MBP drive, 7200 or 5400rpm

Is the 200GB 7200rpm drive really any faster than the 250GB 5400rpm option?

 

It should be slightly faster, but if it's significantly more expensive I wouldn't go for it because the second drive have a denser platter to somewhat make up for the slower speed.

 

What about the power consumption?
It's hard to get a precise answer because I don't know what brands and models Apple ships in the EU/UK.

 

Yes, it is certainly faster.

The power cosumption difference will be negligable.

 

Do the 7200 rpm. The HD is the bottleneck these days and you WILL notice a difference when web surfing and working with programs.

 

I wish I sprung the extra $150 for the faster HD... it will certainly make a difference in video editing, photo editing, or any kind of app you use.

 

That assumption isn't entirely correct according to this test. The 7200rpm drive was not only significantly faster than the 250gb 5400rpm drive but consumed less power and created less heat.

 

Nuts, then I really made the wrong choice. Seems like WD needs to improve its hardware based off that snippet.

 

I'm tempted to get a new, larger HD since I only have the 160GB 5400rpm one. Only worry is, will I be able to install Vista and CS3 on the new drive using the same disks? I seriously don't want to buy both again lol.

 

you should be able to without much trouble. if vista complains that the product key you have is already in use, a quick call to microsoft will resolve it. i don't know about CS3's activation mechanism but i assume it's the same process where you can email them or call them up to get a new key.

 

Thanks a lot. Was worried a new HD would cost me more than it's worth Do you know how calling them works, as in, what they ask for? Hope it's not the reciept, since that's long gone, lol. But I guess the original key and serial code right?

 

Microsoft will just ask for your current product key and then give you a new one. They'll also ask if you put in new hardware, which you did. In my case I was running Windows Vista initially on my boot camp partition and when I tried to run that through VMWare Fusion it needed to be reactivitated. One 5 minute phone call fixed the problem.

 

sweet, thanks for the info.

 

I agree with the others that say you should go with the 7200rpm drive. It is one of the limiting factors for computers these days and getting a HD that spins faster will definitely increase your computer's speed and efficiency. You will get tricked into thinking that your processor is faster . Yeah the difference is that much.

 

the difference between a 7,200 and 5,400 is very marginal the things you explained such as web surfing and working with programs are more cpu, ram or depending on the type of program gpu intensive. the hard drive is for reading and writing so unless you are constantly working with transferring large files you will only really notice the slight decrease when loading the OS(programs).

i would say your not at a disadvantage what so ever with a 5,400 but if you want the extra speed then go with the 7,200.

 

Are all 2.5" HDs 1 platter drives?

 

No, majority of 2.5" HD are 2 platter design.

Currently the maximum size per platter for 2.5" is roughly around 160GB... thus the 320GB 5400 drives out right now.

 

Personally, I would go for the 7200rpm drive, but....
I'd get the MacBook in it's base configuration, and buy the drive from NewEgg, and sell the original 160GB on eBay. You'll end up with a cheaper drive upgrade that way.

 

This is what I just did except I bought an external enclosure to use as a portable HD.