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sammyman

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 21, 2005
998
66
I do mostly photoshop, and I record music with cubase. Would like the 7200, but wonder if I really need it?

I do have a external hard drive that is 7200 via firewire 400. Is this good enough? And is there a real difference between speeds with an internal 7200 vs external 7200?

Thanks!
 
personally i think it makes the most difference when reading/writing for prolonged periods of time... i.e. video editing, motion, etc.. i do think that the external is good enough, but don't take my word for it. and yes, I hav heard there are speed differences between external vs internal. wait for more replies though, they may know better ;) cheers.
 
Yes you always need bigger and faster stuff. You must always update to the newest thing that hits the market. Upgrade to the 160GB HD now and in a couple of weeks upgrade to the 7200 rpm 200GB HD.

I was being sarcastic :D but if I had the choice I would probably get the 7200 rpm HD for my laptop. If you have firewire 800 on your computer that is a great way to go for external.

Nuc
 
The gain from a faster HDD depends in part on how often and how hard you use it. If you are constatly writing and reading from the HDD a faster drive may be of use. Likewise, if you plan on saving/loading large files, then go for the faster HDD.

Check out www.barefeats.com for some HDD benchmarks.

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fastest external Drive

The fastest hard drive setup I can think of is external SATAII drives connected through an adaptor plugged into the expresscard/34 slot. this is a full speed PCI-X interface. The reported speed of this interface is up to 3Gig/Sec. Much faster than even the firewire 800 port. Havings two drives setup in a raid array in an enclosure that has a SATAII port would be insane!
The Lacie big disk with serial ATAII port and an expresscard/34 Serial ATAII adaptor might be AU$300.
Do you need this speed? Probably not. I've just bought the Santa Rosa MBPro with 160g/5400rpm drive. I didn't want to pay the extra and wait for the 7200rpm drive because I've been using a 5400rpm drive in my 12"G4 powerbook and it's never the hard drive access that slows me down. It's always processor. If I find with this machine that the hard drive access is too slow, I'll replace the 5400rpm drive a little later with a faster larger (CHEAPER!) drive and use the internal in an external enclosure.
I also went for the 2Gig of RAM for much the same reason.
the other thing the expresscard/34 slot could be used for is a solid state drive, now that's something I might do.
 
I tend to agree with you. I was considering the 160gb 7200rpm when I thought it was 80$ but now that I see it's more I would rather wait.

It just seems to make sense to wait and put the money towards a sleeve or something else.

Does Applecare cover harddrive installs?



The fastest hard drive setup I can think of is external SATAII drives connected through an adaptor plugged into the expresscard/34 slot. this is a full speed PCI-X interface. The reported speed of this interface is up to 3Gig/Sec. Much faster than even the firewire 800 port. Havings two drives setup in a raid array in an enclosure that has a SATAII port would be insane!
The Lacie big disk with serial ATAII port and an expresscard/34 Serial ATAII adaptor might be AU$300.
Do you need this speed? Probably not. I've just bought the Santa Rosa MBPro with 160g/5400rpm drive. I didn't want to pay the extra and wait for the 7200rpm drive because I've been using a 5400rpm drive in my 12"G4 powerbook and it's never the hard drive access that slows me down. It's always processor. If I find with this machine that the hard drive access is too slow, I'll replace the 5400rpm drive a little later with a faster larger (CHEAPER!) drive and use the internal in an external enclosure.
I also went for the 2Gig of RAM for much the same reason.
the other thing the expresscard/34 slot could be used for is a solid state drive, now that's something I might do.
 
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