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dndog · Jan 16, 2006, 01:47 PM

I know apple offers two types of 100gig harddrives for the PowerBook/MacBookPro.

What are the advantages of picking the faster harddrive? Isn't it just better to get a 120gig harddrive (for the same price as the 7200 100gig harddrive).

Thanks, and I'm excited to become a part of the MacNN community!

Peabo · Jan 16, 2006, 02:03 PM

If you're open to the possibility of using an external hard drive if you run out of space, then go for the faster 100gig drive. If you only want to use the internal drive and feel that 100 gigs won't be enough for you, go for the 120.

dndog · Jan 16, 2006, 02:06 PM

How much of a speed difference is there in the 7200RPM drive?

I know its not advised to use the OS harddrive for a scratch disk in many pro apps, so I unclear what the advantages are with a faster harddrive.

Peabo · Jan 16, 2006, 02:08 PM

Not massive, but if you're going to use an external drive too, then why not just go for the fastest internal drive? Upgrading internal hard disks is a bit of a pain if you decide it's not fulfilling your needs.

I think the difference will probably only be 10-30%

mrmister · Jan 17, 2006, 03:54 AM

It will be close to 30%, and it matters--get the 7200rpm.

shabbasuraj · Jan 17, 2006, 04:02 AM

Size matters.

I would go larger for my computing requirements.

MORT A POTTY · Jan 17, 2006, 04:06 AM

Originally Posted by mrmister

It will be close to 30%, and it matters--get the 7200rpm.

totally. boot speed, app launch times, and especially for the virtual memory you want the fastest drive you can get. holyshit.

Charles Bouldin · Jan 17, 2006, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by MORT A POTTY

totally. boot speed, app launch times, and especially for the virtual memory you want the fastest drive you can get. holyshit.

Yep. I still have my 3 year old 1 ghz tibook, but upgraded with a 60 gig 7200 rpm drive. For many things, it doesn't feel much different than nominally "faster" Albooks that have slower drives. Get the fast drive, and th biggest one you can afford.

Jerome · Jan 17, 2006, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by MORT A POTTY

totally. boot speed, app launch times, and especially for the virtual memory you want the fastest drive you can get. holyshit.

Just asking, why is boot speed and app. launch times so important for people? I personnally don't spend my days restarting my computer (that's why I use a Mac

) and even launching apps is a one time per session thing, maybe even less... I can see the benefit of faster drives in other situations but I don't understand why people always talk about boot and app. launch times...

MORT A POTTY · Jan 17, 2006, 07:55 PM

because its' ****ing annoying waiting for Photoshop to launch, so why the hell would you want to make it longer? same with every other application ever.

also faster notebook drives would benefit when using VRAM (which OS X does EXTREMELY liberally) and the numerous page ins/outs take time to write and read, a faster drive will just make this stuff faster.

hell, if you don't care about speed, you might as well just get an iBook as it'll do the same stuff, just a lot slower. so, you're getting a PowerBook and then one would assume you want the extra speed, why get the same slower HDs? doesn't make any sense to me.

Jerome · Jan 17, 2006, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by MORT A POTTY

because its' ****ing annoying waiting for Photoshop to launch, so why the hell would you want to make it longer? same with every other application ever.

also faster notebook drives would benefit when using VRAM (which OS X does EXTREMELY liberally) and the numerous page ins/outs take time to write and read, a faster drive will just make this stuff faster.

hell, if you don't care about speed, you might as well just get an iBook as it'll do the same stuff, just a lot slower. so, you're getting a PowerBook and then one would assume you want the extra speed, why get the same slower HDs? doesn't make any sense to me.

I don't want to make it longer and as I said, I understand it's benefit for VRAM and the likes. I just find it funny that poeple judge a computer's performance buy how fast it boots... I prefer a computer that renders After Effects projects fast, encodes video fast, that works fast on big PSD files and that has a responsive interface, waiting 3 seconds more once a day on startup is not critical...

MORT A POTTY · Jan 17, 2006, 08:06 PM

it's not that it determines the overall performance, but it is one component of it that is often overlooked. I have a 5400 80GB HD in my Pismo simply because when I got it there was nothing faster, and I'm fine on space for now, but the speed increase over a 4200 RPM drive is welcome, and then even still going from a 5400 to a 7200 RPM drive is just as important once you get used to it.

once you go fast you never go back...something something

Seb G · Jan 18, 2006, 06:56 AM

Originally Posted by Jerome

Just asking, why is boot speed and app. launch times so important for people? I personnally don't spend my days restarting my computer (that's why I use a Mac

) and even launching apps is a one time per session thing, maybe even less... I can see the benefit of faster drives in other situations but I don't understand why people always talk about boot and app. launch times...

A session on a notebook is considerably shorter than on a desktop - you don't leave it running for days.

But if you don't like launch time as a performance indicator, the time it takes to open files is shorter with a faster hard drive. The more files you handle, the more benefit you get - for Photoshop or After Effects it is less important than for software development where you have to read and write thousands of tiny files when you compile something.

Charles Bouldin · Jan 18, 2006, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by Seb G

A session on a notebook is considerably shorter than on a desktop - you don't leave it running for days.

Huh? I only reboot mine for Apple updates and the few other things that require a restart...uptimes of 30 days are common on my tibook. I just put it to sleep when I'm not using it.

olePigeon · Jan 18, 2006, 02:38 PM

I remember when we bought our 80MB 4200 RPM HDD for our Mac IIvx. I couldn't imagine having anything that could possibly take up an entire 80MBs.

Go for the bigger, faster HDD. It'll be worth it.

*On a side note, my dad was laughing the other day when I told him I got 1GB of RAM for my laptop. He said when he was college, he remembers when they bought a 1MB (megabyte) HDD for their "super computer" at CalTech. It was a big muchine, knda looked like an upright washingmachine. You'd pull out a container that had like 6 doughnut like disks around it. They were paper tape drives with a total capacity of 1MB. They could load the final punchcard program and have it write to the tape drive so they wouldn't have to run the cards again.

SpinCycle · Jan 18, 2006, 11:11 PM

What about power consumption and heat. Would the 7200 be hotter?

b11051973 · Jan 20, 2006, 05:11 PM

When I get mine, I'll go for the 7200 rpm drive. 20 more gigs isn't that big a deal. If it were like 60-80 more gigs, it would be a different story. Plus, I already have a 60 gig laptop hdd in an external enclosure that I use with my current 12" PB. I'll just continue to use that if I really need extra storage.

I mainly use the external drive now for my MP3s and such. My 12" PB only has a 40 gig internal drive and I have almost 30 gigs of MP3s. With a 100 gig drive, between my MP3s and software, I'd use no more than 50 gigs. That would give me 40+ gigs of space to work with. Plenty for my needs.

I'm thinking about waiting till the next MacWorld before buying my MacBook. By then, there will be even larger 7200 rpm drives out. Then it really won't matter.

MORT A POTTY · Jan 20, 2006, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by SpinCycle

What about power consumption and heat. Would the 7200 be hotter?

the power consumption and heat difference is reported to be very very small.