5400 RPM upgrade?

[mbriney]

Has anyone swapped out the standard 4200 RPM PATA drive for a 5400 RPM model?

I was looking at the Samsung HS122JC
http://www.spinpointwave.com/product/lineup_02.asp

And was curious if it would:

A) fit
B) improve overall performance

I have been looking at the activity monitor on my MBA and it seems that the hard drive access is the weakest point in my performance right now.

Any guidance or thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,
-Matt

 

[stoconnell]

Has anyone swapped out the standard 4200 RPM PATA drive for a 5400 RPM model?

I was looking at the Samsung HS122JC
http://www.spinpointwave.com/product/lineup_02.asp

And was curious if it would:

A) fit
B) improve overall performance
-Matt

The HDD in the MacBook Air must be 5mm or less thick. Looking at the detailed specs, this drive is 8mm.

 

[Veinticinco]

Even if you find a drive that'll fit, I doubt you'll notice any difference. Aside from the sluggishness as a result of the PATA config. on the rev.A (compared with the SATA'd rev.B), going from 4200 to 5400 is negligible. Shifting to a 7200rpm drive if one existed at this size, would be noticeable but even so, not worth the upgrade IMO.

Remember there's even still some debate about the true real-world R/W benefits of having a SSD (aside from boot times) - not surprising when you remember the rev.A SSD is outperformed by the rev.B HDD, so your planned swap is not really going to be life-changing whichever way you look at it, unless you find one with, say 4x the capacity of your original 80GB.

 

[11800506]

I think you'd see far greater performance increases with an SSD over a 5400 rpm drive. The difference in speed is likely negligible, so I wouldn't attempt that swap. You'd be better off searching for an SSD.

 

[dudeitsjay]

Even if you find a drive that'll fit, I doubt you'll notice any difference. Aside from the sluggishness as a result of the PATA config. on the rev.A (compared with the SATA'd rev.B), going from 4200 to 5400 is negligible. Shifting to a 7200rpm drive if one existed at this size, would be noticeable but even so, not worth the upgrade IMO.

Remember there's even still some debate about the true real-world R/W benefits of having a SSD (aside from boot times) - not surprising when you remember the rev.A SSD is outperformed by the rev.B HDD, so your planned swap is not really going to be life-changing whichever way you look at it, unless you find one with, say 4x the capacity of your original 80GB.

I think you'd see far greater performance increases with an SSD over a 5400 rpm drive. The difference in speed is likely negligible, so I wouldn't attempt that swap. You'd be better off searching for an SSD.

For the rev A, the pata interface makes the differences in hd rpm or even ssd negligible. I believe a switch to 5400rpm on the rev B sata interface can make a difference worth the price, if they made them in 5mm. For SSD in sata, the difference, depending on the speed of the SSD, is drastically improved for burst data transfer (aka boot, opening apps, typical things that just take a "burst" of data). In terms of lengthy data transfers like 1gig and up, the write speeds decrease below a standard 7200rpm 16mb harddrive.

With that said, for rev A I wouldn't consider any upgrades unless you aim for converting the interface as well--which will be a ridiculously not worth it. for rev B, bring on the 5200rpm --it would be much more manageable and useful for daily use on the MBA rev b than the ipod hdd.