Questions about MacBook Pro (Upgrades)

Hey there!

I have some questions about upgrading the MacBook Pro. Note that I do not own a MacBook Pro yet, but I am going to purchase one in the following month (March/April). If they update the MBP line, I'll get a new one. If they don't, I'll get a 13'' low/high-end MacBook Pro.

Here comes in my first question. I'll be upgrading the RAM/HDD myself; which makes the high-end 13'' cost €200,- more for just 0.27 GHz of processor speed. I this worth the money? I'm not prepared to pay the extra €200,- if the difference is minor (which I think it is). What will the difference(s) be? I'll mainly be browsing/listening to tons of music and occasionally I'll be using Photoshop/Illustrator for graphical design.

Now if I take the low-end 13'', I'll be upgrading the RAM myself. I was looking at 2x2GB modules from Kingston. Does anyone have any suggestions about RAM that performs extremely well or better than others?

I'll also be updating the HDD, but I can't decide if I'll go for a 5400 RPM or a 7200 RPM. That's where another question comes in. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a 7200 RPM over a 5400 RPM? I've read that some 7200 RPM drives produce a lot of sound and excessive vibration. This is something I don't want to happen. Does anyone have a 7200 RPM drive that doesn't do this? If I'll go with a 5400 RPM drive, I'll probably go for this one.

Does anyone have a better idea for a 5400 RPM drive (better performance?) and does anyone have a 7200 RPM that performs great in a MacBook Pro without making too much sound/produce too much vibration? Also, what will happen with the battery life if I put in a 7200 RPM drive instead of a 5400 RPM drive?

That's it for now, thanks already for your answers!

You won't really notice it, however you should always go for the fastest processor you can afford.

Ram, crucial or kingston is usually the go.... if you go here and go to the My OWC tab and put in your machine it will give you all the options. Reputable site, quality components at a good price.

HD, I'd be going with this one

Quiet, fast, smooth and won't compromise the battery life.... the best reviews and feedback too. The benefits are the speed which you wont notice until you are writing at a heavy load onto the drive.

OWC is a good site to check things for me, but a no-go for buying. I don't live inside the United States so the shipping costs would be way too high.

That drive costs around €110,- here. The WD 500GB 5400 RPM drive costs €70,-.
What's the actual difference between a 7200 RPM and a 5400 RPM drive (performance wise)?

Faster file reading and writing
Using Adobe CS3, etc you will notice the difference.
Faster start up in OS X and Windows.

I think this is based on same capacities?

As in 500GB 7200 > 500GB 5400.
Is a 320GB/500GB 7200 HDD faster than a 640GB 5400 HDD?

Uchiha1911 said:

I think this is based on same capacities?

As in 500GB 7200 > 500GB 5400.
Is a 320GB/500GB 7200 HDD faster than a 640GB 5400 HDD?

Click to expand...

Yes. 7200 is the Rotations Per Minute (RPM) of the drive so a higher number will always be faster no matter what the capacity (GB).

I'd go for the faster HDD.

Yes; but a greater capacity also means there's less 'load' on the drive.

Think I'll go for a 320GB/500GB 7200 RPM if I can find the right one (minimal sounds production/vibration).

I just installed the Hitachi Travelstar 500GB 7200rpm drive just a week ago. So far it's very good. Noise is very minimal, especially when you compare to the almost silent original 160 hdd 5400rpm drive that was in the notebook. BTW, it's a Seagate. The optical drive will be much louder than anything coming out of the Hitachi. There is a very, very slight vibration. Copied a DVD just to check, the whole laptop warmed up a little but nothing particular coming from the hdd corner. If it drains battery life more than the original, I can hardly tell I still get the same 4-5 hours the way I've been using the notebook since I got it.

If you're particular about any degree of noise or vibration coming out of the notebook and has 0 tolerance for it then get the 5400rpm. To be honest, I haven't done anything to warrant the advantage of the higher speed, only copying dvd. I can't tell the speed difference between the 5400 and the 7200 at normal usage. But it's nice for me to know that I have the 7200 speed when needed with very slight trade off in noise, vibration, battery drain, and heat.

I don't think you'll notice much of a difference in speed from the processors unless you start rendering video or doing very complex photoshop work. I know in my experience the extra speed really only seems to be of value when I render 3d graphics or video.... if you don't do much of those save your money or consider a 15 inch the 13 inch screens aren't the most friendly when you are editing photos, a little too small for my taste.

I won't be using Photoshop/Illustrator heavily, just occasionally to create some logos/vectors.

I think I'll go with this memory kit and this HDD.

Quick question: is Crucial Memory faster than Apple's stock memory?

6string said:

Ram, crucial or kingston is usually the go.... if you go here and go to the My OWC tab and put in your machine it will give you all the options. Reputable site, quality components at a good price.

HD, I'd be going with this one

Quiet, fast, smooth and won't compromise the battery life.... the best reviews and feedback too. The benefits are the speed which you wont notice until you are writing at a heavy load onto the drive.

Click to expand...

Your post was well timed, at least for me. I ordered 6Gb of RAM from OWC this morning. It is for my MB Pro 3,1 2.4Ghz 17 inch. I have bought FireWire 800 hard drives from OWC before and found them to be very reliable.

I now have only the 2Gb of RAM that came standard with my MB Pro. Unfortunately, 2Gb has turned out to be inadequate because I frequently run Windows apps in a VMware Fusion virtual machine with Windows 7. The research I have done has convinced me that it's a memory problem because virtual machines are notorious memory hogs. Lord knows, I am living proof of that.

An advantage of dealing with OWC is its 15 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee. That means, of course, that if I don't get the improvement from the speed of Windows 7 and the apps that I expect, I can simply return the memory modules to OWC for a refund.