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HD decision

D

Disciples77

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2007
9
0
It's been a couple weeks since I installed a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 120GB hard drive into my MBP. Now the drive is getting a bit noisy and the fans are kicking in after being on for a while. I thought the new drives are suppose to be quiet. It's not terribly loud but the fans are annoying. Additionally, I am only noticing a slight improvement in performance (daily tasks).

Nonetheless, I'm thinking about putting back the 5400rpm drive that came with the laptop and using the 7200 drive as an external scratch drive via FW 400 or 800. I do video and graphics work along with pro tools.

Benefits:
-quieter (after all, it is a laptop)
-almost same performance (as far as I can tell)

Give me your opinions on this particular setup. Thanks...
 
Well I think it really depends on how you work and what you want. For example, I do music work and I prefer to put all my samples onto an external 7200RPM drive thru FW. This way the main HD will handle the application and the external can stream and record music.

If you wont work on the road or anything then 5400 is better in terms of heat, battery life, noise etc although the new 200G Hitachi drives are supposed to be pretty close in those aspects I mentioned. If youre at home most of the time, you might as well have a faster drive sitting at home while you enjoy good mobility elsewhere.

hope that helps abit
 
I agree... if working on the road off of battery power isn't what you will be doing, then go for the slower 5400 rpm drives for internal use, and run apps and other system stuff off of it, then when you are working and need the speed and power (and have the book plugged in) use the external drives to stream your stuff in. The Hitachi drives are a very good option since they give you 200GB at 5400 rpm and not 4200. Western Digital (if you like their stuff and trust them) makes a 250GB 5400 rpm drive as well. They sell for about $300 --> 400 so they aren't very cheap, but that is a lot of space on a laptop...

My 120GB stock drive is down to 30GB and that's when I am being extra picky about what I take with me. If I put my entire Aperture library on my drive I would need 40 -- 50 extra gigs. When my machine's warranty is up I will install a Seagate version of that 250GB drive or whatever one is the largest and just load it up with images and graphics.
 
Just got done putting the original 5400rpm drive back into the MBP. It's working great. Love the quietness and efficiency. I don't know why I changed it in the first place. The performance is nearly identical for launching apps and such.

I'll probably put the purchased Seagate drive in an external enclosure and run that via FW since its 7200rpm. Scratch and files drive. Now I have to find an SATA enclosure that has FW and USB. I believe Other World Computing has one.

One more question: I've always been running drives through FW 400. Is there a huge difference between FW 800 and FW 400 for graphics and video? I know I can probably find the answer on the forums somewhere.

Thanks for the advice...
 
I think that FW800 is definatly faster but thats ONLY when youre using the FW800 port by itself (i.e. if you have anything else connected to the FW400 at the same time, then both ports become FW400 speeds).

So if you are like me and I use the FW400 for my Audio interface and FW800 port for my External HD, both hardwares will be running at FW400 speeds.
 
Disciples77 said:
Just got done putting the original 5400rpm drive back into the MBP. It's working great. Love the quietness and efficiency. I don't know why I changed it in the first place. The performance is nearly identical for launching apps and such.

I'll probably put the purchased Seagate drive in an external enclosure and run that via FW since its 7200rpm. Scratch and files drive. Now I have to find an SATA enclosure that has FW and USB. I believe Other World Computing has one.

One more question: I've always been running drives through FW 400. Is there a huge difference between FW 800 and FW 400 for graphics and video? I know I can probably find the answer on the forums somewhere.

Thanks for the advice...
Click to expand...

There's not a big difference in FW800 and FW400 speeds for an external hard disk, especially a laptop drive. There might be some improvement on an external 3.5" drive under a FW800 connection but 2.5" drives (at the same RPM) are significantly slower than their bigger counterparts. In fact FW400 and USB might even perform the same so there's no need to get an expensive case.
When will you be using the external drive? If its on the road then of course it'd be better than a 3.5" external drive because 2.5" drives can be powered by USB. If you'd only be using the external drive at home then you might want to consider selling it and buying a 3.5" external drive. You can probably get a 500GB external drive that'd be faster for the amount you could get for your 120GB 2.5" drive.
 
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