Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with 7200rpm

Looking for a speedier Hard Drive

SpacemanStix — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:27:57 -0800

I'd like to upgrade to a speedier HD for gaming, as I'd like to eliminate some lag in the texture loading. Could someone help me understand the performance difference between two drives? My ram and videocard seem to be sufficient for the games I'm playing (2GB and 9800xt+), and I have a decent CPU (dual core 2.4Ghz), so this seems to be the next bottleneck.

This is what I currently have:

320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive 7200RPM, 16MB cache

I don't know the speed for the SATA connection, but I think it's 3.0GB/s. The drive came with my Dell machine.

This is what I'm eyeballing.

Cache is similar, but I don't know if the RPM increase is worth the significantly higher price. And would it make sense to go with a 32MB cache on another HD, vs. this?

I'd be open to suggestions for other HD's as well, if there's something that would provide a performance increase and is cheaper. And feel free to comment on some other performance issues I may be missing.

I'm not able to do a raid setup, so I'm looking for one faster hard drive.

Thanks very much.

Laptop Hard Drive Decision - which one is best for my needs?

nokry56 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:50:01 -0800

Which HD would be a better (read: faster) drive for my soon to buy MBP? After Apple releases their new Mac Book Pros I will be purchasing a high-end 15" one. Will be purchasing 3rd party memory (4GB) and am thinking about buying a 3rd party hard drive to replace the 200GB that comes default. I'm torn between this more expensive 320GB 7200RPM drive, this slightly less expensive 320GB 7200RPM drive, or this 500GB 5400RPM drive.

I was reading online that the Seagate 500GB drive would actually be faster than a 7200RPM drive because of its platter size or something? Could anyone explain how this could be? Would the 500GB drive be faster than the other two drives I linked to?

I will be using the MBP for media storage, audio editing, and gaming, so want the largest drive possible that won't be a bottleneck for performance.

As a side question, how would I get the HD installed without voiding my warranty?

What are some good 7200 RPM 60GB+ 2.5" drives that are suitable for installation in an Apple TiBook?

namespan — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 19:05:42 -0800

What are some good 7200 RPM 60GB+ 2.5" drives that are suitable for installation in an Apple TiBook? Recommendations on where to buy?