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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

OBSERVATION: new HD in MBP

I just upgraded my standard 100GB 5200 RPM hard drive in my MacBook Pro to one of the new 200GB 7200RPM drives that Hitachi just released.

Observation: Fusion flies! (for I/O)

Seriously, there's a marked performance difference on I/O operations by boosting the rotation rate. I'm getting desktop-like speeds now. I'm very[/b] happy with the purchase.

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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

Note: I'm comparing desktop speed against a Linux box running Workstation.

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bgertzfield
Commander
Commander

I've also noticed that the stock hard drives in Mac laptops are, well, not the speediest.

I plugged in a USB 2.0 external hard drive to my MacBook Pro, and I was shocked at how much faster my VMs became.

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Obeechi
Contributor
Contributor

I have a stock 7200 rpm 100 GB.. which Apple doesn't offer anymore in a 15 inch MacBook Pro (why I don't understand.. )

That 200 GB HD @ 7200 rpm is tempting... However.. it will void the warranty...

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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

That 200 GB HD @ 7200 rpm is tempting... However.. it

will void the warranty...

I was told by Apple to have an authorized reseller do it. Nobody said that it'd void the warranty.

I hope not; that was good money. Smiley Sad

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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

I've also noticed that the stock hard drives in Mac

laptops are, well, not the speediest.

Compared to... ?

As a rule, all laptops come with HDs with slower rotation speeds than desktops. Power consumption is the biggest reason for using slow drives, but cost and technological limits for 2.5" drives come into play. The larger format drives are easier to produce (they're pretty much 7200RPM, though there are 15kRPM drives out there), and desktops don't care about power consumption so much.

(S)ATA bus speeds far outstrip the rate at which you can push bits on/off the physical surface. The faster the disks spin, the faster the bits become available.

I'm assuming that your external is a full-size (3.5") HD designed for desktops? If so, then it's pretty much a no-brainer that the drive will be faster. Up until this point, when running VMware on a laptop, I've always used external firewire drives (the 3.5" size ones) because the drives are faster, even over FireWire 400.

I have a pair of mirrored LaCie 1TB externals (four total disks) on FireWire 800. It's noisy and pumps out heat but it's ripping fast, able to saturate the bus when going full bore. (Just ensure you sping the drives up before connecting the cable else OS X will think that the RAID array has been broken.)

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jgspda
Contributor
Contributor

I think that's true. Having an authorized repair center do it using certified Apple components, will maintain your warrantee. The only grey area is with the Apple certified vs. non-certified components (such as 3rd party RAM). But, if something DOES go wrong, you may have more of an argument if the repair center approved a certain piece of hardware (always keep your work-orders/receipts).

When you bring your mac into the Apple store for repairs, unless they are doing something really basic (like swapping a memory chip), they send it out... to one of the Apple authorized repair centers.

Apple's website has a listing of the centers somewhere on their website (in addition to the apple stores themselves), so it's encouraged to use them.

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Glinarien
Contributor
Contributor

I've got a 60GB disk on my macbook, which seemed adequate until I started creating

virtual machines Smiley Happy

Do those 7200 rpm disks make your macbook run (even) hotter?

I've noticed a "sleepimage" file under /var/vm persist even when I have

shutdown VMs rather than suspending them. Is this a bug? As someone

who occasionally runs into a full disk, having a 2GB file hang around unnecessarily

is a bit annoying.

I don't see any method of determining if a VM has been shutdown or suspended

with Fusion, like the little orange pause icon on VMware server.

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arang
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

/var/vm/sleepimage is the hibernation image used by Mac OS, not VMware-related. (In fact, everything in /var/vm is created by Mac OS X itself.)

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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

I think that's true. Having an authorized repair

center do it using certified Apple components, will

maintain your warrantee. The only grey area is with

the Apple certified vs. non-certified components

... (always keep your work-orders/receipts).

Good point. This HD is the same series (but larger size) than the 160GB, 7200RPM drives that are available as an option on the current Apple offerings. I guess that's why the repair centre had no problem doing ordering and installing the HD.

I'm just a little miffed that they gave me a blank HD --- I thought we had agreed they were going to do everything (for minimal downtime on my part). Turns our I had a bad install DVD and it took me all weekend to restore everything.

No damage done, I simply enjoy places that give human-oriented service rather than having to have everything down in writing and sealed with blood in advance. Caveat emptor.

Apple's website has a listing of the centers

somewhere on their website

For future reference, that's here: http://wheretobuy.apple.com/locator/service.html

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blackpuma
Contributor
Contributor

Do those 7200 rpm disks make your macbook run (even) hotter?

The one that I have, as mentioned above, is essentially the same as what's in the new generation of MacBook Pros. I've not noticed any increased heat (but I've not monitored this closely). I've only noticed a couple of times under heavy load that I could barely hear the drive. For all intents and purposes it's as quiet as the previous HD.

It's aparently among the first batch of drives with their new perpendicular recording technology. Look for bigger capacities in the future....

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