7200rpm??

[DC06]

Quick question: if money were no object...should I get the 5400rpm drive or the 7200rpm drive on my new 15'' PB?

 

[macOSX-tastic]

of course the 7200! why even ask? do it do it do it!!!!

 

[DC06]

Warning: stupid newbie question: would a 7200rpm decrease battery life?

 

[macOSX-tastic]

its a balance that needs to be thought about by you.....do you want a faster HD (fasster access to data) or better battery life? i doubt the effects would be noticeable.

 

[vashim66]

battery life is the same

 

[vashim66]

id get the 7200 since it's such a pain in the ass to upgrade harddrives in those aluminum enclosures.

 

[tekmoe]

ordered a 17" about 30 minutes ago and opted for the 100gb 7200rpm drive. i'd rather the speed than an extra 20gb. that's just me though. =)

 

[jeffcorbets]

I called up the Apple store to confirm some quick numbers.

According to the guy I spoke with, there is:
*Approximately a 7% decrease in battery performance
*Approximately a 15% increase in disk performance
with the 7200 RPM drive over the 5400 RPM drive.

He (of course) recommended the faster drive, and I agreed with him. I ended up ordering the 15 inch PowerBook with the single-chip 1 GB RAM and the 7200 RPM 100GB drive. I have a second memory chip (1 GB) coming from Crucial.

My desk should look pretty darn cool with the SGI Octane and SGI O2 workstations and a PowerBook laptop. The new PowerBook replaces an old Pentium III HP laptop that has served me faithfully for over three years. I hope to get at least as long of a life out of the new machine!

~Jeff Corbets

 

[bigandy]

that makes sense. the comment somewhere above about no loss of battery life just doesn't make any of the aforementioned 'sense'. of course a drive spinning faster would drain charge faster than otherwise. that said, i'd plump for the 7,200rpm drive.

 

[emw]

that makes sense. the comment somewhere above about no loss of battery life just doesn't make any of the aforementioned 'sense'. of course a drive spinning faster would drain charge faster than otherwise. that said, i'd plump for the 7,200rpm drive.

Well, if you're accessing large files all the time (e.g., movies) then the drive wouldn't spin for as long, even though it's spinning faster. Overall battery life may not take a huge hit, depending on how you use your Mac. Besides, even at 7%, that's a pretty small price to pay (23 minutes on 5.5 hours).

 

[aquajet]

that makes sense. the comment somewhere above about no loss of battery life just doesn't make any of the aforementioned 'sense'. of course a drive spinning faster would drain charge faster than otherwise. that said, i'd plump for the 7,200rpm drive.

You can't distinguish what makes sense and what doesn't until you look at manufacturer's specifications on these drives. In many cases, there isn't a significant difference in power consumption between the two.

 

[DC06]

If i'm probably not going to be working with huge files, just a few small photoshop files and some light web designing...i'll mainly be using it for school (so surfing, downloading, etc)...should i still get the 7200rpm?

 

[Makosuke]

...just a few small photoshop files...

If you're doing anything significant at all with Photoshop, you'll almost certainly benefit from the 7200. Basically in your situation unless you REALLY want the bit of extra battery life, the 7200 is a good investment.