# hard drive help: 5400rpm or 7200rpm?



## junkeeroo (Apr 25, 2009)

Hi, Folks,

I'm a mac newb and been reading posts to see if I could find info on this and most comparisons talk about other-brand 7200rpm hard drives, e.g. seagate, rather than the one offered by Apple.

Simple question...what's the difference between the following and is it worth the $55:

Hard Drive

* 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
* 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm [Add $55.00] 

Appreciate any responses!


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

junkeeroo said:


> Hi, Folks,
> 
> I'm a mac newb and been reading posts to see if I could find info on this and most comparisons talk about other-brand 7200rpm hard drives, e.g. seagate, rather than the one offered by Apple.
> 
> ...


The 7200 rpm spins faster thereby giving quicker response most noticeable when starting up and opening apps etc, however it will also use more power thereby shortening battery life slightly and also slightly increasing vibration and heat. I've used them both in my uMBP and I prefer the stock 5400 rpm. YMMV


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## Phat Bastard (Jan 3, 2003)

I had a 320 GB 5400 rpm drive in my unibody Macbook and it was fine. Recently I upgraded to a 500 GB 7200 rpm drive because I heard some good things about the drive...and indeed, my battery life is done significantly (about 60% of original). I haven't noticed THAT much of a performance increase.

It's too late now for me to go back, but if I were you, I'd buy the 5400 rpm model.


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

what brand of drive is it? theres no way you should be down 40% 

the WD scorpio black 7200RPM drives have been tested to use only a small amount of power more than their 5400 scorpio blue line. the 7200 rpm WD drives actually use less juice under full load than some companies 5400 rpm drives

WD Scorpio Black and Scorpio Blue Hard Drive Review

some great stuff about the scorpio black in there

Benchmarks: Western Digital Scorpio Black Review | Storage | From the Lab | Macworld

more here

i have had great experiences with these drives and always recommend them to everyone


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

broad said:


> what brand of drive is it? theres no way you should be down 40%
> 
> the WD scorpio black 7200RPM drives have been tested to use only a small amount of power more than their 5400 scorpio blue line. the 7200 rpm WD drives actually use less juice under full load than some companies 5400 rpm drives
> 
> ...


I would _*not*_ recommend the 5400 rpm Scorpio Blue in a MBP, I just put one in yesterday and took it out today because it is noisy and makes clicking sounds every 10 seconds due to some incompatibility with Apples power saving schemes. You can read about the problem here...

500GB, 5400rpm Laptop Hard Drive noise shootout: Seagate v. Hitachi v. WD - Mac Forums

I also tried a Seagate 7200.3 that I had which worked fine but did shorten my battery life a little bit and had a minor but noticeable vibration. I ended up putting the stock 5400 320 gb Fujitsu back in which is very very quiet, and cool. I am willing to take a small hit in performance for the benefits of this hard drive (which was the original my MBP came with).


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## mejag (Mar 16, 2003)

I personally enjoy my 500gb 7200rpm drive... I upgraded my MBP 2.16's 120gb 5400rpm a while back... rough guess that my battery has a loss of less then 10% (hardly noticeable). My enjoyment comes from the added speed as I do a lot of raw photography and some video editing... of course the added 380gb was great!


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*5400 vs 7200 test*

i was very surprised to find in this test that a 5400 rpm drive can be better than a 7200! having installed a 7200 not long ago, i was a bit flummoxed... it would seem there is much more than just disc rpms involved...
Five 2.5-inch hard drives at 500GB - The Tech Report - Page 1


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

boukman2 said:


> i was very surprised to find in this test that a 5400 rpm drive can be better than a 7200! having installed a 7200 not long ago, i was a bit flummoxed... it would seem there is much more than just disc rpms involved...
> Five 2.5-inch hard drives at 500GB - The Tech Report - Page 1


That's the test that convinced me to try the WD 500 gb Scorpio Blue, but (sigh) it doesn't seem to be compatible with Apple's power management (see post #5).


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

boukman2 said:


> it would seem there is much more than just disc rpms involved...
> Five 2.5-inch hard drives at 500GB - The Tech Report - Page 1


I think the speed comes from WD's use only 2 higher density platters vs others who are using 3 lower density platters.


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## kramer15 (Apr 8, 2009)

My last drive was a 500gb samsung piece of +^%$. I put in a 7200 500gb seagate and I have notice a huge improvement in speed and opening programs. it boots into osx about 10 seconds faster then my old drive. a slight decrease in battery life. well worth it


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*7200 not necessarily better*

what interested me about the test was that there isn't necessarily a speed bump moving from 5400 to 7200. without knowing model info and looking at a test, you can't know, for instance, whether the $55 the OP is asking about is worth it. most people take it for granted that 7200 is sure to be better than 5400, when that just isn't the case. 
all very interesting...
for what is worth, i have the seagate 7200.3 320 and i have no noise issues at all...


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

junkeeroo said:


> Hi, Folks,
> 
> I'm a mac newb and been reading posts to see if I could find info on this and most comparisons talk about other-brand 7200rpm hard drives, e.g. seagate, rather than the one offered by Apple.
> 
> ...


Can I sound dumb and ask which particular Mac model you are actually inquiring about, presumably to be purchased from the Apple.ca store, and what software applications are you planning to use and how they will be used.

Just too many variables left dangling here with such a basic question without accurate info for providing any proper advice.

Patrick


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

RPM does not always result is more "speed", and quite often, 5400RPM drives will have access speeds that overlap that of 7200RPM drives. Speed will be dictated by the speed of the interface, as well as the measured access time.

Going 7200 RPM is not worth an extra $55 in a laptop, since a laptop will really ot take advantage of any possible increase in speed, at least if the drives have comparable access times. 7200RPM drives will generally use more power, which means less run time on batteries - though that is harder to measure because it entirely depends on what the system is used for. If it was a trivial price difference, like $5 or 10 - or if the 7200 RPM offers some real performance increase, like actual faster access times - then it may be worth it.

So a fast 7200 will be faster than a slow 5400; but a slow 7200 will be slower than a fast 5400 - because RPM is just a small factor, access times are much more dependent upon the speed at which the heads can step from track to track, or to step across multiple tracks, as well as the latency of the interface and drive cache. Of course, drive manufacturers would rather tell you that big RPM numbers mean fast - which allows them to sell a wad of slow drives that suck back power like crazy. So you really have to know the exact model numbers, and check the actual specifications, to see if an extra $55 is really worth it...


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## Benito (Nov 17, 2007)

broad said:


> what brand of drive is it? theres no way you should be down 40%
> 
> the WD scorpio black 7200RPM drives have been tested to use only a small amount of power more than their 5400 scorpio blue line. the 7200 rpm WD drives actually use less juice under full load than some companies 5400 rpm drives
> 
> ...


I installed the WD 320 G 7200 rpm HD in my MBP and am more than pleased with both the noticeable speed of the HD as well as the only slight decrease in battery life, definitely no where close to 60% decrease.


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## junkeeroo (Apr 25, 2009)

Hi, Patrick et al,

Thanks for all your responses.

I ended up getting the MacBook Pro 17", 2.8GHz model with stock 5400rpm hard drive based on what most people said.

It will be used mostly for video editing applications via Final Cut Studio.

Cheers.


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## Phat Bastard (Jan 3, 2003)

Sorry for the late reply, I haven't checked the site in a few days.

I used to have a WD 320 GB 5400 rpm hard drive in my 13" Macbook (I don't have the exact model name here, I sold it on eBay). I could get on average 3:45 of battery life with this hard drive.

Keeping the exact same power settings (Bluetooth on, screen brightness, etc, etc), after I upgraded to a 500 GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 7200 rpm hard drive, I get on average 2:45 of battery life.

Compared to my previous hard drive, that's like a 28% decrease. My bad, I suppose I was exaggerating before when I said 60% decrease. Still, this is a significant drop-off and I'm none too happy about it.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

junkeeroo said:


> Hi, Patrick et al,
> 
> Thanks for all your responses.
> 
> ...


Hmmm... I guess that's why I originally posted to your query and asked "what software applications are you planning to use". 

As far I have read, when doing any "video editing", one should use the fastest RPM HDD one can use, be it internal or external.

And no MBP model is really considered the best Mac model for doing high end video editing, but they will certainly work when used in battery mode.

So you can use it as configured, or get and use a faster powered external drive for your video editing if needed, and use them in power mode, or look into the new 2.5" "Green" internal drives that are available that give both high speed and energy conservation which could be a consideration if the MBP was being used in battery mode - something I probably wouldn't even consider unless forced to do so. But to each their own... ;-)

I believe Toshiba is one of the few that have 2.5" "Green" drives currently available.

I can feel the flames coming already. ;-)

Patrick


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## jicon (Jan 12, 2005)

I've got a 500GB 7200RPM BTO drive that shipped with my 3.06Ghz 15" MBP.

I don't have much to go on for comparison, but I can get roughly 6 hrs battery with light use in OSX, around half brightness on the display, and bluetooth turned off. That's plenty for me.

If you're doing some heavy lifting with video editing, I'd half expect you'd be looking to keep the machine plugged in anyway. 17 inch units get an extra hour over the 15s... I'm sure battery life will be sufficient... I guess the big question, is which drive offers the fastest transfer speed for you.


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## junkeeroo (Apr 25, 2009)

THanks, Patrick and Jicon,

"And no MBP model is really considered the best Mac model for doing high end video editing"

True...your not going to get what you'd get out of a Mac Pro but the MBP does do the job well enough when you want the portability to work outside of home. They're able to handle broadcast quality productions. 

"but they will certainly work when used in battery mode."

Thanks for this...I'll keep the power cord with me always.

As for the green hard drive...gonna have to wait till my finances reboot after the MBP purchase...gotta say...being a former PC user...Apple knows how to take care of their customers...One-to-One is amazing + the free IPodTouch now for university students or educators.


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## Manatus (May 11, 2009)

I have a late-2006 Macbook with the stock Fujitsu 80GB 5,400 HD. If I upgraded to a 320 or 500GB still at 5,400rpm, would it be any faster/slower (most likely a WD)? I'm thinking about going to 7,200 but after reading various tests measuring power and speeds, I'm still on the fence. Nothing too taxing (e.g. no video editing), just thinking about ways to upgrade.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Manatus said:


> I have a late-2006 Macbook with the stock Fujitsu 80GB 5,400 HD. If I upgraded to a 320 or 500GB still at 5,400rpm, would it be any faster/slower (most likely a WD)? I'm thinking about going to 7,200 but after reading various tests measuring power and speeds, I'm still on the fence. Nothing too taxing (e.g. no video editing), just thinking about ways to upgrade.


Upgrade for capacity rather than speed. A larger drive will not be "faster" - it will just store more, unless you go to a drive that has actual faster access speed. For the most part, software setup and avoiding hitting virtual memory will count more in speed than any change in hard drive. So it's about capacity, and if the 80GB is too tight, then that is the time to make a change...


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## TechnoDweeb (Sep 23, 2009)

I know the original question is no longer relevant by the OP, but I thought I would mention this for other's looking. 

It is very true that choice of disk drives is application dependent, and hardware dependent. Some things to consider when shopping for a hard drive are;

Power consumption - translates to battery life and heat discharge
Access time - the amount of time it takes for the drive to do an average seek
Cache size - the amount of memory in the drive used for read ahead, and it reduces the number of seeks required
Rotations per minute - speed the disk is spinning.

If I was looking for a general purpose drive, I would still want the largest cache possible, the lowest power consumption (heat kills drives), and the fastest access time, in that order. In a laptop, these are even more important because of the heat. In a Time Capsule it is also critical. I would go for a lower speed drive with a large cache over anything else for a time capsule. However, if your application or usage writes or reads to/from the drive frequently, and heat is not a concern, the 10 000 RPM or higher are best. I once had an older system with a 15 000 RPM SCSI drive that outperformed a newer and faster system. In the end though, heat ended up killing the system. 

For best write performance, go with a RAID 1+0 configuration. That is, mirror the drives, then stripe them. Then, if a drive fails, you are still up and running. Write-back cache is an added feature that will greatly enhance write performance.

Another important factor in drive choice is the quality of the bearings used. This also greatly impacts the heat discharged, the lifespan of the drive, and the sound and vibration it generates. For me, a rule of thumb, is if it is really quiet while running and doesn't vibrate, it is a good thing.


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