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How much difference does a 7200RPM drive make?

M

mklnz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Just wondering if any of you guys have tested a 5400 and 7200 side by side and did some comparisons?

E.g how much faster does it boot up compared to a 5400rpm drive ?
 
the answer is: not much. i replaced a 5400rpm drive with a 7200rpm drive before and everything 'felt' the same. it wasn't until i upgraded to ssd that i was able to see a huge difference, so skip 7200rpm and go straight to ssd if you really want to see a difference.
 
In my experience it made a noticeable improvement but I think its a combination of the speed and the particular drives involved. One added benefit, the 7200RPM 320GB Seagate I installed uses less power than the 5400RPM 250GB Western Digital I replaced.
 
fuzzielitlpanda said:
the answer is: not much. i replaced a 5400rpm drive with a 7200rpm drive before and everything 'felt' the same. it wasn't until i upgraded to ssd that i was able to see a huge difference, so skip 7200rpm and go straight to ssd if you really want to see a difference.
Click to expand...

So am I correct in thinking that if my HD fails in the next few years on my new MacBook, I will be able to replace it with a SSD HD? If so, that's really awesome considering how fast SSD prices are dropping.
 
gabe90 said:
So am I correct in thinking that if my HD fails in the next few years on my new MacBook, I will be able to replace it with a SSD HD? If so, that's really awesome considering how fast SSD prices are dropping.
Click to expand...

yes that's correct. apple has made it incredibly easy to replace the HD on the new MBs. If price is a concern, waiting will only help you as more companies improve their SSD technologies and price falls.
 
On my Windows laptops I've noticed a 5-8 second improvement in boot times when I use 7200 rpm drives. I think the faster drive is going to give me a bigger boost in performance than adding more than 2 GB of RAM. I only use a couple of Apps at a time so no page outs.

I opted to buy a 7200 rpm drive from newegg. First thing I'll do is swap the drives. The drives are really not that expensive ~$100 so I think that it is worth it especially now that it is so easy to replace the hard drive--Thank you Apple!
 
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