5400 RPMs a keeper?

I bought the macbook pro i7 with a 5400 RPM hard drive because the rep said that Apple stores only carry hard drives with this speed (I hate dealing with returns by mail.......and the refund would've taken 10 business days on special orders). Has anyone experienced both the 7200 and 5400? Is there a difference considerable enough to have to wait for 7200 delivery by mail and give up the restocking fee of 10% ($230)? Oh, and the load I put on my laptop is generally moving files around ALOT, having between 10 - 20 different windows open (a mix of folders, internet tabs, and others), and minor photo and video editing programs (for converting file types and trimming).

Sorry to tell you this, but I’d always go with the 7200 rpm drive. I once switched drives in my PBG4 from 5400 to 7200 and the speed difference was really noticeable. Booting, copying, launching apps is faster. Later I had a MBP which I bought with a 5400 due to lack of 7200-equipped ones while ordering. I replaced it a few weeks later and noticed the speed difference again. Today I always order my portable Macs with 7200 rpm drives until SSDs get cheap and big enough to switch.
Björn

Similar Messages

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    Hello there
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    This question was solved.
    View Solution.

    I actually have the Envy Ultrabook is why I asked. HP provided me one for a testing unit so we here on the Forum could keep abreast of their latest offerings. The mSSD accel cache is amazing. It gives ultrafast boot times and hard drive access. It does make the laptop hard to work with for tekkies, but for most users who will not try to monkey around with the OS, like dual boot with Linux or reload with a clean install of your own Windows 7 and other similar stuff it is a great performer...no need for a 7200 rpm drive.

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  • The big 7200rpm vs 5400 rpm debate

    I'm planning to buy a 2.2ghz Macbook Pro. I would get one with 2Gb of RAM and the 160Gb 7200 rpm HD, but now someone I know had already bought the standard config (2.2 Ghz, 2Gb, 120 5400 rpm) through his company but he's selling it because he'd rather use the money he gets from it to buy a 24"" iMac. I would be using the MBPro for iLife, Parellels with Win2K, and possibly Ubuntu Linux. I'm not one to store thousands of songs or photos on my mac, because I'd be buying an external HD for that. He's offering me the MB Pro for a reduced price (a bit above the price of the Black Macbook with a 160Gb HD). I also plan to buy Starcraft 2 when it's released and will also be playing Freespace Open heavily. Will I regret not getting the 7200rpm drive or is the 5400 rpm drive more than fast enough for everything but high-end stuff ?

    Probably not. However, if you do regret it the saving should be enough for you to go out a buy one and swap them over giving you the 5400rpm drive to put in an external case.

  • 5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm on new MacBook pro?

    What is the difference?  Will I really notice it when video editing?  Does it change battery life and longevity?

    About 1800 RPM? But seriously, folks. It's a matter of speed. The 7200 RPM drive will typically be faster at i/o than the 5400 RPM drive. Any activity that requires a lot of disk i/o will benefit from a faster drive.
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  • 5400 rpm vs. 7200rpm HD for Premiere

    Going to switch from FCP to Premiere and I am looking at purchasing an iMac with a 5400rpm HD.  The system requirements say it should be a 7200rpm HD.  Will Premiere run properly on a 5400 rpm HD or should I consider upgrading the HD?5400rpm vs. 7200rpm

    .....before spending a lot of money, if your are SERIOUS about using premiere pro....you MAY want to consider a Windows machine instead of an Apple product. Some people are wedded to the Macs....if you are one of them do a lot of reading first about which machine you buy and how it is configured. An NVidia GPU is a MUST.....multiple hard drives is a MUST, best to have SATA III SSDs and at least 32GB system memory....good luck !

  • Will using a 5400 rpm drive for the os/application be a problem?

    I have an iMac that has a 5400 rpm drive that has FCP and Mac OS on it. Video will be edited from a connected FW 800 drive. Will the 5400 primary drive be a problem?
    Thanks.

    Did you install this as a replacement drive? AFAIK, iMacs have 7200 system drives.
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    Russ

  • Is it possible to upgrade from 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm to ssd on the new 13" 2012 macbook pro?

    is it possible to upgrade from 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm to ssd on the new 13" 2012 macbook pro?

    New non-retina 15" MBP, I just replaced the 500 gb HD with a Samsung 830 256 gb SSD from Amazon, $255 for the kit (includes a USB cable).  Wow.  What a difference.  Yes, there was a learning curve for some of it, but was so worth it.  Let me know if I can help.  I'm using the 500 gb in 2 partitions - one for a clone of the SSD, and one for Time Machine.

  • Can I replace the 5400 RPM drive with a seagate 7200 RPM drive in a Lenovo B570

    Hi there,
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    Thank you for all your replies.
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    To add a little to what Tanuj said, you may have a (fixable) issue when moving to the new drive.
    Depending on when your laptop was built it may have a legacy (512-byte sector) or Advanced Format (4k-byte sector) hard drive.  Many/most larger drives on the market are AF.   If you migrate from legacy to AF, you may notice that Windows Update has stopped working.  Windows 7 is supposed to handle AF drives correctly, but there are many cases where it doesn't until updated, or an additional driver is installed.  The situation is worse with XP, but also fixable.
    You may well not have any problems with this, but if you do I have some notes and links to fixes over here:
    Windows Update Broken After Cloning Hard drive
    Z.
    The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc.  The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog
    English Community   Deutsche Community   Comunidad en Español   Русскоязычное Сообщество

  • 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm or 128GB Solid State Drive?

    Ok so im probably going to get the MacBook Pro 15 inch non retina 2.6 GhZ. it comes with 750 GB Serial ATA Drive and im trying to see if it is worth upgrading to the SSD im going to be using it for a lot of video editing (Final Cut Pro/YouTube) as well as streaming videos and using it for class work give me your opinions on what you think would be best to get if im using it for this thanks! (also ahould i upgrade to 2.7 GhZ.??)

    I agree with Bimmer 7 Series.  I did the same SSD update of the 2.5" Hard Drive.  i went from a 750GB 5400 RPM to a 512 GB SSD and used the 750 for additional storage (put in a chassis) and a 4x improvement on performance on the SSD vs. the typical HD. 
    Boot time went from 50seconds to 10 seconds.
    Loading Parallels 7 load of Windows XP Pro was 1:33 minutes to 40 seconds.
    Excel 2010 load time was 25 seconds, now 7 seconds
    iMovie with 40 minute move added to edit/preview- 40 seconds, now 14 seconds.
    These are just a few examples. I have the 2012 13 MBP (2.8Ghz 8GB RAM).

  • Speed of SSD vs 5400 rpm Serial ATA

    On the online Apple store the difference between SSD hard drives and the 5400 rpm Serial ATA drive is said to be in durability. How does the speed of the two kinds of drives compare? I know that 7200 rpm is preferred for video editing because the drive can be read faster. Is there any difference in how fast a 5400 rpm drive and an SSD drive can be read? Apple does not mention this on their website, which I think they would do if the SSD drive was faster (which is why I ask).

    That's actually barefeats.com.
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  • Disco duro a 5400 rpm

    Tengo un ordenador portátil toshiba con procesador Intel Core I5-480M de dos núcleos de última generación, con un disco duro que transmite los datos a
    5400 rpm. ¿Es suficiente este disco para producir videos profesionales de alta calidad?

    TRANSLATED:
    I have a toshiba laptop with Intel Core I5-480M dual-core next-generation, with a hard drive that transmits data 5400 rpm. Is this hard enough to produce professional quality video?
    MY REPLY:
    It probably depends on what type of video you are editing. If you are editing regular definition DV video, you should be just fine. You will probably find that your computer is inadequate though for editing high-definition or AVCHD video.
    Probablemente depende de qué tipo de vídeo que se está editando. Si está editando regularmente definición de vídeo DV, usted debe estar muy bien. Usted encontrará probablemente que su equipo no es suficiente, aunque para la edición de alta definición AVCHD video.

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