Macbook Pro Hard drive upgrade debate!

[thegoat54]

I'm looking to buy a new hard drive and cant decide to save the money and get 5400 or put out the cash for 7200 RPM.

 

Is there any noticeable difference in performance?

 

Thanks!

[chelhydra]

Have a look here

[apowerr]

I'd say get the 7,200 RPM.

[Soündless]

if these are mac compatible, get http://www.adtron.com/products/A25fb-SerialATAFlashDisk.html

[A Nonny Moose]

Personally, I wouldn't upgrade, mainly because you can run the risk of overheating

[glassJAw]

False. 7200 RPM drives aren't that much hotter then 5400 RPM drives and battery times are negligible.

 

I'm running a 200 GB 16MB Cache 7200 RPM Hitachi and it is amazing. The jump from 5400 to 7200 is worth it.

[sarahbau]

I think it's definitely worth it. Hard drives are often the biggest speed difference between a desktop and laptop.

[Azurael]

PMR 5400 drives are ALMOST as fast as non-PMR 7200 drives - in fact, early on in the disk they're often faster because they're bigger. However, seeks on the 7200 drives are much faster even if disk-to-buffer transfers are slower. If you're looking at a PMR 7200 drive, then you'll definitely notice the difference, and as somebody pointed out earlier in the thread, I doubt you'd ever notice the heat difference (this coming from someone who's used 7200RPM laptop drives since day 0 - first the IBM 40GB, then the series up from that of Hitachi 100GBs and now a Seagate 160GB.)