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5400 RPM SSHD (8 GB SSD) vs 7400 RPM HDD? Which is better?

M.Rizk

M.Rizk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 20, 2015
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So the idiot inside me got mad and hit my MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2012 a big strong causing an HDD failure and I can no longer boot into it with disk utility (based on installation USB) says SMART error on HDD and that it needs to get replaced.

Which do you think will be better for me? A 5400 RPM SSHD with 8 GB SSD portion, or a 7400 RPM HDD?

My usage:
Basic browsing using Safari
Streaming to YouTube Live / Facebook Live using Wirecast
Watching videos at 720, 1080 and 2K
Playing Star Craft II
 
The benefit of a hybrid disk is that important files can be loaded onto the solid-state part of the disk to improve the overall performance, i.e. reducing bottlenecks. 8 GB is very low though and may not give you a noticeable difference.

Have you considered an SSD instead? The performance benefits over a hard disk are tremendous.
 
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KALLT said:
The benefit of a hybrid disk is that important files can be loaded onto the solid-state part of the disk to improve the overall performance, i.e. reducing bottlenecks. 8 GB is very low though and may not give you a noticeable difference.

Have you considered an SSD instead? Moving forward, it is the better investment, also considering that Apple will be switching to a new file system in the very near future that is optimised for SSDs.
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Who wouldn't want to get an SSD but I just wouldn't justify the cost for a mid 2012 MacBook Pro. I keep the SSDs for my desktop PC instead.

Who knows how long this MacBook Pro will stay with me anyways, I am expecting to do an upgrade by next year so I really don't want to invest much on it.
 
If you don't need much space you can always buy a low price SSD from a respected brand, you obviously wont get a lot of space depending on how much you spend but it wont break the bank and will improve the speeds of your computer. I have found 256 GB SSD's from the likes of Samsung that cost no more than a high end 1TB 2.5" HDD, now some might argue that it's a quarter of the space for the same price, but its also 4X faster.
 
Well look at this video:

I say replace the drive with an SSD and consider get a two bay or better NAS for your iTunes Music or video projects that take up space!
 
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Flynnstone said:
I put a 250G ssd in my 2010 MacBook last year. It was like a new computer.
I'd recommend a ssd for your 2012 ...
Click to expand...

I did the same with my Macbook 2010, maxed out the RAM to 16 GB...New Computer!
 
M.Rizk said:
So the idiot inside me got mad and hit my MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2012 a big strong causing an HDD failure and I can no longer boot into it with disk utility (based on installation USB) says SMART error on HDD and that it needs to get replaced.

Which do you think will be better for me? A 5400 RPM SSHD with 8 GB SSD portion, or a 7400 RPM HDD?
Click to expand...



Given you hit it, you really want a solid state drive and not a spinning one
 
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I once bought a 7200RPM hard drive for virtualization instead of a 5400RPM hybrid and it was so slow that it felt it was maybe the wrong choice even in this case.
 
256GB SSDs are not very expensive, and will transform your MBP to better-than-new performance (as one did for my 2011 13-in MBP). If you're in the USA, Black Friday is coming.
 
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kohlson said:
256GB SSDs are not very expensive, and will transform your MBP to better-than-new performance (as one did for my 2011 13-in MBP). If you're in the USA, Black Friday is coming.
Click to expand...
Not very useful when you need 2TB and external is not practical.
 
In this day and age the only purpose for a traditional HDD is for archive and media storage. You just have to use a proper SSD for your boot drive or you are out missing on a huge performance gain imo. In my experience those hybrid drives are rubbish, 8gb of SSD is just not enough.
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cube said:
Not very useful when you need 2TB and external is not practical.
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In special circumstances you may have no choice but to use a spinner but in most cases SSD all the way.
 
torana355 said:
In this day and age the only purpose for a traditional HDD is for archive and media storage. You just have to use a proper SSD for your boot drive or you are out missing on a huge performance gain imo. In my experience those hybrid drives are rubbish, 8gb of SSD is just not enough.
Click to expand...
I would say that in this day and age there should be no notebooks and space saving desktops without both M.2 and hard drive bays, and given the apparent lack of interest of disk vendors during the last years, 2.5" bays should be 15mm thick.

Hybrid drives are not rubbish, they are quite OK for basic use if you only have one bay and an SSD would be too expensive. What is really slow as a boot disk is a hard drive.
 
By all means get 5400RPM HDD (capacity: _______) with 8GB SSD inside, I think it's called SSHD. This is faster than standard 7200RPM HDD because most of the programs accessed are being put in the 8GB SSD. It's not real SSD, but it is Hybrid.
 
One reason that I stick with spinning drives over solid state or hybrid is the possibility of soft failure. At one point a solid state drive failure often left one without the ability to recover, while spinning drives tend to fail more gracefully. This may have since changed.
 
I think posting the different drives you were thinking about getting might give more info for people to make a recommendation.

Just RPM alone is not a good indicator of a faster drive.

I remember a few years back there was a new HDD drive designed for laptops that came out that had a very large storage capacity for the time. The RPM speed was lower than most drive, I think it was 4300 RPMs, but the read/write speed was much faster than most other spinning drives. There was a MR article about it I think.

All that said, I would skip the HDD and Hybrid, and go with a SSD. They are pretty cheap now, and they can make an old laptop feel like new.

I got a Fusion Drive on my Late 2012 iMac, (the one with the 128GB SSD, not the current crappy one), and I wish I would have just spent the extra money and gotten a SSD.
 
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