MacBook - New HD Performance... or lack of...

vfib71 · vfib71 #1 (**permalink**)

05-01-2009, 11:46 AM

Hi,

I have a 2.4GHz Macbook with 2GB ram and I just replaced the 250GB HD with a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (ST9500420ASG) 7200RPM 500GB HD.

To change the drive I first formatted the new drive as a guild partition next I used ccc to clone my drive and then just switched the drives. I repaired permissions and scored a 113 on xbench. I only did xbench test post change but compared to others online and comparitively my disk scores are very low. How can this be? and better yet how can I fix? Is this not a good drive?

ADKhikerVW · ADKhikerVW #2 (**permalink**)

05-01-2009, 12:08 PM

Seagates are good drives, xbench is not a reliable way to test the speed of anything. I have run xbench on my iMac several times, sometimes it scores high, sometimes low. For example, I just ran all tests and scored a 135.67, then again and scored 157.28. Since you just installed the hard drive, it is likely Spotlight is indexing, and other processes are using your drive. This will all effect what xbench gives you for a score. The best test is just to use it as you normally do and see if you notice an improvement in performance.

vansmith · vansmith #3 (**permalink**)

05-01-2009, 12:22 PM

Agreed. See here which states that Spotlight, along with other background processes, may hinder your Mac from scoring higher.

Honestly though, if the drive is fast enough, does the Xbench score really matter?

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vfib71 #1 (permalink)
Member Since: May 01, 2009 Posts: 1	05-01-2009, 11:46 AM Hi, I have a 2.4GHz Macbook with 2GB ram and I just replaced the 250GB HD with a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (ST9500420ASG) 7200RPM 500GB HD. To change the drive I first formatted the new drive as a guild partition next I used ccc to clone my drive and then just switched the drives. I repaired permissions and scored a 113 on xbench. I only did xbench test post change but compared to others online and comparitively my disk scores are very low. How can this be? and better yet how can I fix? Is this not a good drive?
	QUOTE Thanks

ADKhikerVW #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Aug 18, 2007 Location: Wilmington, NY Posts: 715 Mac Specs: 15" Unibody MBP (2009), White MB (2009), iMac G4	05-01-2009, 12:08 PM Seagates are good drives, xbench is not a reliable way to test the speed of anything. I have run xbench on my iMac several times, sometimes it scores high, sometimes low. For example, I just ran all tests and scored a 135.67, then again and scored 157.28. Since you just installed the hard drive, it is likely Spotlight is indexing, and other processes are using your drive. This will all effect what xbench gives you for a score. The best test is just to use it as you normally do and see if you notice an improvement in performance.
	QUOTE Thanks

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