[markus]

i ordered the mbp 1.83 w/ 100gig 5400rpm hard drive on jan 14th. im having second thoughts about the hd and am thinking of reordering a mbp w/ 7200rpm, however i dont want to wait (it would extend my shipping date weeks and im very very impatient, the wait already is becoming unbearable). would it be easy to replace the hd? or if i got an external hd that ran at 7200rpm would that suffice? or would the os running on the 5400rpm hd bottleneck the external?? this is my first mac and i dont know much about replacing hardware on them.

[Peabo]

Until someone gets a mbp and disassembles it, we won't know how hard it is. I can tell you that it's pretty straightforward on my powerbook G4 Al, which ought to have a similar internal layout to the new macbooks.

[harrisjamieh]

It'd be a shame to 1) cancel your order and have to wait ages, and 2) to have to open up your MBP and void the warrenty by replacing the HD. I think you should either

1) Bite the bullet and re-order with the 7200 drive
2) See how it goes with the 5400 drive, and if you dont like it, sell the MBP and order another one. Most you will loose is like 50-$100, OK, a lot of dosh, but if its that bad with the 5400, then may be worth it...

[schalliol]

I really doubt that the 7200 is going to be that much faster. I went with the 120GB because over its life 100GB isn't going to cut it. I've felt really confined by the 60GB in my unit I've had for 38 mo. Plus the 7200 will be louder, hotter and consume more power.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by schalliol

I really doubt that the 7200 is going to be that much faster. I went with the 120GB because over its life 100GB isn't going to cut it. I've felt really confined by the 60GB in my unit I've had for 38 mo. Plus the 7200 will be louder, hotter and consume more power.

I disagree.

For Hitachi drives, the 7200 and 5400RPM drives use the same amount of power when reading and writing, and the 7200RPM uses about a quarter watt more when idling. The difference in noise between the two drives is 1 (idle) - 3 (operating) decibels; 3 decibels is generally considered barely noticeable.
For Seagate drives, the 7200 RPM uses about a quarter watt more when reading, writing, or idling than the 5400 RPM. The difference in noise between the two drives is 1 (active) - 2 (idling) decibels; 3 decibels is generally considered barely noticeable.

A quarter watt and a couple decibels isn't a good reason to give up the performance advantage that 7200RPM disks have. StorageReview.com has a number of reviews for you to peruse.

[schalliol]

What I said was true, and you confirm it. However, as you noted, it may not be a substantial difference for some drives. I'd have gone for a 120/7200 if it were available (I've got a Ultra160 RAID 0 and IDE RAID 1 in my tower, plus an additional drive, all 7200). As I said, I think those with 100s are going to find it as too small over the life of a "power user's" use. Sure, you can add an external drive, but then you defeat some of the purpose of having a portable computer. I especially would suggest that if people are able to get Windows on it, those using that will consume more storage too. I'm not saying I'll use it, but these are things people should think of.

[zac4mac]

I thought about the issues you bring up Schalliol, but came to the other conclusion - the only "current" portable I have is a small G3-800 iBook, with a 30GB HDD and it's still got a few gigs left. The MBP on order has 3X+ that and since I'm not a true road warrior, a lot of stuff that starts on the Book will find it's way to the PowerMac fairly quickly.

I didn't do any heavy research tho, and I'm thankful to Mark for covering that for me. Glad the faster HDD won't add much heat or take away much battery time.

The fora here at MacNN have always been illuminating and amusing. Thanks all.

Z

[phoenix78]

i am rather curious if apple or an apple retail store will do a trade in for a new HD if you wanted to replace it with a different one. i guess that will be up to the reseller...

but i dont think it is THAT worth it to get a different HD after you bought it already. i mean.. a new HD will cost you just a little more than applecare would have cost you and if you do buy applecare then that new HD wont be covered and it is most likely that HDs will be the component that will die lol!

if you think you made a mistake then just cancel the order and order what you really want. they will all ship around the same time and the delay in waiting for your new order wont be "that bad".

i know people love their tech and some go crazy waiting but it would be better to wait a few extra weeks and get what you want than get it 'pronto' and pay all that money and not like it and spend even more money.

heres a tip: whenever you feel impatient get up and go for a walk for a few minutes lol.

goodluck!

robM

[schalliol]

Certainly if you are doing just great with 30GB, you probably will be happy with 100GB. Most of the people in my office are easily running out of space on their couple year old PowerBooks/PCs. Many of my friends and family are getting large external drives too, or have desktops which have been expanded. Hard drives are difficult to replace in laptops because you only have one bay for them and if you replace the drive it's going to be expensive and you'll have to figure out how to use the internal drive as an external if you still need more space. RAM is very important, but that at least can be expanded easily. These are mainly just reference points.

[jeebus]

I'm sorry but to say that "a real power user couldn't get by with 100 but 120 is good" or whatever is kind of ridiculous. It's only 20 gigs larger, and I would much rather have a 100 GB 7200 RPM drive than a slow-a$$ 5400 RPM one with 20 gigs extra. I have suffered through 5400 RPM drives in my old powerbook and mac mini and they are constantly the bottleneck and I'm left sitting there waiting for data to come from the HD. I never want to go through that again, the 7200 was a no brainer for me.

[schalliol]

20% more storage to have on board could really make a difference. After all, if you're using less hard drive space in general, it's reasonable to think you might not be writing extremely large files or tons of tiny files in just a little bit of time. So, would you go down to an 80 or again down to 60 if 5400 were only available in one of those sizes? At some point 20% makes a difference. It's related to how important CPU performance is. For many users, all of the current selling products in a line will work for the user, but you're not going to be buying for just the moment. Three and one half years ago I got a Ti with a 60GB drive, yet we only are up to double that now (and that's if you go for the 120/5400). Based on my past experience with just this unit, I had to start being quite choosy about what I'd put on here from my home and office servers over a year and 1/2 from now, so I've been sacraficing having some data I thought I might need on the road. I expect to at least hit 80GB initially (without music files, etc.), which only leaves about 45% more space for growth (OS X loves virtual memory, even if you have a couple GB of RAM). You need a new computer when you reach the point that the various components are no longer good enough for the work you're doing. At some point if you keep using the latest applications and expand what you can do based upon those new abilities, you should run out of space. Having 20% more space means you can defer that problem until later.

I thought some of the old PowerBooks were running slower than 5400RPM, but perhaps not. I'd be interested to see the real-world performance difference between the two drives. I sort of doubt it's going to make a huge difference. Even until very recently (after Ti) PowerBooks shipped stock with 4200RPM drives. If you really have an old PowerBook, you probably have a 4200RPM drive in it to begin with.

[zac4mac]

I guess I left out a salient point in my decision making process - I also own two 60 GB iPods - a photo and a video. I have all my music that is currently digitized and still have about 30-40 GB room on the 'Pods.
The main use I have for a portable is for photo shoots. That's why the iBook has done well. It's a little slow for Photoshop, but I can look at my photos in the field with iPhoto, Preview or Graphic Converter, then do a dump to the G5DP when I get home.

I don't really have a need for the MBP. I want to see how an Intel powered Mac performs and I had no justification for buying an iMac and only a little more than none to buy a 'Book. So here I am, waiting for a new toy.

Z

[turk.o]

hey, not to be rude, but this ground has been covered before, remember, 'search' is your friend.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=282125