Hard Drive Speeds

[swwack91]

About how much of a performance difference will be noticeable b/w the 5400rpm (160GB) drive compared to the 4200rpm (200GB) drives?

I'll be primarily using the MBP for video editing.

Will having only a 4200rpm drive lessen the advantage of having a super fast CPU and tons of RAM?

Thanks for the help!

 

[risc]

SHOOTOUT: Various MacBook Pro Internal Drives

http://barefeats.com/mbcd7.html

...Though one PC site measured the 160GB 5400rpm drive averaging 130% faster than the 200GB 4200rpm drive, our tests showed it to be zero to 13% faster (depending on what brand of 5400rpm drive). The 7200rpm drives were 18% to 22% faster on average than the 4200rpm drive (depending on what brand of drive). All that to say that if capacity is just as valuable as speed, you're not foolish to go with the slower rpm higher capacity drive...

 

[dllavaneras]

Yes, you'll se a big hit in performance if you use a 4200 rpm drive. BIG hit, If you search the forums you'll find a better explanation

 

[swwack91]

Thanks a lot....

I think I'll just go for the 160GB 5400rpm drive

worst case I'll pick up an external one in a year or two

 

[risc]

Yes, you'll se a big hit in performance if you use a 4200 rpm drive. BIG hit, If you search the forums you'll find a better explanation

You may actually want to read the BareFeats benchmarks before you throw around statements like that.

An interesting comment from BareFeats is:

These latest test results reveal that,
a) The 7200rpm drives are the fastest when empty...

b)... but if you have 74GB of data on each of the drives, the 4200rpm drive was actually faster...

...When we compared a 5400rpm 160GB drive with 148GB of data with the read/write speed of the 4200rpm 200GB drive with 148GB of data, the 4200rpm drive is running 23% faster at that point. So as the amount of data increases, the advantage of the larger capacity 4200rpm drive grows....

So OP read the BareFeats benchmarks and make your own decision based on your usage needs. There is a lot more to hard drives than just the speed the drive spins at.

 

[bousozoku]

In optimised tests, the drive with the faster rotational speed will likely win.

However, we hardly use our drives that way. A lot depends on whether you're reading randomly or sequentially. A faster drive may spin several times while retrieving data and a slower drive with multiple platters and heads may be able to grab the data in sequence on the same rotation.

Access and seek speeds aren't always proportionally speeded up to match the rotational speed so sometimes, the rotations are wasted.

That said, 4200 rpm drives are slow on notebook computer drives because they don't have the benefit of lots of platters and read/write heads. The thinner the drive, generally, you're better off getting the faster rotational speed drive.

 

[swwack91]

thanks for the help

i'm definitely gonna go for the 160GB (5400rpm) one