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Hard Drives in New 15" MBP

C

cujoca

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2006
205
0
Hey everyone!

I definitely think that wait was worth it and now i'm eagerly ready to buy a new 15" MBP. I have a few questions though. I'm looking at the 500GB hard drive but i can't decide between the 5400 or 7200 RPM. I would go with the 7200 RPM HD but i would be concerned about decreased battery life and external / internal noise... What are your thoughts on this?

P.S. I've narrowed it down to the 15" 2.66 MBP unless anyone can persuade me to the 2.8 with 512 VRAM...

Thanks in advance!
 
cujoca said:
Hey everyone!

I definitely think that wait was worth it and now i'm eagerly ready to buy a new 15" MBP. I have a few questions though. I'm looking at the 500GB hard drive but i can't decide between the 5400 or 7200 RPM. I would go with the 7200 RPM HD but i would be concerned about decreased battery life and external / internal noise... What are your thoughts on this?

P.S. I've narrowed it down to the 15" 2.66 MBP unless anyone can persuade me to the 2.8 with 512 VRAM...

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

i'd buy an 80gb intel x25-m for a boot/app drive, then a FW800 external for media/other big files. i'm no expert, but i'm under the impression that 7200 is louder and that it hurts battery life quite a bit.

would love to hear otherwise ... anyone?
 
SSD is out of the question so i have to choose between the 500 GB 5400 or 500 GB 7200
 
basically i'm wondering if 7200 RPM is a good idea or will there be repercussions for getting something so fast
 
I would get the stock MBP and upgrade the HD to a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB for about $90. I did this to my black MacBook and have not seen any significant change in battery life. IMO the speed is comparable to a 7200 drive. I also recorded multiple simultaneous streams of audio (10 so far) and edited HD video without a problem.
Also, you can get an external firewire case and use put your original drive in it and still use it.

Just my 2 cents.

Kiko
 
visitronix said:
I would get the stock MBP and upgrade the HD to a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB for about $90. I did this to my black MacBook and have not seen any significant change in battery life. IMO the speed is comparable to a 7200 drive. I also recorded multiple simultaneous streams of audio (10 so far) and edited HD video without a problem.
Also, you can get an external firewire case and use put your original drive in it and still use it.

Just my 2 cents.

Kiko
Click to expand...

Is it fairly easy to upgrade the HD? I'm faced with the same decision. Stock or upgrade the size/speed.

90 bucks isn't bad. The same upgrade is 180 through Apple
 
i'm not really that tech saavy to upgrade it myself and i don't mind paying a little bit more for apple to do it with peace of mind but i'm mainly just wondering what would be the advantages/disadvantages between the 500 GB 5400 and 7200 drives

thanks for reading!
 
In my "old" MBP, I upgraded the hard drive myself from 160GB 5400RPM to 320GB 7200RPM. The results were astonishing. I didn't benchmark or anything, but the laptop was MUCH faster after the change. I ordered my new MBP yesterday with a 7200RPM drive (500GB) without hesitation.
 
You WILL notice a difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM. It is fine to not feel comfortable enough to replace the drive yourself.
Your battery life may take a slight hit when under heavy drive use, but because you will get more done in less time, it pays for itself.
 
so you think that if it was between both 500 GB drives at 5400 or 7200 you would take the 7200 hands down. Money is really not an issue because it really isn't that expensive of an upgrade...the thing that worries me is it will diminish my battery life, over heat and by overheating cause a bunch of other problems to my computer...i do casual video editing in iMovie, some iPhoto, the web, emails, watch lots of movies on my mac. I'm not into any intensive FCP or Photoshop stuff, nor do i see going into that in the future... So i'm just wondering if the "supposive performance gain would be worth it with everyday use.

Thanks for all your responses
 
cujoca said:
so you think that if it was between both 500 GB drives at 5400 or 7200 you would take the 7200 hands down. Money is really not an issue because it really isn't that expensive of an upgrade...the thing that worries me is it will diminish my battery life, over heat and by overheating cause a bunch of other problems to my computer...i do casual video editing in iMovie, some iPhoto, the web, emails, watch lots of movies on my mac. I'm not into any intensive FCP or Photoshop stuff, nor do i see going into that in the future... So i'm just wondering if the "supposive performance gain would be worth it with everyday use.

Thanks for all your responses
Click to expand...

This is the simple anwer, the 5400 wont kill the battery, the 7200 will consume alot of more battery, What do you want ? a better hardrive or a faster computer ?
 
i juat want to have the best computer i can afford with great battery life
 
Ricanlegend said:
This is the simple anwer, the 5400 wont kill the battery, the 7200 will consume alot of more battery, What do you want ? a better hardrive or a faster computer ?
Click to expand...

Wait...the 7200 would be a better HDD and make the computer faster.

You have a battery that supposedly lasts 7 hours. Even if it cut away 2 hours of your time to use a 7200 HDD intensively (which most likely wouldn't be constant) you'd still walk away with 5 hrs which is a lot for a notebook.

I'd go for the 7200, you'll have plenty of battery life. I got 2.5 tops on my MBP right now.:rolleyes:
 
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