Intel x25-m questions

[bware189]

First off, I have a non-unibody may2009 MBP, 2.93GHz, with 250GB HDD running SL.
I'm planning on buying one of the Intels, and having the default HDD store media in the optical bay. My questions are thus,

When accessing raw data (say a music file),does the HDD have to spin up to load the file or is the HDD constituently on? If it does have to spin up, is it a long load time? If it does not, is there significant power consumption or heat given off as it would be on constantly?

I'm wondering this essentially because I have around 80GB of necessary data on the HDD, making the decision between 160GB and 80GB tough.

Please, no banter about whether or not I should get the drive. That decision is made. I'm interested in this community's opinion on whether or not it is a good idea to save some money by using the 80GB as a boot drive, and storing the rest on the 250HDD, or if storing on the 250GB will be problematic, in which I would just get the 160.

 

[rgarjr]

Yeah the hard drive has to be spinning to get data off it when you request it. The power draw and heat is probably not that much though.

 

[NC MacGuy]

I'm not sure about anyone else but it seems my HDD is spinning all the time. It may park heads but always spinning.

 

[tejota1911]

If you are only using 80GB on your drive right now, I'd buy the 160GB intel SSD, and keep your optical drive. That's what I did.

 

[NC MacGuy]

If you are only using 80GB on your drive right now, I'd buy the 160GB intel SSD, and keep your optical drive. That's what I did.

You'd be surprised how fast a 160 gets filled. I've got 30GB of iTunes library & anther 20+ in iPhoto alone. It does help having them stored on another onboard drive.

Nice to have it for Time Machine and a dual bootable disk too.

 

[tejota1911]

You'd be surprised how fast a 160 gets filled. I've got 30GB of iTunes library & anther 20+ in iPhoto alone. It does help having them stored on another onboard drive.

Nice to have it for Time Machine and a dual bootable disk too.

Not everybody will fill a 160GB drive. I for example only have 45GB used on my OSX partition, and 17GB used on my Bootcamp partition. Leaving roughly 98GB free. The OP said he was using 80GB on a 250GB drive. There is a good chance he will never fill the 160GB drive. Meanwhile, all his data will be stored on the super fast SSD. His battery life will be better, and there will be less heat and vibration, etc. If he does end up needing more space, the Optibay is always an option.

On a side note, I'm not sure using an internal HDD for Time Machine backups is the best idea. What happens if his computer gets stolen? Now, he is out a computer, and all of his data.

 

[bware189]

You'd be surprised how fast a 160 gets filled. I've got 30GB of iTunes library & anther 20+ in iPhoto alone. It does help having them stored on another onboard drive.

Nice to have it for Time Machine and a dual bootable disk too.

True to all of these points. My music library size is mostly static(due to occasional cleansing of old music), but my photo library is growing, as well as my downloads so these might prove problematic. 80gigs is already pushing half the drive, so having the secondary would be an epic plus.

I'm not sure about anyone else but it seems my HDD is spinning all the time. It may park heads but always spinning.

Hm...This is a bit discouraging though. Could it be possible to install an OS on the secondary, or maybe a program from an external source (such as the SSD) to tell the drive to lock? I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this also (where are all those techventurers from the old MCE optibay thread?).

Oh, and btw, thanks muchly for these replies, guys.

 

[McGilli]

I have 2 of the X-25M's 80gb in my MBP setup as a Raid 0 Striped for a combined 160gb drive and it really, really kicks butt as far as speed if you do a lot of work with large files on your machine.

i got the 2 80gb for less than buying the 160gb x25 from new egg as they had the 80gb's on sale 2 weeks ago and maybe they still are....

I've never had a HDD in my MBP as I bought it with the Apple supplied Samsung 128gb drive (which I sold asap) - so I can't say if you will save much on power though...