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Help - Upgrade my HD

Sdahe

Sdahe

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 26, 2007
1,725
25
San Juan, PR
Hello guys...

I have the MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and it came with a 160GB Serial ATA; 5400 rpm hard drive. I would love to change that HD drive with a faster one (7200 rpm).... Which one you guys recommend?... a good one!!!

Thanks
 
Cave Man said:
Is there a particular reason you need a 7200? The top two drives for sustained write speeds are 320 gig 5400 rpm drives, starting around $140.
Click to expand...

Yes, I work with photography in my MBP and I want my machine to be a bit more faster. I guess that if I change the HD with a 7200 rpm HD... it would be better and faster to work with.
 
Sdahe said:
Yes, I work with photography in my MBP and I want my machine to be a bit more faster. I guess that if I change the HD with a 7200 rpm HD... it would be better and faster to work with.
Click to expand...

The 320 gig drives (and soon-to-be-available 500 gig drive from Samsung) have the highest density platters, thus rather dramatic improvement in performance. For photo work, you really won't notice any difference between a 320/5400 and a 200/7200 drive. They're less expensive and hold more data. Tough to go with a 7200.
 
Cave Man said:
The 320 gig drives (and soon-to-be-available 500 gig drive from Samsung) have the highest density platters, thus rather dramatic improvement in performance. For photo work, you really won't notice any difference between a 320/5400 and a 200/7200 drive. They're less expensive and hold more data. Tough to go with a 7200.
Click to expand...

Ok, well... what would you recommend me to make my MBP better and faster for photography work?... I usually work with pictures that are around 18 to 20MB each... so you'll have an idea!!!
 
Cave Man said:
While I think the OP will be better off with a 320/5400, I WILL BE GLUED in front of the Big Screen Hi-Def Mac Mini Home Theater tomorrow night watching the Jayhawks put a big hurt on the Tigers. :D
Click to expand...

Haha you're telling me? Lawrence was an absolute zoo last night after the UNC game. 8 blocks of wall to wall people. This has been an amazing year to be a Jayhawk, thats for sure.



Back to the thread though....I agree with these other guys about going for the 320/5400. I went with the 200/7200 because that was the best available when I was looking, and I got a good price. Now though, there is really no reason to NOT get a 320. Unless you're waiting for that 500 gb one....;)
 
marvel2 said:
Are there any benchmark comparisons between the two?
Click to expand...

Here's an example of sustained write speeds. Of course, if you have something other than that for your needs, you should choose that from the pull-down and see which drives perform better. Generally speaking, the 5400 drives have the best performance to value; the caveat being if you need something specific in which the 7200s excel.
 
Sdahe said:
Ok, well... what would you recommend me to make my MBP better and faster for photography work?... I usually work with pictures that are around 18 to 20MB each... so you'll have an idea!!!
Click to expand...

I work with 12-bit Canon 30D raw files (about 7 mb) and 16-bit TIFFs (about 45 mb). I've never done a direct comparison of internal 7200 vs. 5400, but I'm very happy with the performance of my 5400 drive using Aperture and PSCS3. Besides, RAM is king when it comes to photography. You have 4 gigs? If not, that's where I'd go first. If you go with a new 320 gig drive, you should consider giving it a 10 gig partition solely for Photoshop's scratch disk. That'll give you a few points of performance increase.
 
Cave Man said:
I work with 12-bit Canon 30D raw files (about 7 mb) and 16-bit TIFFs (about 45 mb). I've never done a direct comparison of internal 7200 vs. 5400, but I'm very happy with the performance of my 5400 drive using Aperture and PSCS3. Besides, RAM is king when it comes to photography. You have 4 gigs? If not, that's where I'd go first. If you go with a new 320 gig drive, you should consider giving it a 10 gig partition solely for Photoshop's scratch disk. That'll give you a few points of performance increase.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I think that more RAM will give me what I need. I have 2GB now... Right now I have my HD in 85% empty and is always like that. I save all my pictures in an external HD so I safe space in my computer... That means I can assign a lot of space to PSCS3... Thanks...

I'll be checkin on 4 GBs for my computer...
 
Cave Man said:
I did my MS there from 87-89. Had season tickets for "Danny and the Miracles." I love Allen - such a good time.
Click to expand...

I hate thread hijacking, but I'm gonna break my own rule for a fellow Jayhawk. Its kinda crazy how everything is falling together this year. First football, now we're in the championship game...almost exactly 20 years after the last time we won it...and Danny Manning is an assistant coach. If thats not divine intervention, then I don't know what is :D

Just to give you an idea of how crazy its been the last week or so down here, the local NBC affiliate ran a story about how all the local beer distributors were running out of kegs. And that was two days before the Final Four game. We're literally drinking the well dry haha. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

Oh and OP: I second what Cave Man is saying. You can get 4 gigs of RAM for cheap (and not some cruddy brand either). Thats going to help you a bunch. Other than that, get a good 320 gig hard drive from either WD or Hitachi (those are the two brands I have experience with, but I'm sure others are good too) and watch your MBP absolutely fly! :cool:
 
Sdahe said:
Yeah... I think that more RAM will give me what I need. I have 2GB now... Right now I have my HD in 85% empty and is always like that. I save all my pictures in an external HD so I safe space in my computer... That means I can assign a lot of space to PSCS3... Thanks...

I'll be checkin on 4 GBs for my computer...
Click to expand...

First thing, spend the $100 on 4 gigs (unless you already have one 2 gig stick, then you're only out $50). Next, partition your current drive so that you have a 5 gig volume. Dedicate that volume as Photoshop's scratch disk. Don't put anything else on it. You'll see a bit of a bump in your editing performance. If you have 85% free, you don't need another drive.
 
What about cache size?

I've been having this same debate internally, so I was glad to find this thread (hope people are still reading it!). I'm currently comparing the seagate 5400.4 (250 GB) with the seagate 7200.2 (200 GB). Not sure the size difference matters too much for my uses (of course if there was more, I'm sure I'd use it). However, the 7200.2 comes with a 16 mb cache while the 5400.4 only comes with 8 mb. It seems like speed is dependent on a combination of spin speed, data density, write pattern, cache, and .... (what else?).

What I really care about is 1) speed 2) impact on battery life. 3) usability factors (heat/noise increase)

Any thoughts between these two on that? The cost difference seems to be less than $50, which does not impact my decision, given how long I hope to use the machine.

I would say that my machine gets pretty heavy use - parallels, cs3 (photoshop, dreamweaver, flash) and often has many apps open.

Thanks for any input.
 
Hi folks,:)

@ Cave Man - HELLO and Thanks for your Replies ...
Cave Man, I am also comparing same HD's that TJS93 is considering ...

I did read thru Tom's Hardware 2.5" review and the 320GB 5400 RPM have BETTER everthing over the 7200 RPM of smaller size.

Q1: In your experience is 250GB 5400 RPM considered High Density .. like the 320GB one?

If not ... would you then say the choice would tilt to 200GB 7200 RPM HD since it has the 16MB Cache?

Q2: Do you have to Partition 5 or 10 GB of the HD for dedicated Scratch work? SO I will have Drive C & D (D beign my Scratch HD).
Or can I just use a 2.5" External for my Scratch work?

Thanks,

G!:confused: (the more I read)
 
gonwk said:
Hi folks,:)

@ Cave Man - HELLO and Thanks for your Replies ...
Cave Man, I am also comparing same HD's that TJS93 is considering ...

I did read thru Tom's Hardware 2.5" review and the 320GB 5400 RPM have BETTER everthing over the 7200 RPM of smaller size.

Q1: In your experience is 250GB 5400 RPM considered High Density .. like the 320GB one?
Click to expand...

I can't say. I've never had a 250 gig. But if you can afford it, go for the 320.

If not ... would you then say the choice would tilt to 200GB 7200 RPM HD since it has the 16MB Cache?

Q2: Do you have to Partition 5 or 10 GB of the HD for dedicated Scratch work? SO I will have Drive C & D (D beign my Scratch HD).
Or can I just use a 2.5" External for my Scratch work?
Click to expand...

Well, I wouldn't use a 2.5" external unless it's eSATA. You pay a bandwidth price for firewire (and don't even think about USB) compared to your internal SATA interface.

The scratch disk partition will only give you a slight bump in performance. Many people say it's not worth the inconvenience of having an extra partition to deal with. Where scratch disks really excel is when they are another physical drive, which you can't get with a MB or MBP (unless you sacrifice your DVD drive).
 
Sdahe said:
Ok, well... what would you recommend me to make my MBP better and faster for photography work?... I usually work with pictures that are around 18 to 20MB each... so you'll have an idea!!!
Click to expand...

I can't guarantee I am 100% right about this, but processor and RAM. I really don't think your HDD is going to matter quite that much when just editing photos. I believe the OS or the app would load the photo into RAM for editing in Photoshop. If that's the case, the HDD wouldn't really matter squat once it's opened. I use an old-azz version of Photoshop on some 5-ishMB files at work on a G5 Power Mac and don't have any HD-related problems.

As long as you have a fairly recent video card (no old 32MB crap) and a 2+Ghz Core 2 Duo with 2+GB of RAM, you should be fine. All the extra juice in the more professional machines really isn't for editing photos. The real monkey is editing video and doing stuff like Handbrake (well, stuff that uses all the processor it can handle).
 
Hi folks,

@ Cave Man ... Thanks for your help.

@ Michael ... your reply also helped me with my other decison on setting up my laptop.

Thank You All,

G!:)
 
Yeah...

Sdahe said:
Yes, I work with photography in my MBP and I want my machine to be a bit more faster. I guess that if I change the HD with a 7200 rpm HD... it would be better and faster to work with.
Click to expand...

You're not going to notice a difference.
 
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