Hello. I am looking at making my first Mac purchase. I plan on getting a 15" MBP and am debating between the standard 500GB HD and the 7200rpm 500GB HD. Is there much performance difference? Also, what impact does this have on battery life (I'd imagine it would shorten it at least a bit)? Any advice is much appreciated!
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7200rpm HD and Battery Life
- Thread starter 93BlackSVT
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It will shorten the battery life by ten to 20 minutes, depending on the capacity of your battery. A 5400RPM HDD will have speeds of up to 75MB/s, though the higher the capacity, the faster it is, but my 5400RPM 500GB S-ATA HDD got 75MB/s in HDD speed benchmarks.
The 7200RPM HDD will have a maximum speed of 95MB/s.
The 7200RPM HDD will have a maximum speed of 95MB/s.
If not even more, as many SSDs offer speeds of more than 200MB/s in read and write actions.
SSD is the way to go if you have the money because they are faster and more power efficient. Otherwise, I'd always got with a 7200RPM drive over a 5400RPM, I did not notice a conscious difference between having a 5400 and a 7200 RPM drive in my Spring 2007 WhiteBook. I'm sure it made a difference, but not a battery difference I could even notice. The speed improvements are noticeable though.
How much more efficient is an SSD than an HDD in terms of battery life -- in % terms.
Look here.
This are power consumption benchmarks among SSD's. Mind you Apple's SSD in current MBP's is the Toshiba HG2.
You can look here to find the comparison of a conventional Hard Disk to an SSD in power consumption.
http://blog.whitesites.com/SSD-vs-Hard-Drives-on-your-Electric-Bill__634067007478110000_blog.htm
I'm not sure of any percentage. It varies greatly by drive, clearly shown in the Tom's link.
This are power consumption benchmarks among SSD's. Mind you Apple's SSD in current MBP's is the Toshiba HG2.
You can look here to find the comparison of a conventional Hard Disk to an SSD in power consumption.
http://blog.whitesites.com/SSD-vs-Hard-Drives-on-your-Electric-Bill__634067007478110000_blog.htm
I'm not sure of any percentage. It varies greatly by drive, clearly shown in the Tom's link.