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Will a HDD still be efficient for a student?

K

KitzelFox

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hello everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. 🙂 I have looked for answers and information to this question for awhile now, nor have I been able to find any recent posts on the subject.

My question is: With all the recent developments in SSD's, are HDD's still okay for most everyday use? I am a student, finishing off my last year of Graphic Design school. I just purchased a non-retina 15" MBP with a 1TB hard drive. Do you think this will be fast enough in the meantime, at least until I can get a SSD in the next 1-2 years?

I am coming from a mid-2009 17" MBP (with a 500GB 5400rpm HDD), and I feel like anything at this point will be an improvement! I will mostly be using this new computer to play games, CS5 and for general use. If you could lend me your opinions, that would be wonderful. Thank you! 🙂
 
well HDDs have been fast enough since forever, until mysteriously they became really slow about three or so years ago.
 
I don't see how it will be much an improvement in terms of hard drive, it should still be the same RPM as what you have now. I think it really comes down to preference. Of course hard drives are still useable, but I prefer SSD for the speed. It's nice not having to wait for programs to open.
 
aaronw1986 said:
I don't see how it will be much an improvement in terms of hard drive, it should still be the same RPM as what you have now. I think it really comes down to preference. Of course hard drives are still useable, but I prefer SSD for the speed. It's nice not having to wait for programs to open.
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I really don't care how long it takes for programs to open, that's not really an issue to me. Does an SSD also increase program performance itself, or just increase load times when initially opening the program? For example, would it give me a better frame rate inside of a game?

Sorry if I'm being confusing, I am not familiar with the performance of SSD's at all! 😕
 
KitzelFox said:
I really don't care how long it takes for programs to open, that's not really an issue to me. Does an SSD also increase program performance itself, or just increase load times when initially opening the program? For example, would it give me a better frame rate inside of a game?

Sorry if I'm being confusing, I am not familiar with the performance of SSD's at all! 😕
Click to expand...

It only decreases the time to move data from storage to RAM. Once e data is in RAM, the SSD offers zero performance increase. Its all about load times.
 
It would not increase frame rates or anything like that. It will make launching programs, opening files, saving files, etc. faster. There's nothing wrong with having a HDD. It's still perfectly functional. SSDs, as much as they're talked about, are still fairly new technology, and there's still some occasional problems with them. They're also still coming down in price, so if you wait a year or two you'll be able to get one with much higher capacity for a lot cheaper than you can now. Since you're used to using a 5400RPM drive, you'll be fine.
 
sweetbrat said:
It would not increase frame rates or anything like that. It will make launching programs, opening files, saving files, etc. faster. There's nothing wrong with having a HDD. It's still perfectly functional. SSDs, as much as they're talked about, are still fairly new technology, and there's still some occasional problems with them. They're also still coming down in price, so if you wait a year or two you'll be able to get one with much higher capacity for a lot cheaper than you can now. Since you're used to using a 5400RPM drive, you'll be fine.
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Thanks for the advice! This is the answer I was looking for. I've used HDDs all my life and didn't start looking into SSDs until I started reading the forums. Is it also true that HDDs of higher capacity will run faster than lower-capacity HDDs? I only have about 250GB of files on the computer I have now, so I would think that the 1TB drive will run slightly faster than my 500GB, or is that just wishful thinking?
 
KitzelFox said:
Thanks for the advice! This is the answer I was looking for. I've used HDDs all my life and didn't start looking into SSDs until I started reading the forums. Is it also true that HDDs of higher capacity will run faster than lower-capacity HDDs? I only have about 250GB of files on the computer I have now, so I would think that the 1TB drive will run slightly faster than my 500GB, or is that just wishful thinking?
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that isn't true at all. capacity for the most part has nothing to do with the speed.
 
You make it sound like HDD's are no longer suitable or they're outdated. Fact is, SDD's aren't going to replace traditional HDD's for at least another decade; They're still too pricey for everyday use. And don't kid yourself into thinking that just because most Mac user's have it, suddenly it's in mass use. Most Mac users just have the luxury to afford it.

Short answer: yes, HDD's are still efficient, not only for just students but for most of the population.
 
KitzelFox said:
Wasn't sure, I read it on another post a few days ago.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15091983/
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HDDs that have a higher data density will allow more data to be transferred per second. So it's possible that a HDD with 750gb storage and 3 platters will be faster than a HDD with 320gb of storage and 3 platters. Data density is also the reason why many 5200rpm drives actually have better data transfer rates than 7200rpm drives, but I digress.

You won't notice much speed difference between laptop hard drives, they all tend to fit into the "meh" category for speed, which is perfectly fine.
 
Yes. SSDs are just significantly faster. I doubt you'll need it though. If you can get it (MacBook Air) included it is a nice bonus but not necessar.
 
Thanks for all the input, everyone! I'm really excited about getting my new MBP, and even more excited to know that the HDD will be fine for most of my use. I'm not near as worried about having to get an SSD anytime soon, I'd much rather wait until I can get more storage for my money anyways. 🙂
 
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