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17 inch new powerbook 4200 vs. 5400rpm drive... please help
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Clearwater, Fl USA
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please help
my apple store in tampa, fl already has the new 17 powerbook in stock (i love how apple is prepared) but they only have the stock version. while they can add more ram for me at the genius desk, i cannot get the 5400rpm drive without ordering online
will it make that much of a difference
thanks in advance
greg
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Ottawa, Canada
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As a general rule, the responsiveness of a laptop can often be determined by the HD access speed. It's probably better to tough it out a few days for a custom-order system than to immediately obtain what you may not be perfectly happy with.
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24-inch iMac Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: WV, USA
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I would DEFINITELY wait for a BTO system w/ the 5400RPM drive, it'll make a ton of difference in responsiveness.
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5G 60GB video iPod
512MB iPod Shuffle
Westone UM1 Canalphones
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Clearwater, Fl USA
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boo hoo
i guess i'll have to wait
and i wanted so badly to drive over to the apple store tonight
now i haven't ordered yet and i bet that it'll come in 3 weeks
thanks again
greg
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Montana USA
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Originally posted by AssassyN:
I would DEFINITELY wait for a BTO system w/ the 5400RPM drive, it'll make a ton of difference in responsiveness.
It may or may not depending on what you do...
A workflow that does a lot of DB or scratch disking will benefit. A workflow that is memory/text intensive (web dev, coding, even games) will not see the same boost you speak of.
Keep in mind that these are laptops and simply don't have the same performance expectations as DTs and 90% of them out there have 4200 rpm drives. Even faster drives may not yield the benefit you want versus a 7200 rpm DT drive.
If you are really in need of a high speed drive, go for it.
Do remember there is a caveat to the high speed drives... battery life. More RPMs = less battery life.
Cheers!
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Haven't you noticed? Chronic cynicism takes no skills, little energy, no education, and if you do it really well in poorly-lit coffee-houses, it gets you laid.
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Forum Regular
Join Date: May 2002
Location: MA
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"Do remember there is a caveat to the high speed drives... battery life. More RPMs = less battery life."
Not always. From:
http://xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/hitachi_t...B_7200rpm.html
they list specifications of two high end Hitachi laptop drives where both speeds have identical power draws of 2 watts.
60GB/5400 RPM vs 60GB/7200 RPM:
* Max (startup/spinup) - 5W vs 5.5W
* Seek (avg): 2.6W for both
* Read (avg): 2.5W for both
* Write (avg): 2.7W vs 2.5W
(7K60 slightly lower)
* Performance idle (avg): 2.0W for both
* Active idle (avg): 1.3W for both
* Sleep: 0.1W for both
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Here
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Barefeats writes:
"We haven't tested the optional Hitachi 5K80 5400rpm 80GB drive yet but we will soon. I did run Xbench 1.1.1 drive test on the stock Fujitsu 4200rpm 80GB as well as a Hitachi 7K60 7200rpm 60GB Travelstar in a Wiebetech FireWire 800 notebook case. With sustained read/write of 40MB/s, the 7K60 blows the stock drive away (26MB/s). And don't say it was FireWire 800 that did it. I got the same numbers when I had the 7K60 inside a TiBook 800. "
I will make a BTO type of decision once the 5400 80 GB bench marks pop up.
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"I'll take a extra layer of ram on that
gigaflop sandwich mister"
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