New HDD for my MacBook


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Hey guys, Im tosed up.

Whats the real performance difference in these 2 drives? the 160 in my MacBook is getting full and I want to upgrade it. (30GB free)

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=477

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=506

I'm not sure to go for 500gb or 7200rpm.

Or go for both with this one:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?loca...p;reqPage=Model

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Considering you have 160GB at the moment, I would go for the 320GB Drive and opt for the disk speed instead of capacity. 7200RPM disk, 16MB Cache seems like a winner for me. :)

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25-30% performance advantage for the 7200RPM'er. Yes, it's noticeable in use.

I changed the 5400 spinner in my Summer 2007 MBP and the 'new' 7200 made it fly.

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depends what you do. If you like running VM's, do photoshop and any other sort of editing go for the faster drive, but your battery life will decrease a nice noticeable chunk.

If you just use it for casual use, use a 5400RPM. WD are good drives, i put a 160 WD in my macbook before going to a 320gb seagate.

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but your battery life will decrease a nice noticeable chunk.

Not quite true - there are 7200 drives that have almost no power consumption difference compared to their 5400 brethren.

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Not quite true - there are 7200 drives that have almost no power consumption difference compared to their 5400 brethren.

really? got any examples?

my former prof put a 7200 in his and the battery life decrease was quite noticeable. It was one of those smart seagate ones too. The ones that power down when not being really used and speed up when needed.

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really? got any examples?

my former prof put a 7200 in his and the battery life decrease was quite noticeable. It was one of those smart seagate ones too. The ones that power down when not being really used and speed up when needed.

http://gizmodo.com/387878/hitachis-25+inch...h-5400rpm-power

With only a 1.8 watt read/write power draw and a 0.8 watt low power idle, Hitachi claims the 7200rpm 7K320 power consumption is on par with their 5400rpm models.

That's just a quick example :)

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The WD Scorpio Black is actually more conservative on the battery than the 5400RPM Hitachi that came stock. It is also one of the fastest notebook drives in the market. The cost is also worth it if you buy from amazon. Get my drive, not the ones ending in BEKT because those don't have the FreeFall Sensor.

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Very nice link Raj.

I'd definitely flag for 7200 Scorpio after that one - it's a measly 0.2W higher consumption than 5400 and it's considerably speedier.

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