5400rpm vs. 7200rpm SATA (MBP)

[alphaod]

There is no such thing as a stupid question

Hi.

New MacBook Pro user here.

May I ask a stupid question?

I ordered the 180GB 7200rpm HD. But, me being me, I always like to check the specs in the actual machine to make sure it is actually what I ordered.

Dopey, I know.

Where does one find the speed of your HD on the MacBook Pro?

I can find the make/model number of the HD (It's a Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00 Media, and yes, I know I can google it), it's capacity, and all other tech specs on it, but I can not find it's speed listed anywhere.

I'll start off by pointing out they do not make a 180GB 2.5" HDD, so whatever you ordered, does not exist.

As with the part number you provided it's a Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM 2.5" HDD with 16MB cache.

 

[newmakkie]

Oh, OK

OK, I was wrong on the GB, I was going from memory, rather then looking. I ordered it direct from Apple.com.

I pasted my System Profiler specs below.

Why do the specs say it's capacity is 186.31 if it is 200GB?

Is it not taking into account the space OSX is taking up?

Then down lower, it says capacity 185.99, 156.23 remaining. I would have thought that was the difference in full capacity minus what is currently loaded, including OSX.

I'm guessing the difference between the 186.31 and 185.99 is the system BIOS??

I dunno, what am I missing?


Intel ICH8-M AHCI:

Vendor: Intel
Product: ICH8-M AHCI
Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.10 Supported

Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00:

Capacity: 186.31 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00
Revision: DC4AC77A
Serial Number: 080126DP0440DTGAT67P
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 185.99 GB
Available: 156.23 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

 

[Neil321]

I dunno, what am I missing?

Nothing it's just the way HD manufactures calculate GB's

 

[alphaod]

The OS calculates using binary (base 2) and the HDD manufacturer uses decimal (base 10).

 

[newmakkie]

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

"As of 2007, most consumer hard drives are defined by their gigabyte-range capacities. The true capacity is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disks and Flash disks define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate a gigabyte by dividing the bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may have its capacity reported by the operating system as only 372 GB, depending on the type of report."

 

[Vegabondsx]

I think some of these explanations are over-complicating the issue.

In my experience a 7200rpm drive will be faster when doing tasks that require a lot of constant reading/writing to the drive. If the reading and writing isn't constant then less of an improvement will occur.

The 7200rpm drive uses slightly more power, but in my experience it doesn't affect the battery a whole lot. If you were to constantly write or read the hard drive for a long amount of time, your battery may drain faster than a 5400rpm drive.

For most people 5400rpm is probably just fine and the extra 20gb is worth more than the speed. If you know you are going to do things that require constant reading and writing to the drive, such as video editing or gaming then the 7200rpm drive maybe worth it. For common tasks such as typing, browsing the internet, watching TV shows, and editing photos, the 5400rpm should do just fine.

To find out the specs of your drive from your computer go under the system profiler and when you find your drive google the model number. Most likely you will find the information in the results.