Is there a disadvantage to getting a slower spinning 200gb drive on a Macbook?

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4metta4metta
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hello! I need some advice from you guys. I am about to order a Macbook for college and since I have a very large music library I wanted to order one with the largest harddrive available. However, I noticed that the 200 gb drive runs at 4200rpm vs the other ones that run at 5400rpm. What are the disadvantages to having a slower spinning harddrive? I don't do video editing but would be using my laptop to watch dvds. I already know that if I want to game on an Apple I should go with a Macbook Pro ot iMac but I can't afford a Pro and need portability. The dvds and webcasts would be the most graphic intensive things I would be doing. I am getting a total of 2gb of ram put in it.



One final thing that I wanted to ask is do you think it would be unwise to make a purchase right now before Leopard is released? Do you think the latest Macbooks would be able to run it okay when it finally comes out? I waited until Macworld and didn't see a Macbook upgrade so I figure they wouldn't be doing any more updates until at least the very end of the year on the Macbooks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    mydomydo Posts: 1,888member
    I opted for the faster HD rather than the larger one. I had an old iMac that I upgraded the HD to larger and faster and it was noticeably faster. It seemed to boot a lot faster and was just nicer to use.



    With my MacBook Pro I figured ... it's a notebook not a desktop. If I need more storage I'll just get an external and leave it at home. I don't need all my files all the time.
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  • Reply 2 of 5
    4metta4metta Posts: 365member
    Thanks for the reply so I guess I would be looking at longer boot times? What else would be different?
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  • Reply 3 of 5
    decemberdecember Posts: 62member
    I don't think that you should be particularly worried about boot times; how often do you boot a Mac, anyway? However, I would still recommend getting the 160GB HD. Not only is it nominally faster than the 200GB one, but - due to its higher data density - even quite a bit faster than the smaller 5,400rpm drives. From what I've read, it's almost as fast as the 100GB 7,200rpm drive. I'd say get the 160GB one and spend the $100 that you'd be saving towards an external HD.



    As for your other question: Leopard won't be released for another 3 months, so if you need it now go ahead. However, if you can wait until then, you might want to consider doing so because that way you'd get 10.5 and iLife07 for free.

    While the current MacBooks will be able to run Leopard great; they wil be updated sometime during the next half year. Santa Rosa, the new chipset that will improve the performance of the Core 2 Duo processors, will be released in spring and the MacBook Pro will receive an update shortly thereafter, with the MacBook following, but maybe a few months behind. The performance improvement of Santa Rosa's faster bus alone will not be worth the wait, but the new integrated graphics chip it packs very well might; and who knows what other niceties Apple will introduce in a revised MacBook?
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  • Reply 4 of 5
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 4metta View Post


    Hello! I need some advice from you guys. I am about to order a Macbook for college and since I have a very large music library I wanted to order one with the largest harddrive available. However, I noticed that the 200 gb drive runs at 4200rpm vs the other ones that run at 5400rpm. What are the disadvantages to having a slower spinning harddrive? I don't do video editing but would be using my laptop to watch dvds. I already know that if I want to game on an Apple I should go with a Macbook Pro ot iMac but I can't afford a Pro and need portability. The dvds and webcasts would be the most graphic intensive things I would be doing. I am getting a total of 2gb of ram put in it.



    One final thing that I wanted to ask is do you think it would be unwise to make a purchase right now before Leopard is released? Do you think the latest Macbooks would be able to run it okay when it finally comes out? I waited until Macworld and didn't see a Macbook upgrade so I figure they wouldn't be doing any more updates until at least the very end of the year on the Macbooks.



    Hi, I think some people are confused on this thread, just to be clear, you are talking about the MacBook, not the MacBookPro.



    The MacBook (not Pro) 2ghz Core2Duo with 2gb of RAM will be great. I have a Core1Duo MacBook (one year old model) and stuff flies on it. You want to get a 5400rpm drive DEFINITELY. In fact, here's what you should do. See how you go with the default (80gb?) hard disk. Then, get a 7200rpm SATA 2.5" drive of about 100gb or so. Then you can swap the hard disks without violating the warranty. This is more a performance orientation.



    If you are after storage size, then just get the 160gb 5400rpm built-to-order. You must remember though you will need to back up stuff, you can't and shouldn't just dump all your stuff on the MacBook HD and not back it up. Maybe get a 120gb BTO 5400rpm drive with the MacBook. Then swap that out, use it as an external backup drive. Put in a Seagate Momentus 7200rpm 2.5" 100gb drive. This should all be more than enough for your large music library.



    If you need a MacBook now, go for it. Core2Duo revB's should be good, 2gb RAM, nice. Leopard will be good on the MacBook. No doubt.



    I am running 10.4.8 applications, Intel native, a few in the foreground, and Windows Vista Business (!!) in the background via Parallels (Build 3036).



    Check out:

    http://barefeats.com/mbcd7.html



    Some interesting bits, can translate to MacBook and MacBookPro, you might research USB2.0 and FW400 options for the MacBook though.



    d) If you are concerned about battery usage (and heat generation), the 5400rpm drives had a lower wattage rating than the 7200rpm or the 4200rpm drives. Based on capacity, speed, and power usage, it's easy to see why Apple's standard drive choice for the MacBook Pro is the 5400rpm model.



    ALTERNATE STORAGE EXPANSION OPTIONS

    If you want to further expand storage on your MacBook Pro, a cool way to do it is with a bus powered FireWire 800 enclosure with a SATA notebook drive inside. (If you go pure SATA enclosure or use the USB 2 port, you'll have to have an AC adapter.) Check with Wiebetech, TransIntl, and OWC for bus powered FW800 notebook enclosures that accept SATA notebook drives.



    Another cool enclosure is the bus powered FireWire 800 LaCie Little Big Disk which stripes two 7200rpm 100GB PATA drives in a single enclosure producing a "roaring" 200GB 7200rpm volume. Check out what happens when you store 148GB of data on the Little Big Disk compared to the 160GB and 200GB internal MacBook Pro drives:
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  • Reply 5 of 5
    4metta4metta Posts: 365member
    Hey thanks a lot guys!!



    So it seems the 160 gb option is the way to go for me. I'll be getting that and getting an external drive for backing up and more storage options. Glad to know I may not need to wait. We'll see how my funds go and then order when I'm ready.



    Once again...thanks to all who replied!
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