A Momentus Hard Drive Decision

April 20, 2009 10:21 AM

Do any retailers have the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 hard drive in stock? If not, should I just give up and buy a 5400.6?

I need a larger hard drive for my MacBook Pro. Thinking to get the best, I decided to wait for the 500GB 7200 RPM drive from Seagate, the Momentus 7200.4. Unfortunately, I've been waiting for about two months now, and there's still no indication of when I might be able to get a drive.

Does anyone know where I can get one of these? Has anyone heard any rumors about upcoming availability? Seagate did ship some, and people seem to love them. Why aren't they producing any more?

I really need more hard drive in my laptop. At this point I'm considering just giving up and getting the 5400.6. Any thoughts on the tradeoffs? Will I regret settling for second best?

posted by alms to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Bettery life. 7200 RPM= four times the rotational energy to spin up = much lower battery life.
posted by notsnot at 10:26 AM on April 20

Er...sorry, lost my mind for a bit there. 7200/5400=1.33, 1.33 squared is 1.77. So 1.8 times the rotational energy.

(boggles at my own braindeadedness)
posted by notsnot at 10:28 AM on April 20

Dell has them for sale, looks like they are out 3-5 weeks. I've had good luck with Dell shipping items earlier than their listed ETA.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&sku=341-8658
posted by wongcorgi at 10:35 AM on April 20

Not interested in an external option, via Firewire? If you just need storage space that is...
posted by alcoth at 10:36 AM on April 20

7200 RPM= [1.8] times the rotational energy to spin up = much lower battery life.

7200 RPM drives do not use significantly more power than 5400RPM drives. In fact, some 7200 RPM drives use less power than some 5400 RPM drives.

In the end, your screen, processor, and graphics chip will all use vastly more power than your hard drive, so even a drive that used fully twice as much power would have an insignificant impact on your battery life, assuming a typical usage pattern.
posted by jedicus at 10:45 AM on April 20

I was able to grab one when NewEgg first had it on the site. It's in my MacBook Pro and my battery life hasn't changed noticeably, but speed sure has. It's also fantastic having 500GB internal.

I would wait.
posted by cdmwebs at 11:15 AM on April 20