Advice on new HD upgrade

[DoNoHarm]

Hello Everyone,

I'm getting into more blogging lately and I have decided to upgrade my hard disk and use the current HD as a backup. I work with photoshop, dreamweaver, and I'm about to do a lot of video editing.


I am leaning towards buying this 320GB drive for only $65:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197

But I'm also looking at SSD's priced at ~$80 for a 32GB and $130 for a 64GB one....

And finally there is the option of the really fast RPM drives that cost a little more...

To those who have used 7200 rpm drives or those using SSD drives, is the extra cost worth it? Thanks for your time everyone!

 

[clyde2801]

Nice drive. I put one in my unibody.

You'll definitely tell a difference doing disk intensive applications, like boot up, moving files, installing applications, system update, onyx, etc. Anything that requires a lot of work from the hard drive will be noticeable. Applications will cold start a bit quicker.

I've never used an ssd drive, and I know they're quick, but I think a 7200 is probably the best value for the money.

 

[m85476585]

Cheap SSD's are not that good. I have a Seagate 320GB 7200 RPM drive, and it's great.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148336
Definitely worth the extra $15.

 

[DoNoHarm]

Cheap SSD's are not that good. I have a Seagate 320GB 7200 RPM drive, and it's great.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148336
Definitely worth the extra $15.

Wow, that does look like a good deal. I'm reading some of the reviews on Newegg and people are complaining of noise. Have any of you had noise/vibration/heat increases when swapping out a stock 5400 drive? My drive is a hitachi 200GB 5400 rpm drive and I can almost never hear it. Should I expect noise in a 7200rpm drive? If so, in your oppinion, is the performance increase worth it?

 

[m85476585]

There is an increase in heat, noise and vibration, but it doesn't bother me. I'm almost never in a quiet enough place to hear any noise from my MBP. The fans will overwhelm the noise from the drive at anything over about 3000rpm. Vibration is very slight since the HD mount is vibration-isolated. It is just enough that I can tell if the computer is done going into sleep mode by putting my hand on it, but not enough that I ever notice it otherwise. The drive area of the palm rest also gets warmer now, but it isn't too bad unless I am using the disk heavily.

To me, the performance increase is worth these slight drawbacks, but I'm not really picky about heat/noise/vibration and I want my computer to be as fast as possible. If a drive was twice as loud and made an annoying clicking noise while seeking, I wouldn't mind as long as it was faster.

 

[J&JPolangin]

...sign up for newegg's email deals and they go on sale periodically....

 

[DoNoHarm]

diskcompare.com

I also found a really cool site called diskcompare.com that tracks the prices at newegg for every hard drive out there! It seems that even better than email lists are to put off buying anything for as long as you possibly can. I guess I can hold off for a month or two....