[JazzCatDRP]

I'm considering a Mini, but am concerned about the slow hard drive. How does the slow hard drive really affect applications? I use my Mac mainly for web browsing, email, schoolwork, and the occasional photoshop job. What kinds of improvements would I see by upgrading to a faster drive?

[Randman]

Get enough ram and it should be plenty fast for your needs. At least 512, but if you can 1GB, PhotoShop will appreciate it.

[JazzCatDRP]

Thanks for the reply. A friend of mine with a Windows laptop always complains that when she opens up "My Computer" or any kind of open or save dialog box there's always a big delay from when the window pops up and when icons and such come up. She blames it on the slow hard drive. Is that something that would affect the finder?

[Randman]

On a peecee, it's likely the virus protection. Ram will help things. On a mini, for example, I'd take a 1.25Ghz machine with 1GB over a 1.42 with 256mb of ram any day of the week.

Now, if you were doing more intensive work, such as serious PS stuff or video, then you should consider a faster HD (and more ram).

[joe]

Originally Posted by JazzCatDRP

Thanks for the reply. A friend of mine with a Windows laptop always complains that when she opens up "My Computer" or any kind of open or save dialog box there's always a big delay from when the window pops up and when icons and such come up. She blames it on the slow hard drive. Is that something that would affect the finder?

Yes. I've used notebook computers (PC and Mac) for over a decade now. And while many factors affect performanc, the slow 2.5" hard drives are the most noticeable in every day use. Those are the same hard drives used in the Mac Mini. RAM is also a factor. 512megs ought to be the minimum these days (Mac and PC). But even if you max out the memory you're still going to feel the sluggishness caused by the 4200rpm hard drive.

I can't say how it will compare to your friends Windows laptop. I've had laptops with 4200rpm and 5400rpm hard drives. If I had my choice I'd have ordered my last PowerBook wtih a 7200rpm Hitatchi hard drive instead. No, Apple doesn't even give you the option - but the 5400rpm hard drives are a big improvement over the 4200rpm hard drives. You're timing is better than my tho, Seagate just announced a 100gig 7200rpm 2.5" hard drive. Well, if you don't need 100gigs the price on the 60gig Hitachi is sure to drop now that they FINALLY have competition. Hitachi has pretty much had a lock on the 7200rpm 2.5" market until now.

[mportuesi]

I got the short end of the stick, and my Mini (1.42, 1 GB after-market RAM) has a 4200 drive.

The extra memory makes a great deal of difference. Apps load acceptably fast, if not lightning quick. Even NeoOffice/J (a big pig) loads pretty fast. I use it for web browsing, email, iPod, iPhoto, NeoOffice, and web site development including light image editing. It's also my home server, and so it runs Slimserver (for MP3 streaming), print serving, NFS, and privoxy for web filtering for all the other laptop and desktop machines in my household.

I think a 4200 drive would work well for "web browsing, email, schoolwork, and the occasional photoshop job" as long as you up the memory. If you plan on doing a lot of photoshop work, or video editing, I might look into getting a faster internal drive, or adding an external firewire drive (not as big a boost as internal, I've read).

[finboy]

Originally Posted by mportuesi

I got the short end of the stick, and my Mini (1.42, 1 GB after-market RAM) has a 4200 drive.

I just replaced the 4200 drive in my Pismo with a 5400, and it makes a world of difference in performance. It impacts performance more than going from 512MB RAM to 1G, IMO.

[neowolf]

I haven't noticed the drive speed at all in general use (launching apps/games/etc). This is probably due to it having an 8MB cache. In things that are blatantly disk intensive like copying large files it will be noticeable but even then it's quite bearable for me coming from an iMac G4.

[Kyros]

You can always use an external firewire drive, should be cheaper than upgrading the hard drive to a 7200 RPM one. Or if you are insane, Seagate has 10k RPM notebook drives.

[funkboy]

My 4200 rpm hard drive with an 8MB cache works very well - faster, in my opinion, than my iMac G4's hard drive. XBench scores showed it was slower in many things, but faster in the read: probably due to the 8MB cache.

For your usage, the 4200 should be fine.