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Performance advice: 4200->5400 Worth it?

buffettfan33

buffettfan33

macrumors member
Original poster
I just got a 1 ghz tibook that has a 60 GB 4200 RPM Fujitsu HD in it. I was wondering how much of a performance increase I would expect to receive by upgrading to a 5400 RPM drive? I would like to put a 7200 in it, but I'm afraid my power consumption would go through the roof. Any thoughts/advice anyone can give is much appreciated. 🙂
 
buffettfan33 said:
I just got a 1 ghz tibook that has a 60 GB 4200 RPM Fujitsu HD in it. I was wondering how much of a performance increase I would expect to receive by upgrading to a 5400 RPM drive? I would like to put a 7200 in it, but I'm afraid my power consumption would go through the roof. Any thoughts/advice anyone can give is much appreciated. 🙂
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I think people would say the 5400 drive is noticeably quicker than a 4200. Many posts in other threads point out that the jump to 5400 is actually more noticeable than a jump from 5400 to 7200. I don't speak from personal experience, but I think you would be very happy with the performance jump-- and your power consumption would be similar to the 4200.
 
Thats realy reassuring, one of my reasons for upping to the powerbook was to get the 5400 over the iBook's 4200. This test was just about hardrives and it already showed a major increase, now I'm sure I'll be happy with mt speed increase.
 
Which Drive are you getting?

I was thinking of doing the same with My 1ghz Tibook. May I ask which Hard drive you are getting?
 
I had a 4200 rpm drive for over two years until it failed ... then I went out and bought a 5400 rpm replacement. I feel a significant increase in responsiveness (not simply because I had a fresh hard drive, I wipe my HD with the two major OS updates) and things started up faster. As for power consumption I don't believe there is much of any increase in power consumption at all.

I don't have experience with 7200 rpm drives, but I'd definitely upgrade to 5400.

(I got the Seagate drive, simply because they sold them at the local Best Buy. If you want to do it yourself, I recommend www.pbfixit.com)
 
I put a 5400rpm in my notebook when my old harddrive died. It is a 100gb 5400 rpm segate drive.

Boot time seems quicker and app seem to load a but quicker the first time. The biggest bonus for me was the increased free space.

One issue i did notice is that it seems to run a bit warmer then it used to. At work where the AC is set to 75 its not a problem, but at home where its set to 80 my fans are on alot. Infact if I run the powerbook in clamshell mode the fans are always on.
 
I've had a 5400 Travelstar 40 gig and a 7200 Travelstar 60 gig in both my old 400 Tibook and my 667 Tibook DVI.

The old Toshiba/Fujitsu 4200 drives were of course slow but, I like quiet, and they were noisy suckers.

Travelstars are quiet and I did notice the biggest bump from 4200 to 5400. On the 7200 now and while faster, not noticably more than the 5400. My fan RARELY comes on. I mean RARELY, so heat is about the same. I was initally worried about heat last year when I got the 5400 but just buy an iStand or better yet a Macally ice pad -- round 20 bucks -- to keep the Titaniums cool.

Wish I'd gotten a 1 gig Tibook -- to me they are the high point of the apple powerbook line, sorry ALbook owners!
 
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