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pilotkid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 22, 2006
978
140
Chandler, AZ/Chicago, IL
I was thinking about upgrading my hard drive to 7200rpm from the stock 5400rpm, but was wondering if it would be worth it. Would it? Would it really make that big of a difference? What hard drives would you guys recommend(100gb or bigger)?
 

Chone

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2006
1,222
0
Yes it would be worth it, the performance difference from having a 5400rpm on my MBP can be noted, especially when opening applications, installing apps from hdd disc images and loading times but its bearable and still very fast, smooth and enjoyable.
 

ariechel

macrumors member
Jul 14, 2005
60
0
pilotkid said:
I was thinking about upgrading my hard drive to 7200rpm from the stock 5400rpm, but was wondering if it would be worth it. Would it? Would it really make that big of a difference? What hard drives would you guys recommend(100gb or bigger)?

Here is a comparison by Barefeats of 5400rpm and 7200rpm hard drives in the MacBook Pro, which has already been posted in other threads on this subject.

barefeats.com said:
ANALYSIS AND INSIGHTS
The numbers tell us several things:
1. The 7200rpm internal drive is NOT significantly faster than the stock 5400rpm when doing small RANDOM reads and writes. That implies that it won't give you much advantage for booting and normal operations.

2. Internal drives exhibited higher random write rates than external FireWire drives.

3. If you work on audio or video where large blocks are captured or played back, the 7200rpm internal drive of the MacBook has a clear advantage over the stock 5400rpm internal drive.

3. If you plan to connect a fast 3.5 inch 7200rpm hard drive to the FireWire 400 port of the MacBook Pro, you will lose a lot of speed compared to using the FireWire 800 port of the Powerbook G4. Thankfully, I know of at least two companies who will soon release ExpresCard/34 SATA and/or FireWire 800 products that will allow your MacBook Pro to enjoy truly fast external storage.
 

Boxer

macrumors regular
Jun 28, 2006
108
0
Overland Park Kansas
I'll be honest. I had a MBP with the 5400, then sold it on ebay. I then purchased one with the 7200 HD and I can't notice a difference at all. Maybe I havn't gotten to a point where I would really notice it yet. I dont use heavy applications yet. But just opening files via excel word powerpoint. I do not see any difference. I would go with the space over the RPM.
 
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