1tb hdd very slow on MacBook pro 5,4 2009 2.53ghz/8gb ram

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]Recently upgraded ram (fr 4gb) and hdd (fr 250gb) and have had constant periodical spinning wheel a few months since. Reverting to old ram is no help - figure its not ram. Guessing hdd is too big (9.5mm 5400 wd Scorpio blue). Resigned to replacing it unless any suggestions otherwise? If I do replace would a 750gb 7200rpm make a big difference? Any suggestions on largest hdd that might retain speed and battery life? Not up for ssd yet $ wise. Seems the seagate xt 50% ssd's run hot and burn battery - or am I wrong there?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
 
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]Recently upgraded ram (fr 4gb) and hdd (fr 250gb) and have had constant periodical spinning wheel a few months since. Reverting to old ram is no help - figure its not ram. Guessing hdd is too big (9.5mm 5400 wd Scorpio blue). Resigned to replacing it unless any suggestions otherwise? If I do replace would a 750gb 7200rpm make a big difference? Any suggestions on largest hdd that might retain speed and battery life? Not up for ssd yet $ wise. Seems the seagate xt 50% ssd's run hot and burn battery - or am I wrong there?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Anyone with any suggestions?
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
Have you done any real trouble shooting / maintenance? Swapping the RAM and deducing it's the hard drives problem isn't really enough - it may be a permissions problem, it may be a hard drive problem, it may be something you've installed and didn't realize that's causing you grief.

Take a look at :

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

before determining that the HD needs to be replaced. There isn't really a significant speed difference that should cause beach balling on average every day usage (aside from compressing/decompressing large files, most tests I've ever seen on the net for real world usage between a 750gb 7200 and 1tb 5400 laptop drive is about 10MB/s difference in average throughput). I'd do some of the other basic diagnostics in the trouble shooting guide, you can also use a tool like Onyx to help fix any problems (you can get it from Mac Update here: Download OnyX for Mac - Maintenance and optimization tool. MacUpdate.com - check the forums here as there are a lot of people that use it if you need help).

In terms of SSD, I'd probably get an OWC (macsales.com) or something like a crucial (crucial.com) - but before I plunked down the cash for a large SSD which gets very expensive very fast, I'd make sure there aren't issues with the OS or other applications before deciding the drive is truly the problem.
 
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Thanks for the assistance.. Upgraded to the 750gb momentus xt and it's zipping along again. The wd Scorpio blue seems to be working ok as an external. Its been $180 more han i hoped to spend but I guess you can never have too many drives. thanks again for everybody's suggestions
 

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