4200 rpm HD or 5400 rpm in 15" PB????

[JFreak]

Re: there's a nifty 7200 rpm now...

Originally posted by rtdunham
Hitachi's selling a 2.5" low profile 7200 rpm drive that'll fit in the PBs, i believe the price is around $270. Anybdoy provide more data on this, including the benefits?

this is a VERY good one, i installed it into a 667mhz powerbook (dvi) when it first came out in june - and it rocks! it can now easily outperform a 867mhz 12" powerbook, plus the cooling fan now hardly ever operates, because the thing runs so cool.

if you can justify the cost, go for it! it really boosts performance more than ram upgrade from half to full gig. this is a whole new machine now.

 

[rtdunham]

jfreak,

thanks for the insight. can you respond to the question raised elsewhere in this thread, about the possible greater power draw by a 5400 rpm drive vs the stock 4200 drive...do you have any observations about the 7200 & battery life? (remember the quote below from the other post refers to the 4200 & 5400, not a 7200)

the earlier post read:
"If you go to Hitachi's website and check out their spec sheets on both the models, you will see that at spin down and energy saving mode, they are identical in power levels and at full access speed, they are separated by a small margin. Real world drain can't be more than a few minutes difference."

terry

 

[rtdunham]

following up on batt consumption

there's a really good review of the 7200 rpm drive (and other drives) at xlr8yourmac.com. The link for the 7200 review is:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/hitachi_travelstar60GB_7200/travelstar60GB_7200rpm.html

parse back through that url and you'll get to other useful info.

According to the review, the power consumption doesn't seem to vary significantly:

"Here's a quick comparison of wattage use from the previous 60GB/5400 rpm model vs the 7K60/7200 rpm model:

60GB/5400 RPM vs 60GB/7200 RPM:
Max (startup/spinup) - 5W vs 5.5W
Seek (avg): 2.6W for both
Read (avg): 2.5W for both
Write (avg): 2.7W vs 2.5W
(7K60 slightly lower)
Performance idle (avg): 2.0W for both
Active idle (avg): 1.3W for both
Sleep: 0.1W for both"

I'm really impressed by this website. There are reviews, illustrated how-to articles on replacing PB drives, etc.

terry