Anyone have/installed one of the 160/200gb 7200 rpm drives in their Macbook/MBP?

[Veritas&Equitas]

Hey all, I have a 2.2 ghz SR MBP with a 120gb 5400 rpm hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive to something bigger and faster.

Specifically, I'm looking at the Hitachi 200gb 7200 rpm drive. I've installed many a hard drive in my Macbook Pro's, so that's not an issue. My question is regarding a speed difference.

1. How much faster is the 200gb 7200 rpm than the stock drive? (I've seen some barefeats tests that have shown it's quite a bit faster, I'm just wondering real-world speed, and what specific write stuff will it be that much faster in?)

2. If I did upgrade to the 200gb 7200 rpm, how much more hot or noisy is it than the stock drive?

3. How much worse is the battery life with one of these more powerful drives?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[odinsride]

Hey all, I have a 2.2 ghz SR MBP with a 120gb 5400 rpm hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade my hard drive to something bigger and faster.

Specifically, I'm looking at the Hitachi 200gb 7200 rpm drive. I've installed many a hard drive in my Macbook Pro's, so that's not an issue. My question is regarding a speed difference.

1. How much faster is the 200gb 7200 rpm than the stock drive? (I've seen some barefeats tests that have shown it's quite a bit faster, I'm just wondering real-world speed, and what specific write stuff will it be that much faster in?)

2. In addition, if I did upgrade to the 200gb 7200 rpm, how much more hot or noisy is it than the stock drive?

3. Also, how much worse is the battery life with one of these more powerful drives?

Thanks for the advice!

I have 7200rpm drives in both my MBP and Macbook. I never used the stock drive on the Macbook and I ordered the MBP with the 7200 drive, so I really have nothing to compare it to.

For your other two questions, I don't really notice much noise coming from the drive at all - most of the noise comes from the Fans. For battery life I can get about 2.5-3 hours for normal, non-cpu intensive use.

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

For your other two questions, I don't really notice much noise coming from the drive at all - most of the noise comes from the Fans.

Thanks for the quick reply so far! I guess I'm wondering, does the fan have to work that much harder with a 7200 rpm? Because mine fans are usually running around 3000 rpm and I can barely hear them at all; will the new drive cause them to rev up quite a bit more? Can anyone who has had both a 5400 and upgraded to a 7200 drive comment on this? Thanks!

 

[odinsride]

Thanks for the quick reply so far! I guess I'm wondering, does the fan have to work that much harder with a 7200 rpm? Because mine fans are usually running around 3000 rpm and I can barely hear them at all; will the new drive cause them to rev up quite a bit more? Can anyone who has had both a 5400 and upgraded to a 7200 drive comment on this? Thanks!

Well, my fans only get loud (>3000rpm) when I'm doing something that taxes the CPU or GPU, such as encoding a video, playing a game, etc.

I think that adding a 7200rpm drive would only cause negligible (if any) temperature increases...so the fans shouldn't increase. My fans run at about 1900-2000 rpm when idle (pretty much silent).

 

[paddler]

Hi,

Am also contemplating the 200GB 7200 rpm upgrade on a brand new macbook pro but am concerned it may run too hot, and that it may invalidate the warranty I was going to purchase with it. Anybody know.

Also what screen do people recommend in the real world. normal or shiny?

 

[odinsride]

Hi,

Am also contemplating the 200GB 7200 rpm upgrade on a brand new macbook pro but am concerned it may run too hot, and that it may invalidate the warranty I was going to purchase with it. Anybody know.

Also what screen do people recommend in the real world. normal or shiny?

I believe a hard drive swap does void the warranty on the MBP but not on the Macbook. But apple offers a 7200rpm option with the MBP so I don't think you'll have any heat issues. I haven't had any with mine.

As far as the display it's a personal preference but most graphics and video professionals will choose a matte display. I chose matte because I don't like the glare you get with a glossy display.

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

Thanks for all the help. I ended up buying the 200 gb 7200 rpm off Newegg last week and installed it last Thursday...works well, not really louder than the original 120 gb 5400 rpm, battery life is a tad less, but not too much. Also, it's maybe 2-3 degrees hotter in watching smcFanControl, but that's not too shabby I guess

If I ever have any issues, I'll swap it out and put my original hard drive in if I have to bring it in to Apple

 

[odinsride]

Thanks for all the help. I ended up buying the 200 gb 7200 rpm off Newegg last week and installed it last Thursday...works well, not really louder than the original 120 gb 5400 rpm, battery life is a tad less, but not too much. Also, it's maybe 2-3 degrees hotter in watching smcFanControl, but that's not too shabby I guess

If I ever have any issues, I'll swap it out and put my original hard drive in if I have to bring it in to Apple

Congrats Where have you noticed differences in speed since installing it? Like I said earlier I've always had a 7200rpm drive or higher in my system so I don't know how it compares to a 5400rpm drive - I just knew I wanted the fastest drive possible when ordering my MBP.

 

[Veritas&Equitas]

It's noticeably faster (around 25% according to Barefeats) then say, a 120 gb 5400 drive. You can tell the difference in situations where you have to write to or read from the drive (data transfer, installations, starting up stuff, etc.).

 

[Sussman]

I too am thinking about the Hitachi 200gb 7200 rpm drive,

Do you think it is worth it to wait till the X-mas season to buy for the possible price reduction? or does anyone know if it will be a lot longer for the price reduction and I should just buy it now? Thanks in advance!