[newsushi]

I'm currently using a 4 year old 12" 1.25Ghz Powerbook. My drive failed last year and I replaced it with a 100g 5400RPM Seagate.

I've been awaiting the newest release of the Macbook Pro, and now that they're out, my only question is to how much difference the 5400-7200RPM upgrade will make.

I do Graphic Design and Photography (read: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), and a heapin' helping of the World of Warcraft, as well as other trivial things like web-surfing and e-mail.

Thanks,

[peeb]

It will help you boot fractionally faster, a fast external drive will help more for PS, Illustrator etc, but basically you will not notice much difference.

[newsushi]

Well thanks, that's what I was hoping to hear. I have no concerns spending the extra $135 if there will be a real performance difference (as I'll be keeping this machine for 4 years probably). But it doesn't sound like I'll get my $135 out of it, so that's money toward a RAM upgrade.

=)

[OreoCookie]

No, it won't make a difference, I'd rather go for a larger drive.

Edit: When I got my ProBook, I went for the faster drive, but honestly, I don't feel much difference and I'm running out of space now (those jpgs of my new dslr are big … ).

[zaghahzag]

i'd be interested to see some real world tests.. my finding my my mbp is that the machine is unstoppable unless the HD is busy doing file copies or something. Then it's ludicrously slow. (i have 2 gigs of ram).

I'd vote for the faster HD - especially if you're using PS or illustrator.

[peeb]

The thing is that simple spindle speed doesn't tell you very much about modern drives. Seek times, size, data density, caching etc all play a huge part in real-world speeds.

[mduell]

Yes, it does make a difference.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Yes, it does make a difference.

Well, it certainly makes a difference, but it's only one factor - for example, http://tinyurl.com/34yjf8 the 160gb 5400 and the 100gb 7200 have basically the same performance on this (slightly more) real world test. There are many other factors that play into it. In the real world, unless you do a LOT of sustained write operations, you won't notice much difference. How much RAM do you have? My guess is that you will get more bang for your buck there, or by using an external drive for scratch purposes etc (a desktop drive will be faster than a laptop drive anyway).

[imitchellg5]

I think you'll notice a difference with Photoshop. Although I would like to see what the cache of each drive is then compare them. Cache can be more important than RPM sometimes.

[SierraDragon]

Certainly a fast FW800 or eSATA external drive for scratch is a necessity for fast Photoshop operation; much, much more important than 5400 vs. 7200 rpm on the internal drive. However my guess is that the 7200 rpm drive will show noticeable but not dramatic improvement over the 5400 rpm drive in Adobe-apps operation. Most important is not to let either drive get too full (i.e. maintain 65% or less full).

The new graphics card should help both Aperture and WOW a lot.

IMO the 17" size is far superior for graphics work.

-Allen Wicks