External drive 'speeds'??? 5400 - 7200 rpm?

I'm on location. I have to buy a couple of external drives quick. I'm used to buying my drives straight from a distributor, shipped by mail - he just ships the 7200 rpms. I go into Best Buy, Office Depot, Target ... and non of the external drives have the drive speed listed on the boxes anymore, nor on the net either, it appears.
Is this because all the new drives are automatically 7200 rpm?
Is there a way I can find out what the speed of this drive I bought is actually running at 7200 rpm before I start loading it with data?: a Seagate Backup Plus 2T.
Any help would be most appreciated,
Thank you...
Ben

Hi Bengt,
I shoot HD all the time. Often XDCam, which has no problem with the USB2 -- I've made a dozen films in this format over the last year or so, and have had no issues. I haven't had any trouble with full HD ProRes either. At least up to HQ 422. 444 would be another issue entirely I agree. Sometimes I just have to bite the bullet ... on location, everything happening, no waiting for the camera guy, etc. etc. and go for whatever I can get. The new drive, whatever its rpm, seems to be handling the XDCam just fine.
Thank you, and all the best,
B

Similar Messages

Lacie 2TB Big Disk Extreme Firewire 800 firewire 400 hi-speed usb2 7200 rpm sku 301201u knocked

I have a Lacie 2TB Big Disk Extreme + Firewire 800 firewire 400 hi-speed usb2 7200 rpm sku 301201u , which I have been using with an emac ( 1ghz power pc 4 , macos 10.5.8 ) for past few years.
A couple of days ago The drive was hit rather hard on side while on and up , the computer hung as the computer was up on a mac os 10.5.8 partition on this drive . Computer was rebooted and comes up on internal drive, lacie drive just made beep and click sounds ( i am actually deaf and this was what I was told ) every couple of seconds. Attempt was made to boot on CD to use latest available disk utility ( Macos 10.5). Lacie still does not show up. 15-20 minutes into this, I powered lacie down. This is when I started noticing a burned circuitry smell.I powered lacie down and disconnected it at this point.
Most Folks just suggest data recovery which can cost as much as $3000 or more which I really don't have .
I figured I open and examine the internalsof drive . I did so. The circuitry smells
like burned near the point where power comes in and the death diode is located, otherwise circuitry looks fine. One of the two drives , when taken out did not have a burnt smell and the other had a burnt smell towards the center but it dissipated in about an hour after it was taken out. There also was one loose screw inside drives chasing which ended up being one of the 4 screws that holds the disk drive's circuitry. I dont know but I don't think this could have shorted anything out but even though slim it is possible that such happened.
While I have Three DC voltmeters, I could not find the one that would accurately measure the voltage on the external power suppy to see if the output voltage on the 4 pins is accurate . I am still looking for the one meter that can do this.
I figured if I can find the exact drive in like new condition and swap the disks, if the disks are not damaged and if the culprit is actually burnt circuitry, then the drives should come up as they were as though nothing had happened.
I talked to a friend that suggested getting other cases and swapping disks but I guess that is not possible because the two disks are raided? ( raid 0 ) . I am also not even sure if the drives are raided the way they were put into use ( only through firewire 400) as the documentation suggests that only firewire 800 denotes use of built in raid0 but I am not sure. So again assumption is made that the drives are raided .
I contacted dealership of the drive which again suggest that Unfortunately it is not possible to obtain another drive like this one because it has been obsolete and out of manufacture for a long time. It is also a risky idea because if the problem is not with the drive enclosure hardware, there is a genuine risk of making the recovery process more difficult, or impossible.
This though does not follow logically. I have been able to see the exact drive with the same sku number offered as new or excellent condition more than 1/2 dozen times in the past few weeks so I guess drive can be acquired and tested before any such swap. If drives are not the culprit , I figure after a swap with a new enclosure and everything other than drives, the thing should not even be noticed and all should work as they did before the accident. If the drives are the cause , then the thing has been on 1/2 hour after the accident so the swap should not do any more damage or cause future recovery attempts any more issues than already might be there.
Any sound advice is greatly appreciated.

I tried the two good disks in the main chasis with new cables and power supply , and I could not get them to come on or show.
I put the good disks back in the second chasis with new cable and power suppy and it again shows ( prompts telling you that it sees a readable MAc OS disk and asks if you want to Initialize it ).
I put the first set together again with new cable and power supply and the light does not come on anymore . being hearing impaired , i put my head on the drive and hear this clicking sound every one or two seconds. The fan operates . The drive does not show when rebooting and it does not show on the disk utility. The drive does not smoke but smell of burned mica ( circuitry ) is still in my throat after a couple of hours.
From what I have learned the possibility exists that each drive is calibrated and the calibration is added to the control board , So like chances are that even if the two original drives are good and connected properly and everything else is good, they might and probably just wont work with a control board of another even exact drive. There are three tables / charts marked on each drive and specific locations marked on each chart which differ between drives . These I think are from calibrating the drives.
So I guess its data recovery...
Lacie Data Recovery wants $600 ( $300 x 2 drives ) if they recover data without need for a clean room , $3000 ( $1500 x 2 drives ) if there is need for clean room. If they don't recover , you dont pay , if they recover and you do not want to pay, then they just send you the damaged disk ( or perhaps keep it , or smash it then return it to you) .
There are many other data recovery services so I guess a few days to sift through them but I guess the maker reference should be the best way ( I think its actually a sub-company that lacie forwards data recovery to.
Too many factors are involved. One that will such be a secure thing to do or 6 months later you find out that someone opened 10 accounts under your name , or emptied your bank account ( thats actually not a problem because there is almost never any money in my bank account) . So security is a concern. I have encountered individuals that make it their business stealing peoples stuff from their disks. Once I even had one Tech guy which was refered to solve a problem I had , copying disks contents right in front of me for absolutely no reason. So I ask him what are you doing, and he says , I am copying everything just to make sure they are safe ( : ) )
Then there is the dalai lama , everything happens for a reason scenario. In which case I guess I have to consider the whole thing as Good Omen. and just forget about it and go on with my life ( maybe I go work in Mc Donalds : ) )
The bottom line is I can't believe that I am such an idiot not to have a proper backup system in place .
Thank you for the links, I will check them out.

External drive question: 5400 vs 7200

I just received my new MacBook Pro, which I will use as both a music server (iTunes) and Garageband box (with a PreSonus FirePod).
I want to get an external hard drive for both apps. My question is: is there much of a diff between a 7200 and 5400 rpm drive for these apps?
I am considering the Lacie Little Big Drive 160 Gb (FW 800/400/usb 2.0), which is a 5400 rpm drive, and far less expensive than thes slightly larger 200 Gb version (7200 rpm). Thanks.

I don't see any FW800 enclosures today, nor do I think I've ever seen a 7200RPM drive in an enclosure that was bus powered (if you have a link, please post it, I'd like to see), but Staples is having a pretty awesome looking sale for the next few days.
250GB for $80 A/R
http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesCategoryDisplay?PID=5521 79&ddkey=StaplesBeFree&jspStoreDir=Staples&catalogId=10051&interceptedCatEntryId =154649&identifier=BI9826&SID=260321-1-0-ARTICLE-0&AID=10422268&storeId=10001&dd key=StaplesProductDisplay
For the record my FW400 enclosures work flawlessly (I think there's around 8), and the one I dedicated to GB has had GB projects with over 50 tracks on it (YMMV, everyone else's does)
~~HangTime V1.9.9.9.7 [Will Compute for Food] B-)>

5400 / 7200 RPM. How To Check That?

hi guys.
the box with a brand new external usb drive i am planning to purchase from my local computer store doesn't say whether it's as fast as 5400 or 7200 rpm.
how do i normally check that parameter through my computer? i tried checking that on my current usb drive with system profiler, but can't see such a section anywhere!

Aram Rian wrote:
thanks for the reply.
hmm, well i still need to somehow make sure the rotation speed of the usb hard drive i am going to purchase is 7200 rpm
I don't think it really matters from a practical point of view. The maximum sustained transfer speeds you can get out of Hi-Speed USB (USB2) is about 30-35 MB/sec. This is well under the speeds that most current 5400 RPM notebook drives are capable of. For example, a Hitachi Travelstar 5K320 drive is capable of up to 729 Mbit/sec, which is higher than 90 MB/sec.

External Drive Speed - Thunderbolt vs Firewire 800?

Hi Friends,
I'm looking to upgrade my external firewire 800 enclosure/drives to speed up editing/rendering in FCP 7/X. Currently this is the config I'm using with my MBP:
- Vantech Nexstar dual 3.5" sata external hard drive enclosure ( http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/277 )
- 2 x 1.5TB Seagate Barracudda 3.5" Sata 7200rpm hard drives (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-7200RPM-Internal-ST31500341AS-Bare/dp/B0 0066IJPQ)
I'm interested in upgrading to an external thunderbolt enclosure like this:
- Pegasus J4 2.5" quad sata3 external thunderbolt hard drive enclosure ( http://www2.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-global&m=192&rsn1=40& rsn3=62 )
- 4 x Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" sata3 7200rpm hard drives ( http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/momentus-laptop/ )
I know I could get better drives, i.e. hybrid hdd/ssd, or just ssd, but that's not in the budget right now.
Can anyone tell me if the thunderbolt enclosure with 4 x 2.5" sata3 drives will read/write much faster than the firewire 800 enclosure with 2 x 3.5" drives?
Thanks in advance !
- Cindy

Hi Meg,
I may have given the wrong Vantech link, since the Vantech Nextstar I'm currently using has FW and USB, thanks!
Meantime I'm waiting to hear back AGAIN from the Pegasus manufacturer - ends up I've found a number of reviews stating the Pegasus J4 is plenty fast for FCP use!
- Cindy

SSD drive vs. 7200 rpm

In experienced people's opinions, switching say from a 7200 HD to an SSD really worth the $ at this point in time?
Thank you..

Yes, It will make a HUGE difference.
Ive upgraded drives in many systems in the past (I work in IT). Going from a 5400rpm drive to a 7200rpm drive - you don't really notice too much of a difference IMO.
Going from either of the above to an SSD is a whopping great difference.
Take a look at this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2458214
Ive pretty much halved my boot time, and slaughtered my application boot times. I know this is from a 5400rpm to a SSD, but you will find similar results from a 7200rpm to SSD as well.

Can i upgrade to a 7200 rpm drive?

I have a mid 2009 mbp with 5400 sata drive. Can I replace the drive with a 7200 rpm? Any problems that may arise? Possible faster battery drain? Any help is appreciated, thanks

Certainly in theory the faster drive should consume more power than a slower one but there is the offset that It should retrieve data faster thus work for a shorter period of time. If that balances out, I can't say with authority. I have a 7200 RPM drive in my MBP and have noticed no change in battery life. There may very well be, but it certainly is not dramatic. shldr2thewheel's guess may very well be correct.
Regarding performance, Allen Eckert is correct, there has not been a dramatic change that I have noticed. If you want noticeable speed increase, SSD is the answer. It will not only increase performance but also decrease your bank account.
I'm a third vote that no harm will be done and you may get some benefits.
Ciao.

No 7200 RPM Drives on 15" MBP?

I was disappointed to see no 7200 RPM drives are offered on the new 15" MBP. I was poised to order a MBP with 7200 rpm drive when the new Core 2 MBP was announced. The 7200s are available on the 17" MBP. Is there a shortage of 7200 RPM drives?
20" iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)

That's their choice, you can always buy a 7200 RPM drive if you want to and put it in yourself, though if you make a mess, don't expect Apple to fix it! Some authorized service centers may do the installation for you. As has been noted on other threads, the 5400 RPM drives have narrower tracks which means they are almost equivalent in speed to 7200 RPM drives that exist. The speed of the drive is not only based on RPM, but actual ability to access data.

Portable external drive recommendations

I'd like to use a portable external drive to store my referenced masters (about 15k jpeg images and growing), which I would back-up periodically to a 1 TB LaCie drive. Other than getting a drive with FW800 (compatible with my MacBook Pro), should drive speed (5400 vs. 7200) be a consideration? I've noticed that 7200 rpm drives generally max out at 500 GB (and are generally more expensive), but I'd like to get a 1 TB drive. Any recommendations or suggestions?
Also, any suggestions for backing-up referenced masters from one external drive to another (frequency, approach, tools/software)?
Thanks

I buy memory and mass storage from OWC at
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/.
Plenty of 7200 rpm choices available including 1-TB size, and yes I consider 7200 rpm worthwhile. I recommend drives that allow FW800, eSATA and USB for flexibility. Slow USB-only drives for backup only can save a few bucks, but drives are cheap and I like to be able to repurpose drives instantly if the need arises so I pay extra to maintain multiple connectivity choices.
As to backup, I feel strongly that originals should be backed up before import into Aperture or any other app. Frequency of offsite backup depends on how important the image data is to you. Personally I do not erase CFs until the originals are both on the hard drive they will live on and backed up to an offsite drive (which can be as simple as a drive that lives in the car). The point is that one theft or one fire or one whatever cannot forever lose enterprise-critical photos.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Questions about using an external drive as my main drive

This topic has been addressed in discussion threads before, but I'm in search of a few details.
I have a Mac mini 1.42 combo, 512 mb RAM, with an external 250 gb MiniStack FW drive. The external FW drive spins at 7200 rpm, while the internal drive in the mini is a 4200 rpm model. Because of the higher disk speed, I'm considering making my external FW drive my main drive, then reformatting my mini's internal drive to use for backup purposes only. My backups to the mini's internal drive would be bootable, so I wouldn't have to have Tiger installed on the mini's internal drive.
Additionally, I've got my iTunes library on another partition on the same external FW drive. I'm really happy with the result of that move so far.
I've experimented a bit already. I've used SuperDuper to clone my mini's drive to a different partition on the external FW drive, and confirmed that I can boot from it using the external FW drive as my startup disk, so that's not an issue.
I'm planning to move over to the external FW drive and use that as my startup disk and main drive, but keep the mini's external drive as is for a while before I reformat it and use it strictly for backups. I've got some questions before I commit to this, though. (shudder!)
*Updates for applications and Tiger-If I continue to use Apple's Software Update to conduct my software upgrades, will it automatically update the applications on my external FW drive? I'm assuming that Software Update identifies the boot drive and the app's location before performing the update. I'm concerned that Software Update will become confused once it can't identify my mini's internal drive as the 'main' disk, and will lose the functionality to handle my updates.
*Default drives for other applications-For those of you that have already moved to an external disk as your main drive, did you have to change preferences in other apps (like the MS Office Suite) to tell them where to look for files and save new docs/save updated docs? I use Office a lot for a part-time job, and it would be a pain to have to manually update all that info.
*iTunes-As I've already stated, I've moved my iTunes music library over to a partition on my external FW drive and it's worked well so far. What concerns me is the funky way that Apple requires the iTunes management files and folders be on your main drive in your Home folder, but allows the music files to reside on a different disk. When iTunes needs to update itself, or manage the music library, is it going to be happy working from the home folder on the external disk, or will I have problems? In other words, as long as the iTunes management files are on my boot drive, am I OK?
Thanks for wading through this wordy post. If I decide to make the plunge, I'll report back to the list. I'm sure a bunch of mini owners are considering the move to external drives to boost performance. I love the machine, but I can always use more speed!
Mac Mini 1.42 Mac OS X (10.4.3) MiniStack 250 GB + Hub

No problem what so ever. I am not certain you will gain anything by it, though.

7200 RPM HD for G4 PB Ti ??00

Hi,
Are there 7200 RPM internal HD's available for my Titanium PowerBook G4 (400 MHz)?
If so, can anyone recommend a good source?
Thanks,
Wm

Hi, Wm. Yes, there are 7200 RPM drives that are compatible with your computer. They range up to a maximum capacity of 100GB, and they are now hard to find. I suspect this is because a) drive manufacturers perceive much greater demand for high-capacity notebook drives than for 7200-RPM notebook drives, at least among buyers of drives using the PATA/ATA-6/ATA-7/ATA-IDE interfaces (all variants and variant designations of the same basic interface type); and b) apparently it's harder to build a high-capacity 7200-RPM drive with any of those interfaces than it is to build one with the SATA interface that nearly all current laptop models use. 7200-RPM SATA drives are readily available in much larger capacities than 100GB
A 100GB drive is now considered small, so no computer manufacturer today is going to build a 100GB drive into a new computer. Nor is any manufacturer going to build the older, slower PATA/ATA-6/ATA-7/ATA-IDE interface into any new computer. That double-whammy makes it unrewarding for drive manufacturers to continue the production of 7200-RPM PATA drives of the kind you seek for your Powerbook. Nearly all currently-manufactured PATA drives, from the smallest (40GB) to the largest (250GB) units, spin at 5400 RPM, and they are all substantially faster, quieter and cooler-running than the old 4200-RPM drive that was original equipment in your Tibook. Buy one soon, because in the relatively near future you can reasonably expect all PATA drives to become much scarcer. SATA is already dominant, and will become more so as most of the notebook computers in current use reach end-of-life over the next two or three years.
Message was edited by: eww

Possible hybrid 7200 rpm hardrive on MBP 15" late 2008?

hello, I have a MAcBook Pro 15" late 2008 with 320 GB internal drive, and I would like to upgrade the internal drive to a hybrid drive, possible at 7200 rpm, and at least 750 GB. I had the impression that the ST750LX003 model (750 Go Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 7200 rpm SATA 2,5" 32Mo) was fine, but it is apparently not anymore available. I found contradictory information, and I would then like to understand whether drives exist like those I am looking for, or I have to stay with 5400 rpm model (1 TB Seagate like ST1000LM014 for instance?).
Thanks in advance, nando

Hi n,
Interesting article. Sounds like they've stopped making 7200s: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/150004-seagate-launches-new-hybrid-hard-dri ve-that-closes-the-ssd-gap-drops-momentus-xt-brand

Dreamweaver on external drive

I need advice on running DW installed on an external drive connected by usb to a desktop PC. I have massive amounts of site data, image files etc. and need to travel. Is this practical or even possible?

It's faster, simple math. External drives usually are lower RPMs and cache. It will be closer if you are running a new laptop with USB 3, but USB 2.0 forget about it. Wake Forest University did a study on this as well ( http://www.wfu.edu/~yipcw/atg/disk/usb3/ ) and their study was against SATA150 drives. Regardless of the program and not just for DW, I'd always recommend installing applicaitons internally and putting files on the network, server, or external if there are a lot of them.

Portable external raid - should I get 5400 or 7200 rpm?

Hi,
I'm in need of a portable external raid 1 for live data protection. I do illustration work in photoshop and I use bridge to access and view files and reference. I would like to write all my files and read all my files from an external raid 1 and I am wondering if I should get a 5400 or 7200 rpm setup.
My concern is read and write speeds.
My portable setup is a mbp 2.16 intel core duo. I'm thinking of getting the g raid mini 2.
Thanks in advance

Thanks for the response.
To clarify my question though -
1. I'm wondering if either will be fast enough to work off of - I'm planning on keeping the internal drive clean and all data would reside on the raid(so no incremental backups will be needed).
2. will the difference between 5400 and 7200 be worth the difference in price - ie. lag time or a noticeable speed difference.
Thanks

Is it possible to install a 7200 rpm drive into a Macbook running a 5400?

Is it possible to install a 7200 rpm drive into a Macbook running a 5400 rpm drive? And if so does anyone know what brand of drive is stock in the Macbook? What is a good brand? Seagate? Hitachi? Western?

And if so does anyone know what brand of drive is stock in the Macbook?
The 250GB drive in my new aluminum MacBook was a Fujitsu. I replaced it with a 500GB Samsung since I was more interested in space than speed.
-Doug

External drive 'speeds'??? 5400 - 7200 rpm?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for