I didn't think about the partial improvement in speed when upgrading from the 100 GB to 120 GB 5400 RPM drive. It should be about the same power and noise, just a bit faster due to the increased density of the platters.
Perhaps a good compromise between performance and battery life?
Perhaps. But consider this: you're paying through the nose for the highest-end drive, as opposed to the one a notch down. (especially from Apple)
Also, new hard drive technology is coming out very rapidly right now--for instance, the 5400.3 160GB Momentus was just released, with speeds very close to that of the 7200.1. Price is still high at this point, but within a year (maybe only a few months) there will be much better notebook drives available than currently, at very reasonable prices. If you can live with a 100GB 5400 right now--and I don't think that's too hard--the money you save could put you much of the way to a far-superior upgrade, whereas now those hundred bucks will only buy a marginal increase in performance.
I ripped this off of AsLan^'s post in the AN forums but apparently barefeats did a benchmark for the HDs that will potentially be used in the MacBook Pro along with some other laptop drives.
I was trying to decide between the 100 gig 5400 and the 100 gig 7200 so I found the site pretty informative.
i was thinking all kinds of crazy thoughts about either going 100gb, 100gb at 7200 or 120gb.
in the end i went with the standard 100gb.
i dont want any battery life wasted on my macbook pros.
and i dont want to pay up the ass for the 120gb when i can essentially (if truly needed) go external drive.
i'm a hobbyist, and my hobby is music production.
i figured if i'm going to do that much where i need a 120gb drive i might as well buy the external and keep all my samples, plug ins, etc's on my external drive.
because i use my laptop for school and work as well.
i cant clutter my harddrive with my hobby and i cant waste up battery life either.
Bare Feats just posted benchmark results comparing the 5400 and 7200 RPM drives, as well as external FireWire drives on the MacBook Pros. Overall they found that its not necessarily worth it, unless you're doing huge I/O with large files (read Video).
I wish they also compared the higher capacity 5400 RPM drive. I'm not sure if its density is larger, but if so it might have a slight performance boost. Or so the Germans would have us believe.
I prefer 7200 RPM drives because they help keep me from rotating my laptop on a horizontal axis.
Seriously though, it may be cheaper to get the cheap drive and getting a better one installed locally. Then, use the drive that came with your mac (which you took out) and get a mobile 2.5" FW enclosure. They're tiny and now you have a neat gadget and probably a better hard drive for a few bucks more.
Bare Feats just posted benchmark results comparing the 5400 and 7200 RPM drives, as well as external FireWire drives on the MacBook Pros. Overall they found that its not necessarily worth it, unless you're doing huge I/O with large files (read Video).
I wish they also compared the higher capacity 5400 RPM drive. I'm not sure if its density is larger, but if so it might have a slight performance boost. Or so the Germans would have us believe.
Thoughts?
True, they were about even on the random read test, but on all the other tests, the 7200 was 21-62% faster than the 5400
I just made my MBP order the 2.0 ghz with 2 gb ram and the 7200 100 gb hd. Why? First - I mostly gone move it arround in my house, sofa>desk>in front tv>etc. (most of the time power connection nearby) so battery isn't most important. Second - When it comes so far I need the extra 20 gb (I won't boot windows). I'll get an portable lacie hd with the F. A. Porsche design that will look nicely next to my MBP . And last - Putting it in Steve Jobs his words, I Like it to be a screamer .
You need to also take battery life into consideration. 7200rpm disks will suck up more of your battery.
It is a matter of perspective because the drives are surprisingly efficient. The Seagates aren't that bad, something like 2.2W for the 7.2s vs 1.8W for the 5.4s. Yes, that's 20% but 0.4W isn't much in the whole scheme of a laptop, the backlight and CPU are far worse on power draw at tens of watts each. I saw a review somewhere (sorry, I forget where right now) comparing drives of different rotational speeds in the same spec computers and it affected the battery life by a few minutes at most. Any noise and heat difference wasn't noticed by the people doing the tests.
It depends on the situation, the faster drive of reasonably similar size drives can help improve boot times, app startup times and general file accesses. For a few large files, the larger drive might make up for the difference in rotational speed, but usually the computer access a lot of little files, and that's where access time generally helps.
The MacWorld review showed the ZIP archive was nearly 20% faster on the faster hard drive, which was a remarkable speed difference when the extra speed on the CPU made almost no difference on the rest of the tests.
That said, the price Apple is asking is a bit steep. You can buy the bare drive for $200, and Apple is asking exactly that in some cases to upgrade the drive. Now, I wonder if there is an external 2.5" SATA to Firewire enclosure I can throw the old drive into.
Here is a video by OWC on how to upgrade the drives:
Like the Mac mini, as long as you don't break anything, it shouldn't affect the warranty, and this looks easier than the mini upgrades.
If the Barefeats tests are accurate, then maybe it is worth springing for the slower spinning, higher capacity drive instead. Of course, maxing out the RAM is the first thing to do, IMO. It's disappointing that there are no higher speed connectivity options with the MBP (either built-in or as eSATA or FW800 ExpressCard/34 cards), 50% faster at reads is quite an improvement, though I wonder what's up with the write speeds.
Comments
Originally posted by Xool
Interesting thinking...
I didn't think about the partial improvement in speed when upgrading from the 100 GB to 120 GB 5400 RPM drive. It should be about the same power and noise, just a bit faster due to the increased density of the platters.
Perhaps a good compromise between performance and battery life?
Perhaps. But consider this: you're paying through the nose for the highest-end drive, as opposed to the one a notch down. (especially from Apple)
Also, new hard drive technology is coming out very rapidly right now--for instance, the 5400.3 160GB Momentus was just released, with speeds very close to that of the 7200.1. Price is still high at this point, but within a year (maybe only a few months) there will be much better notebook drives available than currently, at very reasonable prices. If you can live with a 100GB 5400 right now--and I don't think that's too hard--the money you save could put you much of the way to a far-superior upgrade, whereas now those hundred bucks will only buy a marginal increase in performance.
I was trying to decide between the 100 gig 5400 and the 100 gig 7200 so I found the site pretty informative.
in the end i went with the standard 100gb.
i dont want any battery life wasted on my macbook pros.
and i dont want to pay up the ass for the 120gb when i can essentially (if truly needed) go external drive.
i'm a hobbyist, and my hobby is music production.
i figured if i'm going to do that much where i need a 120gb drive i might as well buy the external and keep all my samples, plug ins, etc's on my external drive.
because i use my laptop for school and work as well.
i cant clutter my harddrive with my hobby and i cant waste up battery life either.
I wish they also compared the higher capacity 5400 RPM drive. I'm not sure if its density is larger, but if so it might have a slight performance boost. Or so the Germans would have us believe.
Thoughts?
Seriously though, it may be cheaper to get the cheap drive and getting a better one installed locally. Then, use the drive that came with your mac (which you took out) and get a mobile 2.5" FW enclosure. They're tiny and now you have a neat gadget and probably a better hard drive for a few bucks more.
Originally posted by Xool
Bare Feats just posted benchmark results comparing the 5400 and 7200 RPM drives, as well as external FireWire drives on the MacBook Pros. Overall they found that its not necessarily worth it, unless you're doing huge I/O with large files (read Video).
I wish they also compared the higher capacity 5400 RPM drive. I'm not sure if its density is larger, but if so it might have a slight performance boost. Or so the Germans would have us believe.
Thoughts?
True, they were about even on the random read test, but on all the other tests, the 7200 was 21-62% faster than the 5400
Greetz,
Jelle
Originally posted by Gene Clean
You need to also take battery life into consideration. 7200rpm disks will suck up more of your battery.
It is a matter of perspective because the drives are surprisingly efficient. The Seagates aren't that bad, something like 2.2W for the 7.2s vs 1.8W for the 5.4s. Yes, that's 20% but 0.4W isn't much in the whole scheme of a laptop, the backlight and CPU are far worse on power draw at tens of watts each. I saw a review somewhere (sorry, I forget where right now) comparing drives of different rotational speeds in the same spec computers and it affected the battery life by a few minutes at most. Any noise and heat difference wasn't noticed by the people doing the tests.
It depends on the situation, the faster drive of reasonably similar size drives can help improve boot times, app startup times and general file accesses. For a few large files, the larger drive might make up for the difference in rotational speed, but usually the computer access a lot of little files, and that's where access time generally helps.
The MacWorld review showed the ZIP archive was nearly 20% faster on the faster hard drive, which was a remarkable speed difference when the extra speed on the CPU made almost no difference on the rest of the tests.
That said, the price Apple is asking is a bit steep. You can buy the bare drive for $200, and Apple is asking exactly that in some cases to upgrade the drive. Now, I wonder if there is an external 2.5" SATA to Firewire enclosure I can throw the old drive into.
Here is a video by OWC on how to upgrade the drives:
http://media.macsales.com/highres.html
Like the Mac mini, as long as you don't break anything, it shouldn't affect the warranty, and this looks easier than the mini upgrades.
If the Barefeats tests are accurate, then maybe it is worth springing for the slower spinning, higher capacity drive instead. Of course, maxing out the RAM is the first thing to do, IMO. It's disappointing that there are no higher speed connectivity options with the MBP (either built-in or as eSATA or FW800 ExpressCard/34 cards), 50% faster at reads is quite an improvement, though I wonder what's up with the write speeds.