Newbie Question: 7200 HDD vs. 5400 HDD on an i5 or i7 laptop?

Many i5s and i7s seem to have 5400s (say, an Apple MBP 15 inch or some Sony F23s)...

I've read that i5s and i7s don't play well with 5400 HDDs (some even say get a hybrid system or SSD --- but price would probably be an issue for me here).

Is the 5400 HDD a bottleneck on these machines assuming medium-intensity tasks?

Why is the Apple 15 inch MBP considered a "powerhouse" (by some) if it has the 5400 (could it be the different operating system). Can HDD size (500 - 1000) make up for HDD speed to some extent?

Thanks for a newbie question. Close to purchasing the 15 inch --- old (6490 and $100 cheaper) or 15 inch (6750). Can get new 15 inch for a about $1707, old for $1610 or so. Not a big gamer but 6750 would be nice. I can get the Asus G74 with 560 card and 7200 hd for about $1,199 --- but that's another issue.

Heck, I even wonder if I need an i7 in a laptop --- short of gaming or heavy applications. I imagine it might future proof to some extent.

 

The best upgrade you can give an i5/i7 laptop at the moment is an SSD either aftermarket or factory installed. The processor for nearly all tasks you will be doing is more then you need. As far as a bottleneck, pretty much all 7200/5400 rpm drives will be the system bottleneck. You would notice far greater a difference by upgrading to a SSD than bothering with anything greater then an i5.

 

Regarding the rpm of your hard drive, in my own experience I didn't notice an increase in performance when upgrading my hdd. Thats because I do basic stuff like browsing the web and gaming (mafia2, AC Brotherhood, which are all bottlenecked by my 2ghz core2duo and my 1gb ati hd4670 gpu).

Regarding the brands sony and apple, they always charge more money and give less hardware for it (though sony seems to be doing better lately with their cheap consumer laptops). But, apple computers (as far as I've heard) 'seem' faster because of their OS.

Anyway, 5400 rpm hdd's are old news, they should have been gone in 2010 already, and to offer them now in 2011 is ridiculous, especially with all the SSD's in the market. Its like buying a diesel car with an sdi engine while the world's been using tdi for ages. (I realise this is a bad comparison, and that for most people a 5400rpm is good enough, but its just the principle, why buy old hardware for more money when there's better hardware in other brands for a lesser cost?).

Since my answer is just based on opinion, I suggest you specify what applications/games you are planning to run on your future laptop, so the people who actually have an i5/i7 cpu can answer your question better.

 

if u are not willing to spend much on SSD then at least go for the fastest 7200RPM hard drive available...
likde WD Scorpio Black 750GB or Hitachi 7K750 750GB
Those 5400RPM drives are good for storage purpose only... not for a system drive.......

 

Not sure where you read the bolded part ... it's a hard drive.

The performance of a hard drive can be broken down into various parts. Responsiveness - how fast you can bring up files and such - isn't about data transfer speed, it's about access time, which is directly related to RPM. The platters spin much faster in a 7200RPM drive and therefore the read/write heads on the drive can access the data faster. If the read/write heads missed accessing some of the data on this rotation of the platter, that same spot on the platter is going to come around rather quickly thanks to the fast rotational speed. On a 5400RPM drive, you'll be waiting a lot longer (mind you, we're talking about milliseconds or fractions of milliseconds here - so the use of the term 'relative' is in order ). This is really important for reading lots of small files (which is 99% of what your computer does on a daily basis). Those little files are often spread all over the drive ... the 7200RPM drive will be able to read all of them more quickly due to the faster platter rotation. E.g. if the read/write heads need 10 RPM of the platters to get at all the data, the 7200RPM is definitely going to win against 5400RPM (again, I'm speaking in very general terms). For everyday performance, numbers to pay attention to are access time and random transfer speed.

An increase in capacity usually results in a data transfer improvement, since the data is more densely packed on the platter(s) and the read/write heads can read x% more in the same amount of time. Whether the actual responsiveness of the drive improves is another story ... manufacturers have had trouble as of recent with the highest-capacity drives and overall responsiveness.

In general, 5400RPM drives should be relegated to storage use. Yes, they will be a bottleneck. 7200RPM should be used for primary drives because (in general) they are much more responsive for the reasons stated above. Performance can vary drastically across manufacturers though ... Seagate 7200RPM drives are relatively slow (excluding the Momentus XT). WD and Hitachi make the fastest 7200RPM drives.

There's no telling what kind of drive you will get if you order it from the factory. So I'd suggest getting the minimum drive and then buying a nice WD Scorpio Black 750GB 7200RPM drive aftermarket (WD7500BPKT) or the Hitachi 7K750. Both have fantastic performance.
You could go the SSD route as well, though if you are only using one drive and need capacity, and don't feel like carrying around an external drive, you're best off sticking with hard drives for now.

 

People saying the MBP are powerhouses are going on either Apple's reputation or it is fanboyism. If you disregard the price and heat issues, they do offer pretty good hardware, but in my mind, powerhouse should be associated with the higher end i7 models like the 2820qm/2920xm and higher end GPUs if you're talking about gaming. In that regard, only certain Clevos and Alienware could be considered true powerhouses for this generation. I always see a few people believing Apple has extraordinary hardware regardless of what's in the computer, the same can be said for Alienware though. The only difference is that you can actually configure a m17x or m18x to sport some of the best laptop hardware.

Ok, back on topic, you'll notice the difference, especially in boot times. Heck, i upgraded the drives in my G73 and replaced the drive in my N50 by one of the momentus 7200.4 that was in the G73. Even though it is a slow drive, the difference was instantly noticeable compared to the hitachi 5400RPM that was in it. I'd also recommend an Hitachi 7K or WD Scorpio black 500 or 750GB. HDD prices are skyrocketting these days unfortunately.

EDIT: Add high end workstations to the list of powerhouses.

 

Thanks everyone for the info.

Great explanations by all, including Charles.

 

charles, how do you feel about the seagate hybrid drive? 500gb + 4gb?

 

Hey,

The Momentus XT drives are getting great feedback and are excellent performers. For everyday use they 'feel' much like an SSD. I personally don't have one, but would consider one if I were in the market for a drive.
Would I recommend it over a standard hard drive? Yes, if you were willing to spend the extra bucks.

 

Yes, great performers, even the seagate haters recommend them. I'm still more of a fan of a SSD + HDD combo, but if you can't do that, the momentus XT is a nice compromise.

 

Momentus XT is indeed a compromise, but usually the SSD feeling you get from them is related only to the boot speed and not to the everyday usage.

I would not recommend it tbh.
If you are comfortable with the HDD speed, then use a regular cheap one. Else get a SSD and use an external usb 3.0 hdd for storage if the laptop doesn't accommodate 2 drives.