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Will a faster HDD make a difference?

M

Macnator

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 25, 2008
457
0
Canada
Hello. I have a SR MBP with its default HDD. I tried to copy a DVD to my HardDrive using HandBrake and my computer heated up to 90 Celsius!!!!!!! With RPM's at 5000.

What is making it heat up so much? Will a 7200 RPM HDD help it stay cooler when copying DVD's to the HDD?

Thanks!
 
I may be completely wrong here, but from my understanding, a faster HD will produce even more heat.
 
ok um so faster = more heat.... ummm...... How about the WD Scorpio 320GB @ 5400 RPM? Will it make any difference? If not is there a way I can reduce the heat somehow?
 
I have popped in a hitachi 7200 rpm drive and can see marginal heat increase, but nothing too noticeable. The scorpio is a nice drive and appears to be faster than the hitachi 7200 - that is a good bet to go for it, but the hitachi was on sale for 139 after rebate at newegg for the 200gb 7200...choice is yours / the increase in heat is negligible imo.
 
Macnator said:
ok um so faster = more heat.... ummm...... How about the WD Scorpio 320GB @ 5400 RPM? Will it make any difference? If not is there a way I can reduce the heat somehow?
Click to expand...

A faster HDD is not going to reduce the heat; most likely you are not "overworking" your current drive to make it heat up beyond its normal range. The MBP gets very warm when you are fully utilizing its CPU and/or graphics adapter. You might try using a fan tweaker app such as smcFanControl to boost the fan speed beyond the defaults when doing something like ripping a DVD.
 
I have smcFanControl. What exactly do I need to do to make the fan speeds higher when using alot of the CPU? Like how do I program it.?
 
One of the assumptions many have made is that, by default, the fans do not "kick in" or run at high enough speeds until the machine has become overly hot. smcFanControl will allow you to get around this problem by forcing a higher than normal minimum fan speed which will promote faster cooling. Keep in mind that fans running at higher speeds will increase battery usage and overall noise.

Just run the app and select a higher minimum fan speed.
 
Did the CPU temp get up to 90C, or was it the hard drive temp? Either way, that's a lot hotter than it should be. If it's the CPU temp, you might too much thermal past on the CPU cooler. It it's the hard drive, it might be defective because I've never seen one get that hot (and they will usually start to fail long before they get that hot).

The difference between a 7200rpm drive and a 5400 rpm drive is just a couple watts. The biggest source of heat is the CPU, followed by the GPU (if you are doing anything that uses it).
 
I went from the stock 100G 5400 RPM drive to a Hitachi 100G 7200RPM drive in my CD 15" MBP. I checked and found that temperatures were elevated slightly, but it was something I would consider statistically insignificant.

Nor did I find it to make my machine noticeably faster. Not gonna do that again.....


MacDann
 
Misplaced problem.

Handbrake uses nearly 100% of both your processors. That's what's creating 90% of the heat. A hard drive will not make any difference in this situation, either in speed or heat generation, because the time and heat are both caused by the processor working double-time.

A faster, larger capacity hard drive will help speed things up (often very noticeably) in most other cases, though. Heat difference between drives is usually not noticeable, but the 7200 is likely to be just slightly warmer and use slightly more battery.

If keeping the heat down is an important priority for you, then you could copy the DVD to your hard drive (using a program like MacTheRipper), then use Elgato's Turbo.264 usb dongle and software to do the decoding. This breaks up the Handbrake task into two steps, so it's likely to taking a little longer, but it definitely will keep your computer cool.

Hope this helps.

Dave
 
So would I be stupid for thinking of getting the 200GB 7200 drive ($50 more) over the stock 250GB 5400 drive on the new 2.5 MBP (I will be doing gaming so this is why I'm concerned).

Also, doesn't upgrading the HDD kill your warranty?
 
Stridder44 said:
So would I be stupid for thinking of getting the 200GB 7200 drive ($50 more) over the stock 250GB 5400 drive on the new 2.5 MBP (I will be doing gaming so this is why I'm concerned).

Also, doesn't upgrading the HDD kill your warranty?
Click to expand...

I would get the 7200 RPM drive. Even if it's just a little faster, it's worth it because the hard drive is a bottleneck compared to CPU and memory speed. It should help with startup times and program load times.

Here's a comparison of laptop drive speeds:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/24/hdd_galore/page8.html

Upgrading the hard drive does not void the warranty, but the new drive will not be covered under warranty. Also, if you damage anything while upgrading the HDD, that will not be covered by warranty.
 
If you're gaming I would do it, since access times will have some effect on speed in general. I guess in my case I was just using my MBP for general purpose work, so hard drive platter speed wouldn't make that much difference for me....

MacDann
 
MacDann said:
If you're gaming I would do it, since access times will have some effect on speed in general. I guess in my case I was just using my MBP for general purpose work, so hard drive platter speed wouldn't make that much difference for me....

MacDann
Click to expand...

no

with gaming if you have any decent amount of ram (like..over 1.5 gigs), all information used during actual gaming is loaded into the ram. HD speed will increase load times of levels and such, but fps will be constant.
 
m85476585 said:
I would get the 7200 RPM drive. Even if it's just a little faster, it's worth it because the hard drive is a bottleneck compared to CPU and memory speed. It should help with startup times and program load times.

Here's a comparison of laptop drive speeds:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/24/hdd_galore/page8.html

Upgrading the hard drive does not void the warranty, but the new drive will not be covered under warranty. Also, if you damage anything while upgrading the HDD, that will not be covered by warranty.
Click to expand...

Taking a second look at that chart in the link, it seems like the difference is laughable. :confused:

Think I'll just go with the 250 for now and upgrade it later.
 
That's assuming you get the Seagate 250Gb drive, not one of the others. The reason is probably because that drive uses perpendicular recording, which means a higher data density and higher speed.
 
m85476585 said:
That's assuming you get the Seagate 250Gb drive, not one of the others. The reason is probably because that drive uses perpendicular recording, which means a higher data density and higher speed.
Click to expand...

If thats the one that comes stock in the 2.5 MBP, then yup.
 
m85476585 said:
Upgrading the hard drive does not void the warranty, but the new drive will not be covered under warranty. Also, if you damage anything while upgrading the HDD, that will not be covered by warranty.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? The macbook pro need the armrest cover to be removed to access HDD. taking that cover off would void the warranty right?
 
In my experience, not that much more heat and so much faster in speed. So go ahead and get the 7200rpm. I have a hitachi travelstar 7k200 drive and it actually runs in the same temp as a 5400rpm seagate, if not even cooler due to the new technology.
 
lauph said:
Are you sure? The macbook pro need the armrest cover to be removed to access HDD. taking that cover off would void the warranty right?
Click to expand...

It was discussed in this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/437872/
Several people contacted Apple, and they all got the answer I wrote previously.

Here the section of the warranty that deals with modification:
(ii) Damage to the Covered Equipment caused by accident, abuse, neglect, misuse (including
faulty installation, repair, or maintenance by anyone other than Apple or an Apple Authorized
Service Provider), unauthorized modification, extreme environment (including extreme
temperature or humidity), extreme physical or electrical stress or interference, fluctuation or
surges of electrical power, lightning, static electricity, fire, acts of God or other external causes;
Click to expand...
Basically as long as the upgrade does not cause any damage, you're OK.

If you are not comfortable with the procedure to replace the drive, don't try it.
 
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