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4500rpm vs 5400rpm

E

ephex

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 24, 2004
33
0
USA
I plan on getting a 15" powerbook, but I'm not sure which hard drive speed would be best. I plan to use my laptop mainly for programming [no need for fantastic hd speed there], and music production [but mostly realtime - I don't plan to be recording any audio tracks unless I break down and buy a real synth] So a few questions for those of you with experience:

Is 5400rpm really fast enough to make a system-wide noticeable difference? If so, is it worth the drain on battery life?

Does 5400rpm even have a noticeable effect on baterry life?
 
Don't you mean 4200 rpm HDD and NOT 4500 rpm HDD? :confused:

You will not notice much of a difference IMHO and from personal experience(s).

However if you moved from a 4200 rpm to a 7200 rpm that you will notice. :)

As far as battery life the PowerBooks have bad battery life compared to the iBooks. It will make little to no difference in battery consumption. :)
 
maya said:
Don't you mean 4200 rpm HDD and NOT 4500 rpm HDD? :confused:

You will not notice much of a difference IMHO and from personal experience(s).

However if you moved from a 4200 rpm to a 7200 rpm that you will notice. :)

As far as battery life the PowerBooks have bad battery life compared to the iBooks. It will make little to no difference in battery consumption. :)
Click to expand...

M A Y A is on it, and always beats me to post. :( ;) :cool:
 
maya said:
Don't you mean 4200 rpm HDD and NOT 4500 rpm HDD? :confused:

You will not notice much of a difference IMHO and from personal experience(s).

However if you moved from a 4200 rpm to a 7200 rpm that you will notice. :)

As far as battery life the PowerBooks have bad battery life compared to the iBooks. It will make little to no difference in battery consumption. :)
Click to expand...

M A Y A is on it, and always beats me to post. :( ;) :cool:

P.S. Tried posting at 5:30 but it is not letting me through. :mad:

Edit: Server double posted sorry. :eek:
 
i would say go with the 5400. when you think about how much you are spending on the powerbook and how long you will be using it for, the cost of upgrade is insignificant.
 
There is a noticeable improvement and a negligible cost difference - go with the upgrade. I haven't read of any battery issues, although I suppose there might be some, but I'd think they'd be minor (after all, the 4200 RPM drive needs to spin longer to read a given amount, so I'd think that would help balance out things).
 
jsw said:
There is a noticeable improvement and a negligible cost difference - go with the upgrade.
Click to expand...
I'll second that. After coming from the top end iBook (4200) to the Powerbook (5400), boot time is significantly quicker, check out barefeats.com for tests. The 80GB drives even have 8MB cache now... They're really rather nice, for slow 5400rpm drives at least ;)
 
brap said:
I'll second that. After coming from the top end iBook (4200) to the Powerbook (5400), boot time is significantly quicker, check out barefeats.com for tests. The 80GB drives even have 8MB cache now... They're really rather nice, for slow 5400rpm drives at least ;)
Click to expand...

You are seeing the performance boost not because its a 5400 rpm HDD however because of the cache which is at 8MB. If you have one with a 16MB cache you will see boot time even faster. ;) :)

4200 and 5400 are too close in comparison if they both have 2MB cache. A 7200 rpm with a 2MB cache will show much more improvement than a 4200 and 5400 comparison.

Remember I have worked with and have a 4200, 5400 and a 7200 rpm drives and there is little to no difference between the 4200 and 5400. I did notice a big difference when I dropped from the 7200 though. :)

However if you are getting a BTO I would start with a 5400 if the upgrade is not much. :)
 
I get 5:30 out of my PowerBook 12" with the faster hard drive. I can't say for the standard, but I do know that the faster rpm drives are really really nice for the added speed that you get.

Go with the faster drive. You won't regret it.
 
maya said:
You are seeing the performance boost not because its a 5400 rpm HDD however because of the cache which is at 8MB. If you have one with a 16MB cache you will see boot time even faster. ;) :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm actually forgetting that the one they put in the PB now has 16, and not 8. Eitherway... buy the upgrade already!

Side: 1200rpm is... what, 28 - 29% of 4200?

I know you won't see a corresponding 29% decrease in average seek times, but for random access that has to give a decent increase in performance. It just stands to reason.
 
Hehe, yes I do mean 4200, typo :p

Thanks for your input guys. Since 80gb drives now come with 8mb cache, that decides it for me right there ;)
 
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