FW800 useless on a 5400 rpm drive?

[mcarnes]

Is it worth it to use FW800 on a 5400 rpm drive? Was thinking of getting the 17" MBP for the FW800, but don't want the smaller 7200 drive unless it will be useful.

I will regularly move large amounts of data off the MBP onto an external drive.

Thanks!

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

I don't think it will matter much.

I would get the 17" if you dont' mind the portability lag and have the cash.

 

[ReanimationLP]

Doesnt really make much of a difference honestly.

I've had 5400RPM drives and 7200RPM drives, and the difference is a few seconds give or take.

 

[Sun Baked]

FW800 is above the speed of both the 5400 and 7200, their sustained transfer rates are quite similar.

The main difference between the two is that one spins faster than the other, but it does shave milliseconds off seek times which is great for a random access database server or highly fragmented drives.

Since you really use the cache a lot -- the FW800 it a lot faster for cache transfers.