MBP Harddrive : 5400 or 7200RPM ?

Hi everyone .


I'm not yet on a mac and this is part of the many questions I ask to your community before ordering one .

'I'm looking forward to buying a 2,4Ghz MBP during the oncoming months.)

My question is : comparing a 5400RPM and a 7200RPM harddrive, with basically the same capacity ; what would be better for a laptop use?

I would typically assume that the more RPM a harddrive has, the faster will be the data writing and the overall performance of the system. That's ok for a desktop computer.

However, won't a 7200RPM harddrive generate too much heat/noise and consume much more energy in the case of the MBP (and of laptops in general)?

My use of the MBP will be partly gaming, thanks to WinXP via Bootcamp ; so though I'm not looking for high end performances (if I were I wouldn't buy a laptop), I don't want a harddrive which heat will eventually cause an overall warming of MBP's hardware and which noise will drive me crazy under load.


Thank you for your answers .

Hi NcR, I'm new here as well and i don't have too much technical knowledge but ill try my best to help you out with some of your question...

I received my mbp today, and i have the 200gb 7200rpm hard drive configured, even though i have only been using it for a day i have been transferring lots of files and have not noticed the sound, its all very quiet...

As for heat well i haven't had the laptop long enough to be able to answer that but i have had it on my lap while it has been transferring all this data and i have noticed nothing out of the ordinary heat wise.

I hope some part of this helps in your quest to buy a mac!

Kyle

Well I have a MBP with the 7200 rpm and chose that because everyone told me that if I wanted speed I should have it.

So I can't tell you any tech specs on how much faster it is or anything but I'll tell you that it makes no noise, and the heat of my notebook the same temp as compared to other notebooks (which is hot, but same as others without the 7200 rpm lol)

Oh and kyle, definitely get iStat Pro on your dashboard so you can monitor your heat etc...

Oh and one last thing for OP MBP's get hot... everywhere I've read says it, I have experience now with it and trust me they get hot. Mine frequently when playing WoW Runs at 70-75 degrees celsius... get a cooling pad for it. I have the belkin one and it works pretty ok. The fan is very silent so I'd actually like it to push out more air to it but overall it lowers my heat by like 20 degrees or more.

Hello,
what about the inpact on the battery life of a 5400 vs 7200 rpm ? What are the voltages of both disks ?

regards,
Tex

Tex-Twil said:

Hello,
what about the inpact on the battery life of a 5400 vs 7200 rpm ? What are the voltages of both disks ?

regards,
Tex

Click to expand...

Well, I can't tell you the exact consumption levels, but I can say that any differences are negligible (a few minutes of battery life), in my experience.

I guess it comes down to this - if performance is of utmost importance, go with the 7200rpm drive. If battery life is a priority, go with the 5400rpm.

Well, seems like having a 7200RPM doesn't cause that much heat/noise/energy-consumption compared to the 5400RPM. Great !

I'm going for it .

Thank you everyone for your help .