MacBook Gains Core 2 Duo Processor

On Nov 8, 2006, at 3:20 PM, Alexander Hoffman wrote:

>
> Adam wrote (on ExtraBITS): It's also now possible to order a MacBook
> with up to 200 GB of hard disk storage, though the 200 GB drive is a
> 4200-RPM drive, whereas all the other drives spin at 5400 RPM.
>
> I'm still curious how much that 4200 rpm v. 5400rpm matters. The
> thread I started on that issue haas mostly developed into a different
> topic, unfortunately.

This is only anecdotal: I recently had to help a friend setup her
MBP and I was surprised that my Macbook booted faster and in general
seemed to start up programs much faster. I didn't do anything
scientific, just my own personal reaction. I believe the reason is
that one of the things I did when I first bought the MacBook was to
upgrade it to a 7200RPM drive. YMMV.

Regards,

Howard

At 11:17 -0800 UTC, on 2006-11-09, Howard Kaufman wrote:

> On Nov 8, 2006, at 3:20 PM, Alexander Hoffman wrote:

>> [...] I'm still curious how much that 4200 rpm v. 5400rpm matters. The
>> thread I started on that issue haas mostly developed into a different
>> topic, unfortunately.
>
> I recently had to help a friend setup her
> MBP and I was surprised that my Macbook booted faster [...]
> I believe the reason is
> that one of the things I did when I first bought the MacBook was to
> upgrade it to a 7200RPM drive. YMMV.

My PBG4's original 4200rpm drive misbehaved within 2 weeks after having
bought it. I replaced it with a 5400rpm drive that *seemed* faster. Most
notably at loading apps and saving/copying big files. I see similar
differences when comparing this internal 5400rpm disk with 2 FireWire 800
7200rpm disks I use. I didn't attempt any scientific measurements though.

Still, whether that speed *matters* is personal. There's little need to quit
apps in OS X, or even quit/reboot the OS. So for most of us, launching apps
should only take up a minute part of our overall computer use. The exception
is probably when you do a lot of disk read/writes everyday (audio/video
editing). So the larger size may be worth the speed decrease. Also, a 4200rpm
drive probably is a bit more battery-friendly and may generate less heat, and
thus less fan noise.


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On Nov 8, 2006, at 3:20 PM, Alexander Hoffman wrote:

> I'm still curious how much that 4200 rpm v. 5400rpm matters. The
> thread I started on that issue haas mostly developed into a different
> topic, unfortunately.

I just replaced an AlBook 17" with a MacBook (two MacBooks, actually:
first the white, then a newer Black with Core 2 Duo). The AlBook's
HD had been upgraded to 7200 RPM, IIRC.

I run MenuMeters, so whenever I find myself twiddling my thumbs I
instinctively check the menu bar to see why. On the 17", it was
almost always because of VM paging to disk or my CPU being pegged to
max. On the MacBook, I'm frequently waiting with no VM activity and
CPU near zero -- so I presume that's hard drive access.

It's possible I was waiting for hard drive access a lot before, and
it was masked by *concurrent* CPU or VM issues -- but my perception
is that my new 5400 is a serious bottleneck.

Best,
Jeff

On 11/13/06 5:48 PM, "Jeff Porten" <civitanjeffporten.com> wrote:

> On Nov 8, 2006, at 3:20 PM, Alexander Hoffman wrote:
>
> On the MacBook, I'm frequently waiting with no VM activity and
> CPU near zero -- so I presume that's hard drive access.
>
> It's possible I was waiting for hard drive access a lot before, and
> it was masked by *concurrent* CPU or VM issues -- but my perception
> is that my new 5400 is a serious bottleneck.
>

I've been noticing exactly the same thing: very sluggish response, or no
response at all, particularly during startup when many things are accessing
the disk, with minimal CPU usage but the disk apparently pegged to capacity.
This is also on a Macbook, with a Western Digital 120 GB 5400 rpm drive. I'm
wishing I'd been able to get one that spins at 7400, but at the time (last
July) I could not find one that was both 120 GB and 7400 rpm. I would highly
recommend 7400 drives...

I found a little relief, in the form of a shorter period of non-response
during startup, by deleting a bunch of stuff, moving my iTunes library to an
external drive, so I had over 25% free space, and then running iDefrag to
defrag all the files and free space. But I'm not sure it was enough to be
worth all that effort.
--

Allen Watson . Writer/Webmaster [ p. 503 .281 .0250 m. 503 .916 .9411
e. watson.allencomcast.net
homepage.mac.com/allen_a_watson/

Is anyone recommending

- a 7200 rpm hard drive between 150 GB and 250 GB for the MacBook?

- a maker of 2 GB of ram for the MacBook?

Thanks,

John

On Nov 17, 2006, at 2:55 PM, John Massengale wrote:

> - a 7200 rpm hard drive between 150 GB and 250 GB for the MacBook?

The largest 7200rpm 2.5" drive I've found is 100GB at this point.
Been there for a while, somewhat surprised it hasn't been increased yet.

Steve

The performance of different hard disks have been benchmarked on Barefeats.com

Older one: http://www.barefeats.com/5472.html

Newer one: http://www.barefeats.com/mbcd7.html

Note that they did not actually put the hard disks _inside_ the MacBook Pro.

I used to have the rev A 15" AluBook which had a 4200RPM drive, which was painfully slower than a 5400RPM one. Based on this experience, I'm unlikely to buy a computer with less than 5400RPM.

On Nov 17, 2006, at 12:55 PM, John Massengale wrote:
> Is anyone recommending
>
> - a 7200 rpm hard drive between 150 GB and 250 GB for the MacBook?

I know this is the current vogue for "speeding up" your hard drive.
Just keep in mind that your battery will be much more taxed so you
will get less life out of it, and possibly your machine will run
hotter and, subsequently, have a shorter lifespan.

Just something to keep in mind.

> - a maker of 2 GB of ram for the MacBook?

I shop for RAM at Ramseeker.com or dealram.com, depending on mood and
the waxing of the moon.