matter how slow the hard disk is, its seek/read times will still be ORDERS of magnitude beyond the "read" time your eyes and ears require to watch a movie in real time. :)

Finally, if data transfer rates between your computer and external drive are issues - remember, by the time you accumulate too much data by Christmas or your next semester, you'll have your choice of blazingly fast Thunderbolt drives *or* much cheaper aftermarket SSDs available at higher capacities and lower prices.

in the meantime, the 128 GB SSD from Apple provides you with a great combination of speed, performance, and PEACE OF MIND as your entire system, as a whole, will be covered under warranty. So should something not work correctly, Applecare will cover you for the next year (or three, should you purchase the Applecare extended service plan). For £100, that is cheap, cheap peace of mind. And considered as a whole - this is simply unbeatable. Go for it!

cheers,
Mark
 
aoaaron said:
im referring to the default apple HDD.

i'm really torn here. I want to have windows through VM now, OSX, applications and i also have 60GB of music. I'm not sure if 120GB is enough for me.

I don't mind storing my photos/videos on an external harddrive but i can't find many good external harddrive reccomendations. every single one i click on has A LOT of reviews of failing.
Click to expand...
Aaron - your SYSTEM and applications will certainly be covered and run fast enough. You can certainly take your core music, some media (couple movies, couple TV shows with you). Remember that if you purchase Aperture, you can take all your pictures with you relatively efficiently as albums, with your large, full-resolution RAW masters stored offline (e.g., on a portable hard disk).

I've had no problems with my G-Drive Mini, and have heard great things about G-Tech G-Drives and Western Digital MyBook external drives. Regardless of your external drive, remember that you'll always want to be backing up your data. So a Time Capsule should be a part of your solution - if not now, then make saving for one a part of your long-term plan.

The 128GB SSD will give you the best system performance you can get. If you can really, really stretch (e.g., maybe take on a monthly payment for a couple months), go for the 256GB. If you prefer to pay in full, or not to overextend yourself, the enhanced performance you get out of the 128 GB SSD will really satisfy you. The SSD is what truly puts the MBP above the crowd. Alternately, consider delaying your purchase for two months - 60 days. I PROMISE you it will go faster than you can imagine, and save aggressively during this timeframe to fund a 256GB SSD from Apple for yourself. Finally, remember you'll be saving over the "long term", as the largest and quickest storage solution today gives you the most mileage and extensibility down the road.

Best of luck!!

Mark
 
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