Computer upgrade and Aperture 2

I'm looking to upgrade my MBP 2.2 GHz Intel computer. Aperture 2 has been beach-balling me more than I like, although most of my other programs seem to run pretty smoothly overall.

Am I better served upgrading my 2 gb memory to the max 4 gb, or upgrading my 5400 rpm drive to a 7200 rpm drive? A couple of points: I will be doing both eventually (probably within 5 months of each other) but don't have the money for both now. My current hdd is only half-full so space (and any increased speed by additional drive space) may not yet be an issue. My thoughts about a new 7200 drive is more a write speed issue.

Will I gain in more Aperture speed with more memory or a faster write speed onto my drive. Thanks.

I'd go with the memory so that you don't get the beach ball. The HDD can wait.

I agree, definitely go with the memory upgrade. Aperture needs memory especially if you're working with very large photo files.

Regards.

Seagate 500gb 7200rpm

So i've had the memory upgrade (maxed at 4gb) for a couple of months now. I'm now getting ready to change out my harddrive. I've noticed that Seagate has put out a 7200 rpm 500gb drive that looks tempting. Of course there are no reviews on it yet (heat, noise) and Seagate is just getting over a HDD lemon issue on one of their models, so I'm thinking of holding off for a bit.

I know most sites are backordered on that drive. Anyone get their hands on it yet? I was wavering between a 320gb 7200 rpm drive vs a 500gb 5400 rpm drive, but that may be a moot point now with Seagates introduction. I had also read that past 250gb on a 320gb HDD performance slows drastically, so I don't want to be hampered by disk size like that.

Kind of rambling, but any thoughts?

I just noticed that Seagate dropped their usual 5yr warranty on the 500gb drive to 3yrs!?

I personally would go with a Western Digital hard drive.


James

mjconn said:

So i've had the memory upgrade (maxed at 4gb) for a couple of months now. I'm now getting ready to change out my harddrive. I've noticed that Seagate has put out a 7200 rpm 500gb drive that looks tempting. Of course there are no reviews on it yet (heat, noise) and Seagate is just getting over a HDD lemon issue on one of their models, so I'm thinking of holding off for a bit.

I know most sites are backordered on that drive. Anyone get their hands on it yet? I was wavering between a 320gb 7200 rpm drive vs a 500gb 5400 rpm drive, but that may be a moot point now with Seagates introduction. I had also read that past 250gb on a 320gb HDD performance slows drastically, so I don't want to be hampered by disk size like that.

Kind of rambling, but any thoughts?

I just noticed that Seagate dropped their usual 5yr warranty on the 500gb drive to 3yrs!?

Click to expand...

Hello! What about the memory upgrade? Did Aperture get faster with the extra 2gb? I often work with large raw files and I think my iMac (MB324) also needs more memory to make Aperture happy...