Fix Your Stuff Community Store

Originally released on January 22, 2005, the Mac mini is a small form-factor desktop computer made by Apple Inc. Currently, it is one of the four desktop models in the Macintosh lineup, and serves mainly as an alternative to the all-in-one iMac.

872 Questions View all

Options

Is the RPM of the hard drive that important?

I am trying to decide which hard drive upgrade to get for my future new Mac Mini model A1347. I would like to get as much storage as possible, of course. I see that I can get 500GB at 7200 RPM or 640GB at 5400 RPM.

Will I notice that much difference in speed between these two drives? I don't work with huge files, but I do often have several applications open at a time and switch between them. I plan to max out the RAM at 8GB, eventually.

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

Is this a good question?

Yes No
Score 2
1 Comment

This question was migrated from http://meta.ifixit.com/.

by

Add a comment

4 Answers

Filter by:
Most Helpful Newest Oldest
Chosen Solution

Options

Here's an excellent article with test results on the speed bump you get on a 7200 RPM drive verses a 5400 RPM drive: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/...

Was this answer helpful?

Yes No
Score 2

2 Comments:

Good article +

by

Thanks for the link - it is nice to have quantify-able data on the difference.

by

Add a comment

Options

I would opt for the 7200RPM drive, just find one with as much storage capacity as possible. I recently upgraded to a 7200RPM from 5400, and I noticed a difference in speed as far as opening apps and such. Not a big difference, but noticeable.

Was this answer helpful?

Yes No
Score 2

2 Comments:

Thanks for taking a stand and making the suggestion. 7200RPM it is!

by

Add a comment

Options

You may be able to quantify your options a bit, assuming you have a mac already.

Set your dock to not auto-hide and put Activity Monitor (from Applications -> Utilities)in it. Right click on the icon in the dock and choose Dock Icon / Show Disk Activity. Now open the programs you think you'd use and do what you expect you would do in them, keeping an eye on that icon. Now as I understand it OS X keeps closed programs in memory for reuse if you open them up again until it fills up the existing ram, then it starts recycling (witness the dot under your Safari / iTunes after you close them) so you could expect that after the initial program load your 8 Gigs of ram will work to minimize the work your drive has to do.

On a somewhat related note, it's not uncommon to kit out a performance / gaming rig with a small HDD or even SSD for the OS then add in a large capacity (slow) internal or external drive for your music, movies and other programs where speed doesn't matter much but having them available does.

Was this answer helpful?

Yes No
Score 1

1 Comment:

Great idea. The whole "virtual memory" aspect of the OS really makes it difficult to gather your own data on this sort of thing. And I appreciate the strategy suggestion for what should be fast and what can be slow.

by

Add a comment

Options

There would be a fairly noticeable difference, however you have to decide if the cost is worth it to you, it's noticeable, but not that significant.

Was this answer helpful?

Yes No
Score 0
Add a comment

Add your answer

Ross Heitkamp will be eternally grateful.
View Statistics:

Past 24 Hours: 0

Past 7 Days: 0

Past 30 Days: 1

All Time: 10,737