5400 vs 7200 rpm Hard Drive

[Juanbond]

I have an old MacBook that has been giving me some problems lately so I decided to replace the hard drive. I purchased a Western Digital 7200 rpm 500 gb drive, which worked well. I continued to have other issues and decided it was time to replace my old machine.

Just this week I ordered a new MacBook Pro which has a slower 5400 rpm 500 gb hard drive.

My question is would replacing the standard 5400 rpm hard drive with a similar capacity hard drive running at 7200 rpm be worth the hassle? Would the performance be noticeable on a new MacBook Pro?

(A slight reduction in battery life is not a major concern for me)

Thank you!

 

[melterx12]

not much difference, if youre going to replace go for an ssd.

 

[magbarn]

not much difference, if youre going to replace go for an ssd.

I respectfully disagree. While the crappy Seagate 7200.4 that Apple uses on their BTO machines are almost as slow as a fast 5400rpm WD blue, the WD black 7200rpm drives are much faster than a 5400rpm drive.

 

[AppleScruff1]

The Scorpio Blacks are nice drives. There are tests out there that compare them to 5400rpm drives if you do a bit of searching. I'm too lazy to look right now.

 

[melterx12]

I respectfully disagree. While the crappy Seagate 7200.4 that Apple uses on their BTO machines are almost as slow as a fast 5400rpm WD blue, the WD black 7200rpm drives are much faster than a 5400rpm drive.

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement. While they surely are faster, the speed difference does not warrant replacing a 5400rpm drive that you already have, especially considering that the 7200rpm will be louder/create more vibration/use more power/be more likely to fail than a 5400rpm.