[Ti] new drive for macbook

[alexandre kapellos]

thanks to all who replied…

i finally got a samsung 250gb / 5400rpm / 8mb cache drive. it was a  
good compromise between price (chf 100.00) and performance. i also  
bought an usb2 case.

i  cloned the drive with CCC (it took about 3 hours) and then  
replaced the original with the new drive. (i'm amazed at how fast and  
easy it is to actually replace the drives in the macbooks. thanks  
apple!) i rebooted and everything was fine… i'll be keeping the "old"  
drive "as is" for a few days, just in case…

kind regards

alexandre



On Apr 21, 2008, at 12:47 AM, Scott Strehlow wrote:

> 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
>
>