I've recently purchased the Toshiba 200GB 2.5" HDD for my 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook and have to say that it's probably the best hard drive I've ever purchased.
I read a lot of disparaging comments about the speed of this drive but have to say that in my hands on experience they are mostly uneducated assumptions. While the drive may not carry the same throughput in day to day use for common tasks such as startup, email, surfing, iPhoto, iTunes I have to say the drive actually feels faster than the OEM 80GB drive that the MacBook came with. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I only had 3GB left on the 80GB drive (this with most of my files still on backup drive after recently switching from a MDD PowerMac with over 400GBs of storage. Most of the tests I saw tested the speed of this drive compared to other higher RPM drives when the drives were empty. In the real world most people will not be using an empty drive and under normal conditions (being full of data) the 200GB drive while spinning 4200rpm with it's higher data density will typically match the performance of the higher rpm drives. Another frequent comment was on the drive access time. In reality I find the drive (typically spun down) takes much less time to spin up and therefore accesses much quicker from sleep then any drive I have ever used before. An interesting side benefit that I can only attribute to the drive is that since installing my battery life has increased by about 30minutes from typical 3.5-4 hours to 4-4.5hours. Also this drive is dead quiet you have to put your ear to the computer to hear it.
To anyone drooling over the extra space but put off by the comments that many are posting on the internet about this drive I have to say ignore them you couldn't ask for more out of a laptop drive.
I read a lot of disparaging comments about the speed of this drive but have to say that in my hands on experience they are mostly uneducated assumptions. While the drive may not carry the same throughput in day to day use for common tasks such as startup, email, surfing, iPhoto, iTunes I have to say the drive actually feels faster than the OEM 80GB drive that the MacBook came with. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I only had 3GB left on the 80GB drive (this with most of my files still on backup drive after recently switching from a MDD PowerMac with over 400GBs of storage. Most of the tests I saw tested the speed of this drive compared to other higher RPM drives when the drives were empty. In the real world most people will not be using an empty drive and under normal conditions (being full of data) the 200GB drive while spinning 4200rpm with it's higher data density will typically match the performance of the higher rpm drives. Another frequent comment was on the drive access time. In reality I find the drive (typically spun down) takes much less time to spin up and therefore accesses much quicker from sleep then any drive I have ever used before. An interesting side benefit that I can only attribute to the drive is that since installing my battery life has increased by about 30minutes from typical 3.5-4 hours to 4-4.5hours. Also this drive is dead quiet you have to put your ear to the computer to hear it.
To anyone drooling over the extra space but put off by the comments that many are posting on the internet about this drive I have to say ignore them you couldn't ask for more out of a laptop drive.
