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skyman · Nov 17, 2006, 03:09 PM

Ok boys and girls here it is the definitive answer to which hard drive is faster!!!!

ENJOY!!!!

amazing · Nov 17, 2006, 04:03 PM

I find it very interesting that they tested with the HD loaded to 74 GB--'cause that's much more of a real life situation.

Don't you wish the HD in the MBP were as easily upgradeable as the MB?

MrN79 · Nov 17, 2006, 08:12 PM

Nice find, as long as you don't plan on installing additional software on your Mac, by all means get a 7200.

Real world situations 5400 is faster.

Mrjinglesusa · Nov 17, 2006, 10:31 PM

So, aside from an almost full disk no suprises there.

4200 < 5400 < 7200.

I could have told you that without running any tests. lol

ecking01 · Nov 18, 2006, 04:06 AM

Originally Posted by amazing

Don't you wish the HD in the MBP were as easily upgradeable as the MB?

YES

brother337 · Nov 18, 2006, 03:58 PM

I used to always pull apart my laptops and install 7200 rpm drives, but the speed of the 5400 PMR drive in the new MBP is close enough that I'm willing to leave it in (especially since I get an extra 60 gigs.)

However, I can't wait for them to come out with a 7200rpm PMR laptop drive. That should be quite tasty.

Eriamjh · Nov 19, 2006, 12:51 PM

Interesting:

CONCLUSIONS
These latest test results reveal that,
a) The 7200rpm drives are the fastest when empty...

b)... but if you have 74GB of data on each of the drives, the 4200rpm drive was actually faster. That's because 74GB of data puts the 7200rpm drive at 80% capacity while the 200GB 4200rpm drive is only at 40% capacity. (See "74G Mark" graphs above.)

Mactivist · Nov 19, 2006, 03:30 PM

All three drives have their use. If you plan to do a lot of recording (GarageBand, etc), get the 7200. For a home media center, consider the bigger 200GB drive. And of course you have to work with your budget too.

I test hard drives at Western Digital, let me just say that there are hundreds of tests that have to be run to accurately gauge a drive's performance. No one drive will beat all others in every application.

skyman · Nov 24, 2006, 04:02 PM

Buy.com has a $20 special on some of these drives.

Buy.com hard drive special

MattJeff · Nov 24, 2006, 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa

So, aside from an almost full disk no suprises there.

4200 < 5400 < 7200.

I could have told you that without running any tests. lol

haha "almost full", im on my imac G4 800 mhz 60Gb HD and i have 712 Mbs free space

with the files i work with i never have more then 2 Gbs available

skyman · Nov 26, 2006, 03:27 PM

I just bought the Seagate Momentus 160GB drive at Newegg.com for $174 which is the best price I found. It will be replacing my 80GB drive in my MBP. I choose the Seagate over the Hitachi because the Seagate has a 5 year warrantee. It's worth the extra $10 I think.

skyman · Dec 26, 2006, 01:33 AM

For those of you who missed this......

iampivot · Dec 29, 2006, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by skyman

For those of you who missed this......

What about noise? I've heard rumors that the new 5400rpm 160gb disk in the C2D MBP is quite noisy?

brother337 · Dec 29, 2006, 11:09 PM

Originally Posted by iampivot

What about noise? I've heard rumors that the new 5400rpm 160gb disk in the C2D MBP is quite noisy?

I think that's subjective. The quietest hard drive (and laptop) I've ever owned was my iBook G4/800, and that one was *amazingly* quiet. The 160GB PMR drive in my MBP C2D is definitely louder, but it doesn't bother me and I've heard worse.