MacBook Pro :: Using Laptop Hard Drives / 5400 Versus 7200 Pros And Cons?
Apr 16, 2010
I lean to the standard drive at 5400 rpm. Why? All my video editing is done with an external firewire drive, and I think the 7200 generates more heat than the 5400.
For web design I don't see how a 7200 speed is much of a benefit, considering the extra heat generated may negate the benefit of a faster drive. I think heat (and dust) is the bane of all electronics.
I'm fixing to order the 15" i7 and will use it for running Adobe CS5 web suite. Final Cut Pro for video- and will use a firewire drive.
As a lot of people on these forums are, I am waiting for the next updated MacBook Pro. I want to get the fastest hard drive I can, but I want to ask the people who use the 7200 RPM HDDs if they can notice a difference, and if so how beneficial is it? Its really not a problem to pay the 250 for the 200GB 7200 option (and I do want to do that thru Apple because I want my hard drive under warranty) but I do recall hearing complaints that the 7200 RPM is louder, etc. So here is the basic question. How much faster is the 7200 and is it worth the upgrade? For background, I do Visual Effects/3D Animation. I use the Mac Pro for most of that and will sometimes use the MBP for that kind of work.
Wife needs a new computer and have decided to go MBP. I was set to order a 17 inch I7 with 7200 rpm hd but found out the local store has them in stock with the 5400 rpm HD.
I'm considering upgrading the stock 5400 RPM Hitachi drive in my macbook pro to the Seagate momentus XT (7200 RPM) hybrid drive. I'm curious about the experiences of those who may have done a similar upgrade:
1. Is there a noticeable difference in performance? I seem to do a lot of waiting for the HDD in my day to day usage and I suspect the increased spindle speed will be helpful.
2. Any noticeable tradeoff on battery life (>~10% or so)?
3. Should I expect an increase in heat or vibration?
Finally, for those using the momentus XT I've been reading about issues with the dreaded beachball waiting for the drive to spin up. This lag would obviously defeat the purpose of upgrading and I'd like to hear about any personal experiences in this regard with the drive.
I have a Rev. E 15" MBP with the stock 250GB 5400 rpm HD. I'm getting close on running out of HD space so I'm looking to get a bigger HD. Is it a good idea to replace it with a 7200 rpm HD? Is the speed improvement significant? My MBP is my primary computer, I do a lot of general internet surfing as well as a lot of photo editing (I'm a photographer). I did some quick search and it looks like some HD's have bad vibrations? Does a 7200 HD drain out much more battery than a 5400 one?
I did a quick search at a local computer store and found the following, which one would be best to get?
I recently picked up a couple of external drives, and decided to benchmark them to determine whether the interface and/or drive type made much of a difference. For those that don't want to read the details, here's the bottom line: If you're going to splurge on a FW800 interface, it's well worth fitting this with a 7200 rpm drive to maximize performance. Uncached sequential writes over FW800 were twice as fast on the 7200 rpm drive compared to the 5400 rpm. FW800 is a marked improvement over USB 2.0 as well. Full results are below. For background, when shopping for drives, I was interested in using the FW800 interface on the MBPs, for the simple reason it's rated almost twice as fast as USB 2.0. Some of the drives I was shopping for included 7200 rpm drives. My first thought was this was silly, since the interface limited the throughput to far-below the limits a 5400 rpm drive could produce, so why bother upgrading to 7200 rpm? Well, it turns out it does make a difference. I've got both a FW800 enclosure (G Drive Mini) and a USB 2.0 interface (Nexstar TX) as well as a 320GB 7200 rpm drive (Hitachi) and a 640GB 5400 rpm drive (Western Digital). So, I benchmarked both drives using both interfaces. Some interesting results! Turns out, the 7200 rpm drive does in fact dramatically improve performance in the FW800 interface. For sequential operations, Firewire has a dramatic improvement over USB 2.0; for random read/writes, drive speed seems to be a more important factor. And for large files, the combination of Firewire and 7200 rpm gives a pretty impressive throughput of almost 75MB/s. Full results are below. Note that the drive and interface are noted in the title bar for each drive.
I didn't realize that SL automatically boots in 32 bit, even on the new iMacs. I have a core i5 with 8 gigs of RAM. Assuming I boot in 64 bit mode today, will my computer now utilize all 8 gigs? Was it only using 4 gigs in 32 bit mode? Also, will some applications not run if I boot 64 bit?
So I've set up my new mac pro per [URL] recommendations and have a SS boot drive and all my data on a separate Master drive (raid(0) stripe). Lloyd Chambers recommends keeping your home folder on the boot drive as it has a lot of extraneous app files stored in the library. This just means you don't store any data files in your home folder, you put them all on your data disk (with some exception to desktop files- see below) On the other hand, Chris Parillo at [URL:...] suggests just moving your entire home folder. This seems more convenient from a user perspective but does cause some mixing of app files and data files that could cause problems down the road. Such problems include, if for some reason, your system misses the home folder, it will create a new one and all your preferences will be suddenly changed. With this is mind, I've decided to keep my home folder on the boot drive, but it is now annoying to have my desktop files on my boot drive. Again, this is bad mixing of Data and App files and it makes it so if I want to move a file over to the Data file, I have to remember to command click so it doesn't just copy it over and leave two files, one on the desktop and a new copy on the data file. I can't just drag and drop, because it is just copying the file to a separate disk. So if I forget to command click, I have to manually trash the desktop files.
So now if I only had a solution to move my desktop folder location. Anyone have some ideas? I've tried the options in this thread: [URL:...] but they haven't seemed to work. I used a similar terminal trick to move my mail folder off my home folder, why can't I do the same with the desktop folder? Any suggestions or other pros and cons to moving the entire home folder over?
Which would be the best option? Bootcamp or VMware Fusion 3.0? and does bootcamp slow down the mac side of the OS ( such as boot up times etc ) What are the pros and cons to both?
I have been reading about people taking a SSD drive for Boot and OS and using a second HD for their data using MCE's Optibay hard drive enclosure.
I would love to go this way but I can't justify spending all the cash on a SSD yet. Could I put in 2 500GB 7200 rpm drives and RAID 0 them? I know this wont be as fast as SSD but it should be faster than a single hard drive and hold a lot more storage for less $$$.
I know there is already a thread about which is better, but I figured itd be nice to see who ended up getting which. I ordered with a 7200, probably don't need it though.
Why did you choose the option you did? Do you think you'll need it? Do you notice the speed increase?
i'm thinking of getting a macbook pro 15" 2.66ghz for use with logic pro mainly.
my question is really about heat.
if a 7200 rpm drive is going to heat up so much (especially when using intensive programs like logic) that it is bad for the disk would a 5400 be better all round?
obviously it would be slower but would it also last longer/ be more reliable?
...or would the difference in heat be negligible compared to the improved speed?
I want to replace my 3 year old drives before it's too late.
I have about 200 gigs of data, split between a pair of Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm drives I bought 3 years ago.
I am thinking on going with a single 500 gig drive for my data, and I can't decide between a Caviar Black, or a Baracuda 7200.12.
I have read that the Caviar Black have incredible performance, , but only for the 1TB since it has 3 platters.
How do the 500gig models compare between WD and Seagate? I just don't have the need for more. My OS and Apps are on the SSD at 23 gigs, and all the rest of my work/personal files take up about 200 gigs.
Which is going to be better, the Black, or the Baracuda? 500 gig models only.
I have a mid 2009 Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo with 2.26 GHz and will be upgrading both the RAM and hard drive. I've done a fair bit of research regarding which brand and have decided to go with the Hitachi Travelstar.
1) Is my Macbook Pro compatible with the Hitachi Travelstar? By this, I know the physical dimensions fit, but I'm actually wondering if there are any known problems in practice such as the dreaded EFI firmware issue or dropping the 3Gbps SATA to 1.5 speed issue, etc. I'm not sure if my specific Macbook Pro model is the same mid 2009 model that has all these problems so I just wanted to make sure.
2) Assuming the Hitachi Travelstar is compatible, which model is better and why: the 7K500 or the 7K750. I'm especially interested in those who have personal experience of either of these (or both!)
3) Should I buy the 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm version? Why? As of now, I'm trying to decide between 500 Gb, 640 Gb or 750 Gb (is there any difference to performance in regards of which size)?
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz
I've been debating switching to Lion, but I'm not really sure if it's worth it. I have Snow Leopard on my Macbook now and I have a general idea of what the upgrade includes, but I'm not positive. The one major reason I want to switch is to simplify syncing with iCloud.
Im planning on getting a Drobo S. However, Im torn between getting 5 - 2TB 5400 drives or 5 - 1TB 7200 drives. I plan on using it strictly for data storage and as a capture scratch.
I'll be using it via ESATA but was wondering if I would notice a significant difference between the 5400 and the 7200 and if that difference is worth the loss of space?
Anyone have any idea what drives would be best for use in Drobo S?
Am planning on getting a mini and swapping out the hdd for a 7200, but I'm getting a bit worried looking at some posts on another board that claim they've found the faster drives running hotter and louder, with more vibrations.
