Upgrading MBP ram, should I upgrade hard drive as well?

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Hi,

I am new here but I've been reading this forum for a while. I need a bit of advice regarding my MacBookPro 5,5. I have the base model with 2GB ram and 160GB 5400rpm hdd, and I will be upgrading to 8GB ram for a programming project (to run the whole thing in a ram disk).

My question is - doesn't it make sense to upgrade my hard drive as well? I might get 2-3 more years of life out of my MBP. My current drive is about 2/3 full as I store a lot of my things in an external disk. Say if I get a 500GB 7200rpm drive, would I get significantly better performance (considering that I am also upgrading the ram)? I mostly do web browsing, music/video and office stuff, with occasional programming. I regularly use like 4GB of swap so I know the ram upgrade will help a lot. I guess what I really want to know is whether a hard drive upgrade would be worth the extra performance.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Not really, unless you want to pay the extra for an SSD. A 7200rpm drive will create more vibration, more battery drain, more noise, and a very slight speed boost.
 
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Thanks. I presume you have had experience with 7200rpm drives on your MBP then. Would the noise be noticeable if I have music playing?
I might upgrade the hard drive somewhere down the road if I really feel I need more space.
 
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With the battery drain factor and the lack of extra performance a 7200 RPM drive probably wouldn't be worth it. If you need more space a 5200rpm 500gb would work great. If you want speed, buy an ssd.
 
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I have a MBP mid 2009 too. Bumping to 8 gb ram is quite cheap these days. It also cuts virtual memory swaps to the hard drive. Some Apps tend to be memory hogs over time, like Safari.

I also loaded in a 750 gb XT a short time later, the one with the 8 gb SSD cache to help out. The two mods helped the laptop immensely. All of my common apps load in about one "dock hop". About 95% as fast as an SSD for booting as it pins those files. This HD behaves way quicker than the 7200/5400 speed ratio would suggest. Another option is the 1 Tb 5400s. WD's run about as fast as a premium conventional 7200/750gb due to the data being packed closer together.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will go with a 5400rpm 1TB
 
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