[damiensmunki]

Well, after much deliberation, I finally picked up a black MacBook. I wanted the Air, but I decided not to be Apple's guinea-pig this time around. I'm looking at putting into the MacBook either a larger, 320GB 5400 rpm HDD or a 200GB 7200 rpm HDD. I'm wondering what kind of negative impact the speed increase would have on battery life? Can anyone let me know how long your battery lasts on a full charge when using a 7200 rpm HDD? Thanks so much for everyone's help!
Rob

[peeb]

Very little in a modern drive.

[tinkered]

The bigger question is if the 7200 rpm drive will really be faster for you. After half-full drive begin to really slow down and a 200 GB drive gets to half-full 60 GB befroe a 320 GB drive. Check out this page where bench tests showed slower bigger drive beat faster smaller drives when the drive had the equivalent of 80% of the capacity of the 7200 speed drive on them: MacBook Pro - various drives compared

[mduell]

The power consumption is nearly identical, the difference won't be more than a couple minutes.

[Cadaver]

I will tell you that for the few hours I was playing with the 100GB 7200 RPM drive from my MacBook Pro in my wife's MacBook, I could really sense the vibration of the faster rotational speed under my right wrist (where the drive is located). I feel nearly nothing using a 160GB 5400 RPM drive instead. May not matter to you, but just something to be aware of.

[damiensmunki]

Thanks, Cadaver. That's something I hadn't really considered, and I do think it would matter to me.