So, now that the new EMMBEEPEES are out (yay!), we got a choice between a 5400rpm 250GB drive and a 7200rpm 200GB drive. My question is, is the speed noticeable? I'd like all that space, but I think I'd rather have snappier performance. Not sure.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
5400rpm vs. 7200rpm
- Thread starter JWest
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Go with the 7200 drive. It will be faster, and if you need more drive space, get an external. Keep what you need on the internal drive, and the extra stuff on the external.
I was not either, the problem is, with a laptop, you can only have so much space (physical and HDD size), or you start getting to the point of not being portable. In my case, its more portable than not, and if I do not need the external drive, I do not take it with me. Though my laptop bag have enough room for that, my paperwork, misc. cables, and if needed 2 external drive bays.
I am glad I did use my external drive to backup my stuff (automated and manually), and put all my music and movies on it. My old Powerbook died, and I am stuck right now on a POS Compaq laptop my wife passed onto me when I bought a new laptop for her. I am using HFSExplorer to gain read access to my HFS+ formatted external drive. I can't write to it, but at least I can read from it. I have yet to get into the backup part of the drive that was automated. Most if what I am grabbing is movies and music. Maybe a program or two that is cross platform. (Find the program, goto website, get the Windows version kinda stuff)
Can you explain that? 5400 rpm is 5400 rpm, how do you get around the slower rotation?
Battery Life
From what I've heard of people who have manually upgraded their HDD's to 7200 RPM drives, it seriously hurts battery life (because of the extra power needed to get to 7200). So keep that in mind as well. You'll lose out on the extra space AND the extra battery life.
From what I've heard of people who have manually upgraded their HDD's to 7200 RPM drives, it seriously hurts battery life (because of the extra power needed to get to 7200). So keep that in mind as well. You'll lose out on the extra space AND the extra battery life.
As the data increases on a 7200 RPM, the speed of data transfer will slow down. Check this out:
http://www.barefeats.com/mbcd7.html
There have been reports of vibration from the drive that has bothered some people.
As djinn just stated the WD 320gb 5400 drives are nearly as fast as the smaller 7200 drives,this is down to the thickness of the platters,speed will also be affected as the drive fills up.Try looking this
up on wikipedia
up on wikipedia
I think that the point was (to oversimplify) that as a drive nears capacity, faster drives will have to make more revolutions to reach the next read point on average, as they have likely passed it already--because of the faster speed. There is some truth to it, but it's really insignificant.
Also insignificant is the drive speed as a whole. the vast majority of users will never notice anything different. If you can live with a notebook, you can live with 5400 rpm. If you "need" 7200, you also need a desktop- or workstation-class machine. Only certain types of apps and their storage need will really justify higher speeds, and the resultant higher price. Drive speed marketing is almost as good as Monster Cable's, and for non-specific requirements, about as trustworthy.
Also insignificant is the drive speed as a whole. the vast majority of users will never notice anything different. If you can live with a notebook, you can live with 5400 rpm. If you "need" 7200, you also need a desktop- or workstation-class machine. Only certain types of apps and their storage need will really justify higher speeds, and the resultant higher price. Drive speed marketing is almost as good as Monster Cable's, and for non-specific requirements, about as trustworthy.
Personally I want the fastest performance possible in a laptop so I'm going with the 7200. I'm just going to offload anything unnecessary onto one of my collection of external drives so that it doesn't get too clogged or slow down too much.
As for
Well. I also need it to be portable, so this is my best option
No, I can't afford a desktop as well.
As for
Well. I also need it to be portable, so this is my best option
No, I can't afford a desktop as well.
I heard 7200rpms are noisier. Is this true? And if it is, how much?
(high-pitched sounds often cause me headaches, so it's quite important to me)
On the other hand, I often work with large databases, so could use a faster drive. Hard decision ... So would really like to know how much noisier they really are?
(high-pitched sounds often cause me headaches, so it's quite important to me)
On the other hand, I often work with large databases, so could use a faster drive. Hard decision ... So would really like to know how much noisier they really are?
I went with the 7200rpm. I did a lot of reading between the two and figured for the $50 bump I'll enjoy that split second difference on my boot up!
Why not get the default HDD for now.
Im sure in the next few months you will probably get a bigger/faster one from OWC etc... for less $$$
Im sure in the next few months you will probably get a bigger/faster one from OWC etc... for less $$$
Same here, I opted out for performance rather than storage ... that 50 extra gbs is nothing really, I can store more crap on my storage server, or simply get an external if necessary. Yes perhaps it takes a little more battery, but Id rather enjoy 4hrs of incredible experience than 4.5 of a good one.
FWIW, when I got my 15" MBP the first thing I did was replace the stock 100G 5400RPM drive with a 100G 7200RPM drive. I did notice a slight increase in performance, but in all honesty, it wasn't as significant as I had expected, and given the choice, I wouldn't do it again.
That being said, I haven't had a chance to check out the prices on the new MBPs, so if the upgrade cost is minimal, I would do it. I wouldn't go to the expense of swapping out the drive like I did previously, though.
MacDann
That being said, I haven't had a chance to check out the prices on the new MBPs, so if the upgrade cost is minimal, I would do it. I wouldn't go to the expense of swapping out the drive like I did previously, though.
MacDann
I did it with my previous macbook pro and felt that the heat generated by the seagate 7200rpm drive was noticeably greater and made the left palmres less comfortable to use when the disk was used heavily. Performance felt snappier, but hardly earth-shatteringly so.