MacBook Pro: 5400rpm system drive vs. 7200.

Hey guys, we are getting a new 17" MacBook Pro for portable editing.
We use an 8 core MacPro for everyday work in the office.

The company wants to go down to an Apple store today but the stores
only stock models with the 5400rpm system drives. We would like to start working over
the weekend if we could and doing a build to order from Apple makes that impossible.

All media will be on external drive likely hooked up via the express34 slot.
We will buy the new upgrade for FCS3.

I figure the internal drive will not necessarily slow the system down that much
as long as the RAM is maxed out and there is little disk caching.

Opinions?

The 7200 drive takes more power, and really doesn't improve system performance much at all. 5400 is FINE for system drives.


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Thanks Shane, I figured it wouldn't be a problem but I just wanted to put any concerns
to rest.

Have a nice weekend, hope your are not working like we are!

I will say that the SSD drives completely rock- makes the machine quieter and much lower risk of issues when you drop the machine.

Noah

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My MacBook Pro took about a four-foot drop onto a concrete floor a few weeks ago (don't ask). The built-in sudden motion sensor kicked in and parked the drive heads before it hit the ground.

SSDs are great, but MacBook Pros (MacBooks Pro?) are really, really durable even without them, I'm thrilled to say.

I disagree that there's no difference...a 7200 RPM disk is spinning 33% faster so it must be finding files quicker so that means it reads / writes faster. I believe it is quicker - snappier with all the apps...especially if the machine is fully loaded with RAM.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I kind of think that for some applications it's better faster and some it's not.
Editing I think will be fine on a 5400 as long as the media is on an external drive.

Graphics maybe not as good, hard to say.
Photoshop with caching on the system drive surely slower.

Since we need to get started this weekend I think we will go with the 5400, but
if it really dogs we can always replace the drive later.

Or perhaps we will get lucky and the store will have a 7200 Macbook Pro in stock.

We did quite a bit of research before settling on the 17". We already had an old 17"
and it was quite a bear to travel with. We wanted the 15". But we found that without
the express34 slot, a MacBook Pro 15" just wasn't going to be pro enough,
or pro at all. I can't believe they dropped that slot. It's not marketed as a consumer
level machine.

I did think about upgrading to the 7200 RPM drives, but when I ran an AJA system test on my MBP with 5400 RPM drive vs the 7200 RPM system drive on a G5, my MBP with the stock 5400 RPM drive was actually faster (although it's smaller). Drive size probably made a difference, as well as physical drive size.

On two 2.5" drives, I would expect the 7200 RPM drive to outperform the 5400 RPM drive, but it will also generate more heat.



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