Upgrading the 5400 RPM Harddrive to 7200 RPM.

Hey guys. I just bought the new 17" MBP yesterday at the Apple store. The only drawback is that I was wanted to get the 7200 RPM harddrive rather than the 5400, but the store only got in 5400's since the 7200 is a BTO option. So today I ordered a compatible (Hitachi Harddrive -- bought off of macsales.com) that is a 7200 RPM (100 GB). My question is: Do I need to have anything else besides my screwdriver kit, new harddrive, and macbook pro service manual? Does this void the warranty if I perform this upgrade myself? I read the "one-year" warranty and you could interpret it both ways according to what I read. Also, are the power requirements the same between the two drives? It looks like it, but I just wanted to run this accross the pros incase I need to be made aware of something. Thanks and I will look forward to giving out the points. Take care.

William, I'm not too sure about that interpretation.
Apple lists lots of user-serviceable parts on my PowerMac, both in the user guide and on the Support site. I've got a clear go-ahead to replace or add a hard drive, for example and instructions on how to do that. So doing that (assuming I don't damage anything) doesn't void my warranty.
The only explicitly listed user serviceable (add/replace) parts for the MacBook Pro, however are RAM and the battery. Given the language of Apple's Warranty provisions, it's not a given that changing anything inside the MBP case (or even opening the case) wouldn't void the warranty.
Another example might be the "Rev. C" iMac. Previously, there were lots of user-serviceable parts. When Rev. C (iSight iMac G5) came out, that was reduced to RAM only. Anything else inside the case was supposed to be taken to an authorized Apple repair center to do the work.
Apple's Support site has DIY (do it yourself) links for lots of models, but not for the MacBook Pro. But from Apple's description of DIY activities, it's pretty clear that opening the case of the MBP wouldn't qualify.
Given the potentially high cost of repairs on a notebook computer, I would be cautious about voiding my warranty or AppleCare. I would encourage someone to get an official response in writing from Apple about what users can and cannot do without risking warranty/AppleCare coverage. (But I'll bet the lawyers would hedge the language, so that MPB owners would never get clear, express permission to pop the case and install a different hard drive.)

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

Hi there,
I have a Lenovo B570-1068AFU system that comes with a 5400 RPM HDD. Does this system suppor 7200 RPM HDD upgrades? I would like to replace the current 5400 RPM with a segate 7200 RPM. Possible?
Thank you for all your replies.
Solved!
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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.
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Upgrading the Apple TV harddrive

It only comes with a 40gb HD. Has anyone tried to upgrade there drive yet? Say to a 120 or 160GB? 40GB is no way big enough for my iTunes and iPhoto library. Yes it can stream. But I doubt that I'm going to stream 20mb raw photos one after another.

To all contemplating upgrading the drive, it should be noted that the Apple TV has a fairly limited cooling system (& most likely not much reserve power in its power supply).
This means you should be very careful about selecting a replacement drive that won't over-stress the device, leading to early failure, particularly since you will have voided the warranty.
For reference purposes, you may find the O.E.M. drive specs handy:
Fujitsu MHW2040AT Full Specifications
For best results, do not use a drive that requires appreciably more power or has lower operating temperature specs.

Upgrading from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpm HD

I have a dv7-4270us, am I able to change to a higher speed hd without causing heat issues? I know the battery will be used more quickly, but it is rarely used unplugged.
Will the recovery dvd work with another drive of the same size or am I 'SOL' on this?
Thanks!

You should have no problems. 7200 rpm drives really only put out a very tiny extra bit of heat and vibration and use only a tiny bit more juice. The recovery media will work fine on a larger, faster drive.

7200 rpm vs. 5400 rpm for the new MacBook Pro?

Hi there,
I'm ready to buy one of the new MacBook Pros. I was going to go for the 15" 2.0 GH. There's one thing that's difficult to decide. Should I go for the 7200 rpm HD upgrade?
In principle it would seem that the default 5400 rpm HD would act as a bottleneck for the new and powerful CPUs. I heard some people say, though, that the 5400 rpm HDs are fast enough and that I would not notice any difference. Therefore, spending the extra money on a faster HD would be a waste.
There is also the concern about battery life. Would a 7200 rpm HD reduce the battery time considerably vs. a 5400 HD?
Since this would be my work computer, I would not want to sacrifice performance. So, if there is no significant difference in battery life and a considerable gain in performance, I would definitely go for the 7200 rpm option.
What is your experience and/or opinion? I'm anxiously waiting for your response so that I can go ahead and enjoy the new Mac Book Pro.
JM

Thanks for your prompt response japamac. Interesting results. I wonder whether the results for performance, battery usage and temperature for the 7200 rpm that comes as an option in the Apple store would be similar to the ones you got for the 7200 rpm HD you used in your test.
One question, since the difference is quite remarkable in the synthetic tests for "Media Center", I'm curious to know what real life applications would that relate to.
Thanks again for your help.
JM

Option to go from 5400 rpm HD to 7200 rpm? Apple waiting for my phone call.

Hi,
My new 15" Macbook Pro is being replaced with a new laptop due to problems. I am in discussion with Apple regarding confirmation of my current laptop specs. When the HD spec was discussed, 5400rpm 500g, I asked about upgrading to a 7200rpm. Apple indicated that would be possible.
So the question is; is it worth upgrading to the 7200 HD? I heard from a local Apple store that the 7200's can cause heat problems and quick draining of the battery. But they couldn't tell me why. I don't have a lot of confidence in what I was told by then, due to other experiences.
So, 7200 or 5400? Your opinion would be much appreciated. Upgrade cost btw is only $60. So it's not a money issue.
Thanks in advance.
Peter
Message was edited by: Petermgr

Unless its bearings are failing, the hard drive temperature sensor will typically show the lowest reading of all the sensors in a MBP, often by a wide margin. How a hard drive could "cause heat problems" is a complete mystery to me. As for power consumption, most users notice no perceptible difference in battery run time after switching from a 5400 to a 7200 RPM drive. Some manufacturers' specifications show nearly or exactly the same power demands for 7200 RPM drives as for 5400s.
It is likely that you will hear a 7200RPM drive more of the time than a 5400, though it may still be pretty quiet. And it's possible that you will feel more vibration through your hands on the keyboard and wrist rests.
I wouldn't have Apple upgrade the drive, though. I'd save $60 and have them install a 5400RPM unit, and then I'd spend the $60 and maybe a little more besides to get a bigger 7200RPM drive, install it myself, and use the 5400 RPM drive for backup or extra storage. Then I'd have two drives for $10-$30 more than just the 7200RPM drive would have cost me if Apple had installed it.

5400 RPM HD vs 7200 RPM HD

Hi all,
What are the specific advantages of upgrading to a 7200 RPM hard drive in the Macbook Pro vs. the 5400 RPM drive that comes standard?
I am a commercial/editorial photographer and am considering obtaining a 17" Macbook Pro for use as a tool on location and in the studio for tethering to my camera so that files can be stored directly to a hard drive and clients can see images that can be manipulated right away on a nice large display. All of my color critical Photoshop work is done on my Mac Pro and cinema display.
Thanks in advance.
Best,
Dennis

I suggest you have a read through this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659&tstart=0
I would consider holding off purchasing any Macbook Pros until we know they have fixed the issue that is causing regular clicks, beeps and 30-40 second system freezes.

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.
Battery life will be slightly but not significantly less - maybe as much as 10 or 15 minutes. There is not a huge difference in power consumption between 5400 and 7200 RPM drives.

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.
SSDs are in their infancy, and there's a huge range of speeds among the many currently available models. All of them will probably be faster for all purposes than a 5400RPM hard drive, but some are slower in some uses than a 7200RPM hard drive. The fastest and most expensive ones are several times faster than any hard drive in most operations, and somewhat faster than hard drives even in the operations that SSDs perform most slowly. If you are thinking of buying a SSD, I recommend waiting a year: prices then will be half what they are now, and speeds will be uniformly higher, expecially among lower-priced SSDs.

X301: 250 GB 5400 rpm vs 128 GB Solid State Performance - How Much Difference?

Any idea about how much faster XP Pro will boot with the 128 GB solid state drive vs the 5400 rpm 250 GB drive? And for apps like Word and Excel how much performance difference will there be when launching the apps (doesn't seem like it could be much more than a second or two)? Any idea of the real world performance for writes and reads in terms of Bytes per second? Any users have expereince with both drives using X301s?

The answer to your implied question, "Is 128GB big enough?" is Yes, 128GB is big enough for a Boot Drive.
Mac OS X may only take up 8 to 10GB, but developer tools adds a lot and if you install big Photo or Video Editing tools you might quickly end up at 40GB including Applications.
Mac OS X needs a Swap file and some Paging files as well, and if you do not have enough your Mac Pro will get really weird.
64GB is getting too close for comfort -- effectively too small.
128GB is NOT enough to also store your Photo collection, substantial Tunes Library, or Video editing files. If you have any of those, you will need to move them to a different drive, or get a MUCH larger and more expensive drive, or keep the bulk of them on an external drive that stays on your desk.
You also need a Backup Drive.

Hard Drive Upgrade from 5400 to 7200 RPM

Well my logic board died and i have gotten that replaced and now i need to upgrade my hard drive from 5400 to 7200 rpm. I just dont know how to replace it. I have the memory upgraded so im good there just need help upgrading the drive
So how would i replace it?
Please help
thanks
and if there are any websites that could help me upgrade my HD

It is easy....
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook-Core-2-Duo-Hard-Drive-Replacement/514/1

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.

What is the 7200 RPM versus 5400 RPM performance increase on MBP?

I am in the process of ordering a 2.0 Ghz MBP with 2 GB of RAM and Aperture 1.1. I am using this system for Canon EOS 5D RAW files (13MB-15MB).
Would you suggest the 7200 100 GB hard drive or the 5400 120 GB hard drive? My few months of experience with RAM files has shown me that every extra gig of hard drive space is good, but if the 7200 drive will make a significant performance difference I would go that way.
Thank you very much for any help with this
MBP 2.0? Titanium 1Ghz Powerbook last "last PB I would ever need to buy" Mac OS X (10.4.6) G4 iBook 12"

I have the 2.16GHz MBP and I got the 120GB drive so that I could get all the HD space possible.
I cannot say what the difference in speed is between the 5400 and 7200 RPM is but I can say that the 5400 is fine.
I just got v1.1 installed this morning and am playing with it now ... it's not super fast, that's for sure, but for field use on a laptop I think it will be just fine. ...and now with only 20.1GB remaining available on my HD I'm REAL glad I didn't go for the 100GB.

How do I know if a core I5 and 5400 rpm drive is ok for me or if I should get a core I7, 7200 rpm dr

Buying a new laptop. My old Dell Inspiron is giving up the ghost.
How do I know if a core I5, 5400 rpm drive is good enough for me or if I should get a core I7, 7200 rpm drive laptop? Also can I get an I5 with 7200 rpm or an I7 with 5400 rpm? Need some recommendations. I am not a computer expert so need some good explanation on what to get and why? I don't do video games on the laptop. Mainly use it for mail, Excel, word, internet searches, internet videos, etc.
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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.

Upgrading the 5400 RPM Harddrive to 7200 RPM.

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