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mrcourt123

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
72
3
What are the pros and cons of choosing a HD with 7200 rpm over one with 5400 rpm? I'd like to upgrade to a 320GB HD, is it worth the $45 for the speed increase? Will battery life take a hit?
 
Yes, there is a noticable difference. 7200 will give you 1.33x performance without NCQ, and that number should increase with NCQ (which is defualt on a lot of SATA drive, so far as I know). I'd say its worth it.

As for battery life, there will be more force applied to the disc platters for spin-up/spin-down, and only slightly more force while spinning due to increased friction... But the friciton is negligable to begin with. I'd say the effect on battery life is 5-10 mintues, tops, IMO.

What are you suing your laptop for?
 
I'll be using it in law school. Nothing too demanding. A lot of research and writing, but also regular iLife stuff, DVD ripping, light gaming, etc.

I like the idea of increased speed. Will it be noticeably louder?
 
I cannot say for sure, maybe somebody who has a 7200RPM notebook drive can post about noise, but there shouldn't be any noticble noise difference from the hard drive.
 
I upgraded my PowerBook's original drive to a 7k a while back and noticed a nice little boost. Battery life was not really hurt much and considering the HD is generally the bottleneck on most computers, I definitely think it's worth it. Not much extra noise at all either.
 
I upgraded my PowerBook's original drive to a 7k a while back and noticed a nice little boost. Battery life was not really hurt much and considering the HD is generally the bottleneck on most computers, I definitely think it's worth it. Not much extra noise at all either.

Sounds like it's worth the extra few bucks. Thanks!
 
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