thinkin about adding a 2nd hd? battery performance

[enthawizeguy]

i have a i7 2.0 ghz quad core macbook pro. I have a 7200rpm hd right now 750gb and am already out of space. I am thinking of adding a second drive or ssd. what are my best options for around 200-250? also how much will my battery live be affected? i am most worried about that? do people live without there cd drive? i burn a lot of cds into iTunes but really need the space? i guess i can get an internal. I could forgo the 2nd drive if i could find a 1tb 7200 rpm drive for the mbp... is it possible and if so where can i find one. macsales had none.

Thanks in advance

 

[GGJstudios]

i have a i7 2.0 ghz quad core macbook pro. I have a 7200rpm hd right now 750gb and am already out of space. I am thinking of adding a second drive or ssd. what are my best options for around 200-250? also how much will my battery live be affected? i am most worried about that? do people live without there cd drive? i burn a lot of cds into iTunes but really need the space? i guess i can get an internal.

Adding another drive will certainly impact battery life, but it's difficult to anticipate how much. Have you thought about moving some of your user data to an external drive? That would be a much simpler option. I'm sure you have data stored on the internal drive that you don't use frequently.

I could forgo the 2nd drive if i could find a 1tb 7200 rpm drive for the mbp... is it possible and if so where can i find one.

AFAIK, there are no 2.5" 1TB 7200 drives out yet. Why would it have to be 7200 rpm? A 1TB 5400 drive would likely be as fast if not faster than your 750GB 7200, due to the higher density of the drive.

 

[TheJing]

The second drive will affect your battery life. But on mine I certainly didn't notice a big difference. Maybe 30 minutes or so on average, maybe less.

But if you burn a lot of CD's why don't you just get an external drive?

 

[enthawizeguy]

how would 1tb 5400 be faster than 750 7200rpm? i do audio work and i need 7200? is there proof of this if so i will buy the 1tb? is there any way to find out how much impact of battery life there will be?

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which is the best with the opti bay for around 200-250?

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which would be better

OWC DIY Kit: Data Doubler + 120GB OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD Drive Bundle + 5 Piece Toolkit.

OWC DIY Kit: Data Doubler + 120GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD Drive Bundle + 5 Piece Toolkit.

 

[GGJstudios]

how would 1tb 5400 be faster than 750 7200rpm? i do audio work and i need 7200? is there proof of this if so i will buy the 1tb?

There's more to drive speed than rpm. A higher-density drive is usually faster than a lower-density drive at the same rotational speed. So a 750GB 5400 drive will be faster than a 250GB 5400 drive. To compare two drives of different density and different rotation speed, you'd need to know the specific drives you're comparing, as there are variances between manufacturers and models.

I doubt you'd see any measurable difference in day-to-day use.

is there any way to find out how much impact of battery life there will be?

No, partly because battery life is affected by many factors, some of which have much greater impact than hard drive(s) installed. See the BATTERY LIFE FROM A CHARGE section of the following link for details.

This should answer most, if not all, of your battery questions:

Apple Notebook Battery FAQ​

Ultimately, you have to decide if your primary need is for speed or capacity. If it's speed, move some of your data to an external drive and get a SSD. If it's capacity, go with a 1TB 5400 drive.

 

[NovemberWhiskey]

I switched from the standard 500GB 5400 RPM HD to an Intel X25M G2 (Main Bay)/Seagate Momentus 7200 (Optibay) setup.

Lost about 2 hours off of battery. Used to get roughly 5 hours of use, and now get about 3. Could have been other factors such as age, but I did notice a dramatic difference in just the time estimate itself just after the change.

 

[enthawizeguy]

which 1tb drive for my mbp do you recommend for speed. i have a WDC WD7500BPKT-00PK4T0 now. also if i take the one i have now and put it in a optibay would that be way worse than an ssd? i would like to make this purchase today. i guess i can take the money i save form buying an ssd and buy some more ram

 

[GGJstudios]

i guess i can take the money i save form buying an ssd and buy some more ram

How much RAM do you have? Are you sure you need more?

 

[thundersteele]

is there any way to find out how much impact of battery life there will be?

Yes. You will have to write a benchmark suite that reflects your laptop usage patterns as closely as possible. Fully charge the laptop, disconnect it and let the suite run until the battery is empty. Repeat several times to level out fluctuations. Then, install the second HD and repeat the benchmarking.

You should rethink how you store data. If you're already using 750 GB then upgrading to 1 TB won't help you for very long, unless you are mostly done with adding data to your HD.

For $200 - $250 you can probably find 2-4 TB of external storage - with firewire this would give decent transfer rates.

 

[enthawizeguy]

i am looking for an internal solution only. i do audio work so drive must be fast. 4gb ram. i use externals only when recording audio. most of the time i am doing electronic music

 

[GGJstudios]

i am looking for an internal solution only. i do audio work so drive must be fast. 4gb ram. i use externals only when recording audio. most of the time i am doing electronic music

You still haven't explained why you can't simply offload some of your files to an external drive. I seriously doubt you need to have everything you have stored with you all the time. Also, audio work isn't as demanding as video or gaming applications, so drive speed won't make much, if any, impact on your performance.

 

[Rampant.A.I.]

I can see wanting to keep most of your music on the machine if you're mixing electronica, but unless you're Brian Transeau I have to agree with GGJ. A single, larger internal HD should be sufficient, and be a lot more efficient than a dual-drive setup.

If you're worried about speed, I'd look at upgrading the RAM you're running with the larger HD.

...Come to think of it, BT was still stutter-editing music on airplanes and in-studio with a vainilla high-end Powerbook G4.

 

[saberahul]

I agree with GGJ, why can't you just connect an external to the computer? If speed is an issue connect through FireWire 800 or spend the cash on TB once it's more popular.

 

[thundersteele]

Well, just go for 750 + 750 or 750 + 1 TB (at 5400 rpm) internally. I'm sure that producing music is somewhat CPU intensive, at which point the HDDs probably have a negligible impact on the battery life.