Change harddisk. 5400RPM or 7200RPM?

Hello there!
I'm waiting for my new MBP 13". I'm going to change harddisk for a large one. Should i stick for 5400 or 7200rpm? Will i get performance boost with 7200? What will happen to the battery time? Will a 7200 disk get hotter?
Thanks in advance!
Best regards
Johan

That's the one I was referring to - you want model ST9500420AS (no G on the end). It will fit in the 13" MBP (but it will only run at SATA-I speed, 1.5 Gbps, not SATA-II, 3.0 Gbps, since the 13" MBP is SATA-I).
Instructions for DIY HDD swap are on p. 37 of the manual:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/MacBook_Pro_13inchMid2009.pdf

Similar Messages

Noticeable difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM?

I am just wondering if anyone notices a large difference in loading times, games, etc. between the 5400RPM and 7200RPM hard drives? I am a bit worried with movie editing and music, gaming, etc. Thanks.

Yes, well sort of. I upgraded my 5400 RPM drive to a 7200 RPM drive and the difference is very noticeable. Some 5400 RPM drives are slower than others some are faster..same for 7200 RPM drives. So if you go from a slow 5400 RPM drive to a fast 7200 RPM drive the difference is very noticeable.

5400rpm or 7200rpm? - MBP 2011 17''

Hi people!
I will buy an MBP 17'' but...
I don't know if I should choose 5400rpm or 7200rpm hard-drive.
I am developer and I want good mobility...good battery autonomy.
With 5400rpm, mac have 7 hours browsing... but with 7200rpm drive, how much i will have? 6,5 hours?
7200rpm makes much difference in terms of performance, heating, battery?
15'' model has Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500Gb...
What are drives from 15'' and 17'' from 750Gb 5400rpm or 500Gb 7200rpm?
Thanks!
Sorry for my bad english...

Unfortunately the drive mfgrs. don't agree. Both variations carry the same MTBF estimations. Power consumption of the 7200 variant is usually between .1-1.0 watts depending upon the operating state: idle, startup, read, write. Heat generation is also negligible although the 7200 RPM variant may be warmer during heavy usage like doing a backup or restore. However, 7200 RPM drives are faster, and more so than just minor. Realizing the difference, however, depends a lot on the rest of the hardware. Put a fast drive in a USB box and it's slow. Firewire it's faster. But both interfaces are saturated before the drive can reach its potential. If the drive's SATA interface supports 3.0 Gb/s then putting it in a machine whose controller only supports 1.5 Gb/s will prevent the drive from reaching its potential. And this only deals with the basic interface.

MBP 15" 2.4GHz - 5400rpm vs 7200rpm HDD?

I intend to buy a 2.4GHz 15" 4GB RAM MBP. I am in a fix right now about going for which of the two HDDs 5400rpm vs 7200rpm (both of 200GB). The MBP with the default configuration(ie with 5400rpm) is for only 1699$ due to some stock clearance offer at my educational store. But, if I go for the 7200rpm the machine will cost me $1799+98, implying more $200. I intend to buy the extra 2GB RAM separately. Is it really worth it spending more 200$ on the 7200rpm HDD in my machine? I am a performance freak, and being a computer graduate student end up spending most of the time on my machine. Anyone who has used both the machines, please let me know if there is any noteworthy difference? I do understand that the decision is my personal one; but, please throw some insight and help me in making a decision quickly.

I bought a 7200rpm 100GB drive with my mbp. About a week ago I upgraded to a 7200rpm 320GB drive because I needed the space. If you, like me, are a performance freak, go with the 7200. I did and never regretted it. In fact i dealt with the space issue by buying a 500GB and a 1TB external (FW800). Because the new current MBPs use a 3.0gbps SATA interface, getting the 5400rpm might give you a bottle neck.
this is what i have now:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/momentus_7200.3/
original was the momentus 7200.1
If you compare the 5400.5 and the 7200.3 you'll see that there is a 20MB/s difference is sustained transfer rates. Considering the 300MB/s transfer rate of the 3.0 SATA interface, you will notice a difference. SATA likes 10k rpm plus, 5400 just doesn't cut it anymore. If you don't care about voiding the warranty, go to newegg and get the 7200.3 320GB. I got mine for about $175ish OEM (can't remember). Then turn your old one into an external.
Oh, and this thread is off limits for bickering about the differences between mebibytes, megabytes, and megabits.

Change 250GB 5400rpm to SSD in new MBP 13

Hi,
Could I get help choosing best SSD alternative for my brand new MBP 13!
Which is best fit. I want 250GB SSD. There are so many alternatives i want the best that suit whitout complication. I have a 250GB 5400rpm for now.
Any suggestion? Is there anything i must do or know before I change.
Cheers,
-magnus

In your case, I would clone the old HDD to the SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner. See my user tip -> Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive that explains the scenario.
Good luck,
Clinton
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

5400rpm vs 7200rpm

Hi,
I'm looking to purchase an external portable hard drive for booting OS X Leopard. I've been looking at:
LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Disk
FireWire 800, FireWire 400 & Hi-Speed USB 2.0
250GB 5400 rpm
and
OWC Mercury On-The-Go 200 GB 7200rpm
FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 2.5" Portable SATA Storage Solutions
Am I going to see much of a difference between the 7200rpm and the 5400rpm for running Leopard and its applications?
Thanks for all your help guys.

between the two maybe 12% although since firewire interface it really wouldn't matter. Internal I use 7200 rpm and external drives 5400 or 7200 rpm.

Should I buy 2.4 GHz MBP with 5400RPM or 7200RPM HD?

Hi,
I'm about to buy a MBP for the purposes of 3D software (primarily Sketchup), Photoshop, video editing and some Windows based software such as AutoCAD. Chances are I will need to run some of these simultaneously using Windows on Parallels.
The question is, is it really going to make a big difference I go for the 7,200RPM HD? Is this something I might just decide to upgrade later? I heard the 7,200RPM HDs are likely to make the machine run hotter (makes sense)... Is this true? Is it more likely to cause problems I've heard about such as warping the laptop's body?
Any quick advice on this would be much appreciated (as I'm in HK until tomorrow, where I can get it particularly cheap - but I'd have to order the 7,200RPM one, which is more hassle...)
Many thanks,
Alex

a 7200rpm drive will be faster, there's no doubt about that. Just think if that wasn't the case all computers including desktops would still be using 5400rpm drives.
Now depending on what you do will dictate the how much of a speed boost you'll benefit from the upgrade. Normal users, web surfing office apps will see the biggest boost at bootup but then most apps will operate as they would on a 5400rpm.
Move on to more of the higher end applications like Photoshop, motion, aperture and you start seeing a bigger difference in speed.
For me, I opted not go with the 7200 drive, mostly because I didn't want to go the CTO route and while I use photoshop and aperture the speed difference matter little to me.

5400rpm or 7200rpm for Macbook with leopard?

I am getting a good deal on Samsung's 250GB 5400rpm drive but I hear some people say 5400rpm is not good for leopard and is slow. But some folks also say 7200rpm gets hot on macbooks and is noisy.
So I am really confused and would like to know what other macbook users say about them. I would really appreciate your inputs. Thanks!
Message was edited by: life4rent
null

ipod_user wrote:
there are always good and bad points to everything, in this case they are quite even...
as the current macbooks ship with 5400rpm HDD's, this definitely isn't that slow, and if using your computer for every day use, the difference between 5400prm and 7200rpm will be almost indistinguishable, also the macbook air ships with a 4200rpm HDD apple obviously dont think this is too slow to be acceptable for normal use.
Of course a newer 5400 RPM drive is going to have a faster transfer rate than an older 5400 RPM drive due to higher "areal desity" (how much data is capable of being stored per unit area) with newer platters.
the good point for the 5400 HDD is that the battery can last longer, because the disk moves slower therefore consuming less power.
I heard maybe a .5 watt typical difference with the latest drives of both types. Might mean a few more minutes battery life, but about the power usage of a USB device like a mouse or flash drive. I think just dimming the display would make a bigger difference. In addition, new drives are generally more efficient and a new 7200 RPM drive might have about the same power consumption as an older 5400 RPM drive.
the bad point mainly made for the 7200 HDD is the battery life, which can be significantly reduced, but the good point is that leopard and other programs will run faster...
The way I saw it was that it wouldn't really matter with me since my MacBook mostly sits on the coffee table plugged into the power adapter.
so, its your choice, speed over battery...
unless you are going to be using a lot of high powered programs the 5400 rpm HDD should be more than adequate
Certainly nothing wrong with it. I just put in a 7200 RPM drive to see if I could.

Seagate 500Gb 5400RPM - Seagate 7200RPM

My problem is pretty much sorted now, but I thought others may be interested in my experiences. Essentially I upgrade from a Macbook to a Macbook Pro UniB 2.4Ghz - I put in a WD 320Gb 7200RPM drive, and then later upgraded that to a 5400RPM Seagate 500Gb.
Anyways, I wasn't too happy with the performance of the machine... Random pauses, generally a little lethargic. Anyways, I've now put in a Seagate 7200RPM unit and the transformation is massive - it almost makes me think there's something wrong with the 5400RPM unit... But I can't find anything screwey with it. For what it's worth it's now in a Dell unit and seemingly working well enough, and quickly. It's just not too great in the MBP?
Anyway, have a look here if you're interested: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/6/13Macbook_Pro_Hard_DiskUpgrade.html

I had a similar experience when I tried the Seagate 500 GB 5400-rpm drive in my MacBook Pro earlier this year. From my admittedly anecdotal observations, the drive seemed particularly slow on read access times. Also, I would occasionally get an odd UI stuttering effect when lots of data was being read from disk.
I found similar reports from other users on the forums at NewEgg.com. Reports on various tech sites (e.g. Tom's Hardware) seemed to confirm that read access times were around 19 ms, compared to 15 or 16 ms for many other drives. A difference of 3-4 ms might not seem like much, but it is apparently noticeable.
A week later, I switched to the Western Digital 500 GB 5400-rpm drive and the problem disappeared immediately.
Now I'm running the Seagate 500 GB 7200-rpm drive in my new MacBook Pro, which also seems quite snappy, perhaps even more so than the Western Digital. My only complaint is that the 7200-rpm drive also produces more vibration in the MacBook Pro's unibody chassis. But I expected as much and am slowly learning to live with it for the sake of performance.
-Dennis

LR3 choice - 5400rpm to 7200rpm or 4GB to 8GB

What will LR3 like more... faster HD or more memory?
Macbook Pro 2.4 i5

First of all, let me clarify, Haven't a clue about much of this stuff and certainly not on par with your experience, But, funny, just read an article in PC World that defragging the newer bigger drives was a Waste of time?
What are us Know Nothings to do?:) I deleted Defragger right after I read the article, should I re-install?
Mike

Macbook Pro 3,1 - is there a compatible HD upgrade with 320GB @ 7200RPM?

I'm at the point where I either need to make some upgrades to my Macbook Pro 3,1, or I am going to have to get a new laptop. Thinking about getting a Lenovo Thinkpad x120e, but maybe I could hold off on that purchase and make the following changes to my macbook.
2x1GB DDR2 >> 2x2GB DDR2
160GB HD @ 5400RPM >> 320GB @ 7200RPM
Upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard (avoid Lion for performance)
Get replacement keyboard because of intermittent malfunction.
My question is, is there a compatible HD upgrade with the specs I am looking for? The upgrades, excluding a HD, would total $155, and I'd like to keep the costs under $200, otherwise I might as well just fork out another $250 and get a Thinkpad. Any suggestions or advice?

Hi Peter,
It definately was justified to upgrade from the MBP15'Core2DuoLate2006 to the new one. The processor is only 0,4 GB faster is true, however, the LED screen is much brighter and crisper and noticeably longer battery life in addittion to all 'corrections' to bugs and bits here and there. I also got this new machine for free as a replacement to a damaged under-warranty screen on the previous, so that was the justification I wouldn't have said no, would you?
Santa Rosa Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

HP dv5 1015ea - After hard disk change, the notepad freezes

hi,
my hp dv5 1015ea had a 250GB Hitachi(5200rpm) SATA drive before. After i changed to Seagate 500GB (7200rpm) Sata drive, the notepad goes in freeze after 10 minutes of start.
please suggest !!
Anurag
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi,
First try running a system file check. From the Start Menu, click All Programs, click Accessories and then right click on the Command prompt and select 'Run as administrator'. Into the prompt, type the following command and hit return.
sfc /scannow ( there is a space between sfc and the / )
Let the process complete. When finished type exit and hit return. Reboot the PC and see if the problem still occurs.
If it does, download and install ccleaner on the link below.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard
First run the file cleaning utility and then use the registry cleaner by choosing it from the icon on the left. Click scan for issues and when the scan has finished, click fix selected issues, saving when the program asks, and then delete them. Repeat this process until no issues are found.
Reboot the PC and see if this has helped.
Best wishes,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

7200RPM 200GB Hitachi Travelstar

Hey there
I'm new to this forum...
Has anyone tried the 7200RPM 200GB Hitachi Travelstar in the 12" Powerbook..
After 5 years of very happy computing, I am upgrading my poor battered laptop.. It now has the max ram and I want to speed up the drive.. I have read about the heat and battery issues but will try it anyway..
Cool forum BTW
Billy

Unless I am mistaken, Hitachi's 2.5" 7200 RPM 200GB Travelstar is a Serial ATA drive, which is not compatible with any PowerBook since they use Parallel ATA (aka IDE).
The largest compatible 7200RPM drive currently available is the 100GB Travelstar. However, if you want the capacity, then Western Digital's 250GB 5400RPM Scorpio is the largest you can get, and the speed isn't too bad. Other good but less capacious alternatives are the 5400RPM 160GB offerings from Hitachi and Seagate.
Unless you are doing highly disk intensive work, the speed difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM should be hardly noticeable in day-to-day usage.

New harddisk & Leopard

Hi,
I am going to change my harddisk and also update to leopard.
Should I first change harddisk and then update, or update first and then change harddisk?
What to do about workflow so I can keep all programs, passwords and all other stuff?
Thanks
J

if you use different size of harddisk or not would be important to know.
My approach would be to launch DiskUtility while booted from DVD or external drive and do a "Restore" from your original disk to your new disk. Then swap the drives. Boot up your copy of the original drive and do the update. If something fails you can easily go back.
One thing I've run into when doing this was that my new Samsung HM250 drive required a firmware update to work properly as internal drive but worked perfectly as external drive. A problem like this can drive you nuts as the logic behind it is hard to find. Fix was to download firmware update as CD.iso image, boot it (it boots DOS!) and your drive is updated. Without that everything looks like kinda working but just 100 times slower than usual.

About PB 15 Help.

Hi.
This isn't so important.
Concerning PB's 15 Help, I was looking the new functions for docked windows. There the following example (the title for the help context is Opening Docked Windows and Tabbed Document Windows) which is wrong:
window win[]
OpenSheetWithParmDocked(win[1], "1", "w_sheet_any", this, WindowDockLeft!, "")
OpenSheetWithParmInTabGroup(win[2], "2", "w_sheet_any", this, WindDockRight!, "")
OpensheetWithParmInTabGroup(win[3], "3", "w_sheet_any", win[1], "")
OpenSheetWithParmAsDocument(win[4], "4", "w_sheet_any", this, "")
OpenSheetWithParmAsDocument(win[5], "5", "w_sheet_any", win[4], "")
OpenSheetWithParmAsDocument(win[6], "6", "w_sheet_any", this, "", false)
OpenSheetWithParmAsDocument(win[7], "7", "w_sheet_any", win[5], "")
OpenSheetWithParmAsDocument(win[8], "8", "w_sheet_any", win[6], "")
In the above script the third command (OpenSheetWithParmInTabGroup(win[2], "2", "w_sheet_any", this, WindDockRight!, "") is wrong and not working... Changing it to something like the fourth command corrects that problem.
Anyway it's nice to see the help files being updated. It would be grate to mention what works to pb.net and what to classic.
Finally, PB Classic will change its name to Native?
Andreas Mykonios.

i need help about the my harddisk's
upgrade. I owna PB 15" Al with a 80GB hard disk and
I'm interested to upgrade this to a 100/120GB.
omeone can help me to understand if is it possible to
do?
As you look at drives, you have several decision points....first speed. 5400rpm or 7200rpm. 5400rpm is the current standard, while 7200rpm carries a bit of a price premium for the speed. Then size.....5400rpm drives can be had up to 160gb while the faster 7200rpm drives top out at 100gb. Warranty may be a consideration, with Seagate having 5 years on it's drives.
If you're considering upgrading because you're running out of space on your PB hard drive, you might consider an external hard drive. With an external drive, you can offload and backup files from your hard drive. If the external drive supports firewire connections, you'll have an alternate source to start your PB from should your internal hard drive fail. You can buy various sizes of external drives, or you can 'assemble' your own, putting a hard drive you've bought into an external case. The benefit of this approach is that most complete drives come with a one year warranty, while many hard drives come with a 3 year warranty, which you'd install into the case of your choice (attach plug in the hard drive enclosure and tighten 4 screws to hold the hard drive to the case). An external hard drive with it's own power supply is desireable too, and extra points if the enclosure uses the Oxford chipset which seems to work pretty reliably with our macs.

Change harddisk. 5400RPM or 7200RPM?

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