Thinking about upgrading to a 7200rpm hdd

Wheeljack · Nov 6, 2008

I'd like to squeeze out all the performance I can get out of my new MBP. Going to 6GB of RAM is just too expensive right now (about $600) so I thought about upgrading the hdd.

I have a 5400rpm Hitachi 5K320. Will there be a real performance increase if I go for a 7200rpm Hitachi 7K320? I've done some research and the reviews all agree that this drive is a good buy, along with the WD Scorpio Black and the one from Seagate.

Also, I plan on buying and ExpressCard 32GB SSD drive to use a sratch disk for Photoshop, though the current generation do not offer great perfomance (just 8MBps writes). A sales representative from Transcend told me their working on the 2nd generation right now and should be out soon.

What do you think?

B&O · Nov 6, 2008

I am going to upgrade my to 7,200rpm soon too. Then once there are decent sized and priced SSD I will upgrade again. SSD is just to expensive small and not much faster in the real world at the moment.

Wheeljack · Nov 6, 2008

Yeah, SSDs are too expensive right now to use a main drive, but you can get a 32GB ExpressCard SSD for under $200. If the 2nd generation is fast enough, it'll make a killer scratch disk.

CrimsonRequiem · Nov 6, 2008

Wheeljack said:
I'd like to squeeze out all the performance I can get out of my new MBP. Going to 6GB of RAM is just too expensive right now (about $600) so I thought about upgrading the hdd.

I have a 5400rpm Hitachi 5K320. Will there be a real performance increase if I go for a 7200rpm Hitachi 7K320? I've done some research and the reviews all agree that this drive is a good buy, along with the WD Scorpio Black and the one from Seagate.

Also, I plan on buying and ExpressCard 32GB SSD drive to use a sratch disk for Photoshop, though the current generation do not offer great perfomance (just 8MBps writes). A sales representative from Transcend told me their working on the 2nd generation right now and should be out soon.

What do you think?

Umm last time I checked the logic board only supports 4GB max on the MBP. Get any of the 320GB 7200 RPM HDDs, they are pretty much all the same except Seagate has the longest warranty I believe.

No to the SSD because Samsung is mass producing 256 GB SSD very soon. Hopefully then there will be a price drop for the holidays.

B&O · Nov 6, 2008

MBP can read 8GB but OS X cant handle 8GB. It has stabiliy issues. They can handle 6 GB and be stable.

People suspect that it is that Leopard isn't quite 64bit. Hopefully in Snowleopard it will read 8GB.

karudzo · Nov 6, 2008

I upgraded my wife's drive to a 200GB Hitachi 7200RPM drive and it had a noticeable performance impact (better). Also, Mac Pros go up to 32GB of RAM, so it's not an OS X issue I don't think.

XJ-linux · Nov 6, 2008

I upgraded to a Seagate 320GB 7200rpm (ST9320421AS) and am quite happy with it. Haven't seen a beachball but once or twice since then. I'm also maxed at 4GB of RAM. I would hope that Snow Leopard and possible firmware updates will address the 4GB ceiling at some point. I was running 4GB on my last generation 2.16Ghz MB and using 3.3GB of it. It ran much more quickly in xBench than with 2GB or 3GB installed.

B&O · Nov 7, 2008

karudzo said:
I upgraded my wife's drive to a 200GB Hitachi 7200RPM drive and it had a noticeable performance impact (better). Also, Mac Pros go up to 32GB of RAM, so it's not an OS X issue I don't think.

A MBP runs on very different hardware and firmware. Also just because 32GB is in there doesn't mean that it can use it.