[mutron]

Hi,
I am about to order a MacBook Pro 17''
However I have a question about the hard drive.

I am tempted to get it with a 200GB 4200RPM disk. I really love having everything on
me

Does anyone has any input on performance of the machine vs
getting the 160 @ 5400 or 100 @ 7200?
I will use the computer primarily for Web Development (programming + Adobe
Photoshop/Illustrator). I am occasionally editing movies (not professionally)
and of course I am consuming media

Does the disk affect the overall performance of the machine?

Thanks!

[uicandrew]

there is a separate sub-forum for macbook pros, but regardless, here is a link to a thread addressing your question.

http://forums.macnn.com/69/powerbook...new-mbp-200gb/

[mduell]

4200RPM is slow. Really slow. It will have an impact on performance any time you're hitting the disk, which is just about always in real world usage (rather than some tight little benchmark that fits in cache).

[Simon]

The rotational speed is just one factor in the equation (only the seek time depends directly on it). The storage density is just as important - especially when you're interested in absolute throughput. The fact the higher capacity drives often have higher sector density can often make up for the difference in rotational speed.

You'll have to wait for real benchmarks to see how these disks perform in everyday tasks, but for the moment don't be scared off by lower RPM numbers.

Here's a links with some more information:
Inside Apple’s new 200GB notebook drive | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

[uicandrew]

Originally Posted by Simon 

You'll have to wait for real benchmarks to see how these disks perform in everyday tasks, but for the moment don't be scared off by lower RPM numbers.

Here's a links with some more information:
� Inside Apple’s new 200GB notebook drive | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

thanks for the zdnet link, however, there has already been benchmarks done for the fujitsu 200gb drive. it was in the 2nd post of the thread that i linked to earlier.

but in case you don't want to follow my links, here it is again

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/...sus_mhv2200bt/

essentially, the 4200rpm 200gb drive is similar in performance to other 4200rpm drives.

but i'm more of a fan of "real life" benchmarks, like startup time, time it takes to copy a 1gb file from one partition to another

[Simon]

Originally Posted by uicandrew 

but i'm more of a fan of "real life" benchmarks, like startup time, time it takes to copy a 1gb file from one partition to another

I am as well. That's why I'm suggesting we wait till those arrive until we bash the drive.

[ghporter]

On the off chance that posting in the MacBook/iBook forum was an mistake and the OP intended to post in the CORRECT, MacBook Pro/PowerBook forum, I'm moving this thread....

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by mutron 

Hi,
I am about to order a MacBook Pro 17''... Does anyone has any input on performance of the machine vs
getting the 160 @ 5400 or 100 @ 7200?
I will use the computer primarily for Web Development (programming + Adobe
Photoshop/Illustrator). I am occasionally editing movies (not professionally)... Does the disk affect the overall performance of the machine?

I agree about waiting for empirical hard drive performance data. So much so that I ordered a refurb MBP for use while I wait a few weeks for the C2D MBP test results. All laptops are limiting for my uses (Aperture and Photoshop) so I do want to configure the very strongest possible MBP.

IMO the very best solution for Adobe users is 2 internal hard drives, because assigning a partition on a separate physical drive as the scratch disk is essential to good Photoshop performance.

I have earlier posted parts of the comments below in other threads here:

MCE now makes a replacement hard drive that fits into the optical drive's location. The drive comes with an external case for the removed Superdrive so it is still usable, and the change actually makes the Macbook Pro a few ounces lighter.

MCE OptiBay Hard Drive for MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4

This means pro Mac laptops can now have two internal hard drives, which is very significant. One can order the 160 or 200 GB drive from Apple and add a fast 7200 rpm drive from MCE, allowing 260 or 300 GB total internal mass storage with 100GB of it on the fastest available drive. 50 GB or so of the fastest sectors of the larger drive can be partitioned as Photoshop scratch, creating (when equipped with 2 or preferably 3 GB RAM) both the first really good Photoshop laptop as well as the first laptop with the drive speed and mass storage to fully support DSLR photogs and Aperture.

Alternately one could just go for maximum speed in a 15" MBP by installing two 7200 rpm drives internally and moving the Apple drive to an external case. Personally I want to see the empirical performance data before going with the smaller capacity 2 x 100 solution.

Having two drives also allows DSLR photogs like me to use smart folders to create immediate redundant backup on the second drive as images are uploaded from CF card to laptop. Actually quite a large issue, obviating the need to immediately burn DVDs.

At the link above MCE shows the sustained transfer speeds of MCE's replacement hard drives, and the spec differences among drives is huge. Sustained transfer is I believe the important number for folks like me who frequently move large numbers of RAW image files and their edits, and it varies from 44 MB/s to 78 MB/s.

NOTE: There may or may not be heat and/or warranty issues associated with replacing the optical drive with a hard drive, but I have used MCE for years and never had any problems.

-Allen Wicks

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The rotational speed is just one factor in the equation (only the seek time depends directly on it). The storage density is just as important - especially when you're interested in absolute throughput. The fact the higher capacity drives often have higher sector density can often make up for the difference in rotational speed.

While throughput is a function of both rotational speed and linear density, latency is only a function of rotational speed.
For tasks with a lot of "random" reads/writes, the faster spindle speed is a big deal.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mduell 

For tasks with a lot of "random" reads/writes, the faster spindle speed is a big deal.

Hmm, nice theory.

Here's reality on a rev A MBP:

[click on image for more]

The 7200 RPM disk performs actually worst in the small random read/writes. Where it shined compared to the 5400 was for large linear data chunks. Anybody who is seriously HDD performance limited needs to go FW800 anyway (as these benchmarks also showed). Insisting on higher RPM numbers on disks regardless of their manufacturer or type is like demanding a CPU have at least 3 GHz. It's simplistic.

What I'm trying to point out is that it's more complicated than what your simple theory suggests. No 'theoretical argument' is going to replace real-world benchmarks.

I got a 7200 RPM for my rev A. I will be getting a 5400 for my rev B because the 7200 RPM option was dropped. But I'm not at all expecting my rev A's disk to clearly outrun my rev B's disk at anything.

[azdude]

200GB Drive model confirmed:

It's not the 12.5mm Fujistu longitudinal recording drive that Tom's Hardware reviewed and benchmarked --- it's Toshiba's new 200GB 9.5mm perpendicular drive.

An X-Bench from the MBP 15" C2D w/ 120GB 5400RPM Drive:
http://lartren.com/mac/xbench.txt

...compared to the MBP 15" C2D w/ 200GB 4200RPM Drive:
http://www.eggdropper.com/picdrop/mbp3gb-xbench.txt

The 200GB 4200RPM seems about 85% the speed of the 5400 in the new MBPs.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Simon 

...Anybody who is seriously HDD performance limited needs to go FW800 anyway...

At the office I have FW800/RAID for mass storage, but we are talking about internal drive setups for field usage in laptops. Of course if there are some bus powered fast, small size large capacity, durable, reliable FW800 drives available that would be useful info.

Originally Posted by Simon 

...I got a 7200 RPM for my rev A. I will be getting a 5400 for my rev B because the 7200 RPM option was dropped. But I'm not at all expecting my rev A's disk to clearly outrun my rev B's disk at anything.

(emphasis mine)

Like you I am waiting for modern empirical test results. However my expectation is that the 7200 RPM drives may be substantially faster than 4200/5400 drives at typical Aperture/Photoshop management of batches of hundreds of RAW DSLR files with edits. Hopefully BareFeats will oblige us with some righteous tests.

Note that I don't really care about previous results, just real world comparative analysis of today's C2D MBPs with different drive configurations.

-Allen Wicks

[Simon]

azdude, thanks for those links. It's interesting to see that the 4200 RPM disk holds up that well against the 5400. I was expecting worse.

On the other hand I was not all amazed by how the rev B's 5400 compares to my rev A's 7200:

[sorry for the pic, for some reason I couldn't get the code tags to display the table right]

On a side note, what's the largest 2.5" 7200 RPM HDD you can buy right now?

[danfisher]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

I agree about waiting for empirical hard drive performance data. So much so that I ordered a refurb MBP for use while I wait a few weeks for the C2D MBP test results. All laptops are limiting for my uses (Aperture and Photoshop) so I do want to configure the very strongest possible MBP.

IMO the very best solution for Adobe users is 2 internal hard drives, because assigning a partition on a separate physical drive as the scratch disk is essential to good Photoshop performance.

I have earlier posted parts of the comments below in other threads here:

MCE now makes a replacement hard drive that fits into the optical drive's location. The drive comes with an external case for the removed Superdrive so it is still usable, and the change actually makes the Macbook Pro a few ounces lighter.

MCE OptiBay Hard Drive for MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4

This means pro Mac laptops can now have two internal hard drives, which is very significant. One can order the 160 or 200 GB drive from Apple and add a fast 7200 rpm drive from MCE, allowing 260 or 300 GB total internal mass storage with 100GB of it on the fastest available drive. 50 GB or so of the fastest sectors of the larger drive can be partitioned as Photoshop scratch, creating (when equipped with 2 or preferably 3 GB RAM) both the first really good Photoshop laptop as well as the first laptop with the drive speed and mass storage to fully support DSLR photogs and Aperture.

Alternately one could just go for maximum speed in a 15" MBP by installing two 7200 rpm drives internally and moving the Apple drive to an external case. Personally I want to see the empirical performance data before going with the smaller capacity 2 x 100 solution.

Having two drives also allows DSLR photogs like me to use smart folders to create immediate redundant backup on the second drive as images are uploaded from CF card to laptop. Actually quite a large issue, obviating the need to immediately burn DVDs.

At the link above MCE shows the sustained transfer speeds of MCE's replacement hard drives, and the spec differences among drives is huge. Sustained transfer is I believe the important number for folks like me who frequently move large numbers of RAW image files and their edits, and it varies from 44 MB/s to 78 MB/s.

NOTE: There may or may not be heat and/or warranty issues associated with replacing the optical drive with a hard drive, but I have used MCE for years and never had any problems.

-Allen Wicks

just to clarify, the 2nd harddrive would replace the superdrive? how would you install software, ect?