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7200 vs 5400 white book

calsci

calsci

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 27, 2008
288
1
I have an option to get either the 500 GB 5400 or 500GB 7200 drive i can afford to get one of them. What i want to know is heat. i use my notebook book a lot. some of that is on my lap. i want to know has anyone put a 7200 drive in their white macbook and how does it due with dissipating it. any advice would be helpful as well.

,calsci
 
it'll be fine as long as you don't block the vents at the back :) i'll recommend the 7200 rpm in that case
 
ok so i am going to purchase the 7200 i think on wednesday unless someone gives me a good reason not to. so don't block the vents and it won't over heat, but woulden't it over heat on a 5400 if you blocked it also.(sarcasm)

,calsci
 
booste said:
How much of a performance boost does 7200 RPM give over 5400?
Click to expand...

It is pretty noticeable. From some simple benchmarks that I ran on mine, my old 5400 would top out at ~45 megabytes/second, while my new 7200 bottoms out at that, averaging ~70MB/s pretty consistently.

And no, I have not noticed any heat difference. Both averaged at ~90ºF, according to iStat...
 
OK, so I just recently upgraded my white Macbook to a 7200 RPM drive. Here's my observations:

1) It's definitely faster, particularly at loading programs and booting.
2) It does seem to be a bit warmer, but no big deal at all.
3) Mine has a bit of vibration that I did not have before. Only noticeable if you feel for it. :)
4) Battery life DOES suffer from it - though not tremendously. I would say that I've lost from :30 - :45 at worst.

As for my recommendation, I'm not sure. I notice the speed, but my wife (the computer's primary user) does not - however, she DOES notice the difference in battery life, and is none to happy about it, as well. So it depends on what's most important for you: 1) absolute best speed possible, or 2) battery life.

I'll probably eBay my 7200 RPM drive soon and (re)buy a 5400 RPM (I sold my other one. :().
 
booste said:
How much of a performance boost does 7200 RPM give over 5400?
Click to expand...

It is pretty noticeable. From some simple benchmarks that I ran on mine, my old 5400 would top out at ~45 megabytes/second, while my new 7200 bottoms out at that, averaging ~70MB/s pretty consistently.

And no, I have not noticed any heat difference. Both averaged at ~90ºF, according to iStat...
 
I didn't know you could get a 7200 rpm 2.5 inch in a 500gb. I guess when I saw the wd scorpio black only up to 320 I thought that was max for a 7200 2.5 inch.

I had a 2.16 C2D whitebook with a 5400 120gb and it would burn your legs. I never notice any heat with my 2.2 blackbook w/ 500gb 5400.
 
iknowyourider said:
I didn't know you could get a 7200 rpm 2.5 inch in a 500gb. I guess when I saw the wd scorpio black only up to 320 I thought that was max for a 7200 2.5 inch.

I had a 2.16 C2D whitebook with a 5400 120gb and it would burn your legs. I never notice any heat with my 2.2 blackbook w/ 500gb 5400.
Click to expand...

seagate makes one it's called the momentus. Though as far as I know, it's out of stock everywhere at the moment. I would have gotten one otherwise. Every other manufacturer only has a 320GB at 7200 rpm for now
 
js81 said:
...4) Battery life DOES suffer from it - though not tremendously. I would say that I've lost from :30 - :45 at worst.

As for my recommendation, I'm not sure. I notice the speed, but my wife (the computer's primary user) does not - however, she DOES notice the difference in battery life, and is none to happy about it, as well. So it depends on what's most important for you: 1) absolute best speed possible, or 2) battery life....
Click to expand...

...have you turned down your screen brightness at all to compensate for the faster HDD?
 
J&JPolangin said:
...have you turned down your screen brightness at all to compensate for the faster HDD?
Click to expand...

No, but I know my wife wouldn't care for that, either. :) Her thoughts would be "I'd rather have a brighter screen, anyway."
 
Just want to throw in the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB. I picked one of these up after the Scorpio Black was vibrating too much for my liking. I will say though that the battery did not suffer nearly as much as I thought It would with the Black, but there was a small hit. The thing is that the 5400 Blue is pretty much just as fast! From what I understand it is because of the very high data density. When I ran xbench on my macbook with the stock drive I got 132. With the Black drive and the Blue drive I was getting 149. As the kicker this drive is very gentle on my battery, no vibration, and pretty much silent.
 
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