iMac Replacement HD Comparison

[PlasmaNoob]

Hey, I'm considering replacing the 640 gb Hitachi HDT721064SLA360 in my 24" iMac with a Samsung Spinpoint F3EG HD203WI 2TB drive.

I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me whether I will see any performance increases along with the extra capacity.

The Hitachi is a 7200rpm drive, while the Sammy is 5400rpm, but the Hitachi has only a 16mb buffer and the Sammy sports a 32mb.

Would the Samsung be faster than the Hitachi or would it suffer because of the lower rotational speed?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ahankinson]

I would think long and hard about going down to a 5400 RPM drive. If you were using it as external storage, I don't think you'd have a problem, but since you're replacing your boot drive I think you'll see a noticeable slowdown in your machine.

My advice: Keep the 640GB as your internal, and buy a 2TB external drive.

 

[nathanjbrown]

I have to agree with ahankinson. I swapped my iMac's HDD for a 5400RPM once and the slow down was considerable. If you're like me, you wish to cool down and quiet your iMac's HDD. Is that true?

If so, check out SilentPCReview.com. They do a pretty good job of evaluating drives based on how cool and quiet they are. They gave the Samsung F2 high marks for its balance of performance, heat and noise. I've been very pleased with it in my iMac. It runs at 7200RPM, is reasonably quiet (much less noise than the Hitachi), and seems to be cool enough.

Hope that helps.

Nathan

 

[PlasmaNoob]

No, Nate, not really. Those are actually not concerns at all. I have no problems with noise or heat from my iMac.

What I'm looking for is increased capacity and performance. I want to cram as much HD space as I can into my machine and hopefully increase the performance as well. The only reason I'm not just going with the WD Caviar Black is because I can't afford it. That's why I'm looking at this Samsung.

If it's going to hurt my performance, though, screw it. I'll just tough it out until I can afford a 7200 rpm 2tb drive.