[Ti] new drive for macbook

[Scott Strehlow]

Hi Alexandre,

In November bought a WDC Passport 250GB USB external HD for $150  
including tax at Best Buy.  It had a SATA drive in it so I just  
cloned my Mac to it then swapped the drives.  I now have the 250GB  
internal and put the original 120GB into the enclosure.  The whole  
process, including copying, took maybe an hour.  I don't think it  
took more than ten minutes to actually do the physical swap.  It took  
a bit of fiddling to figure out that the external enclosure just  
snaps together.  I was a bit timid about prying on it until I got a  
corner started and saw how it went together.

It is a 5400 RPM drive and is plenty quick.  The actual spindle speed  
is not super critical to the speed of the drive.  What matters is how  
fast the bits pass by the read head.  All other things equal, a 4200  
RPM 128GB disk will have about the same read/write speed as a 5400  
RPM 100GB as the bits are packed closer together on the track.  The  
seek time is directly related to the rotational speed.  On average,  
the platter has to make a half-turn to get to the requested sector.   
The 4200 takes about 14ms per turn and the 5400 about 11ms.  These  
are not huge differences.  I do notice a performance difference but I  
can deal with either.  The slower drives do use less power and put  
out less heat.  If you are running on batteries most of the time, it  
might be worth going for the slower unit.  They are cheaper too.

Of course it depends on what you are running.  Editing video demands  
a faster drive.  Checking email doesn't care.

Cheers,

Scott

On Apr 20, 2008, at 10:01 AM, alexandre wrote:
> hi
>
> i'd like to upgrade my dad's macbook harddrive. he currently has  
> the 80gb version and i'd like to install a 200 or 200gb, with 5400  
> or 7200rpms…
>
> are there any brands i should avoid?
>
> thanks in advance!
>
> alexandre
> 17" 2.33ghz ic2d macbook pro / 2.0gb / 160gb / X.5.2
> 24" 2.33ghz ic2d imac / 2.0gb / 250gb / X.4.11
>
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