A Couple of Hard Drive Speed Questions

I was wondering how much of a bottleneck is there when using a 5400rpm speed HD vs a 7200rpm?
Would I benefit from editing with from an external HD thats 7200 or SSD?

My MacBook Pro has a 750GB 5400rpm and I am wondering if I will see a significant difference if I was to upgrade to a faster HD or use an external HD with a fast spindle speed.

Thanks

You would def swapping that 5400 RPM for an SSD thats for sure. However if youre serious about doing more serious video work on a laptop you need something like this: LINK So you can have a true scratch disk. Then have an SSD too.

ben_r_ wrote in post #13938040
You would def swapping that 5400 RPM for an SSD thats for sure. However if youre serious about doing more serious video work on a laptop you need something like this: LINK So you can have a true scratch disk. Then have an SSD too.

Thanks for that link. That looks like something I might have to seriously consider.
I am guessing users of these use an external burner for CDs.

To answer the other question, would I see any difference in performance using an external thats 7200 or SSD or will there be a bottle neck using thunderbolt or USB?

ChadAndreo wrote in post #13944771
Thanks for that link. That looks like something I might have to seriously consider.
I am guessing users of these use an external burner for CDs.

To answer the other question, would I see any difference in performance using an external thats 7200 or SSD or will there be a bottle neck using thunderbolt or USB?

Yea, a good external USB optical drive shouldnt cost you more than $50 and they are easy to find. I have an ASUS and Samsung external DVD Burner and they both have been wonderful.

USB, def a bottle neck unless its USB 3 which apple doesnt support yet. Thunderbolt, probably not, thats pretty darn fast, but youll pay for the newness of technology.

USB 2.0 on your Mac will push about 25MB/s. A modern SSD is capable of over 500MB/s. That should give you some perspective.

A 7200rpm internal drive will improve latency and throughput over a 5400rpm drive, but it will also use more battery if that's a concern. You're looking at about $130 to upgrade. Plus you'll have to either reinstall everything from scratch, or pay someone to clone the disk for you if you're not comfortable doing it yourself.

Search:
Seagate Momentus 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal Notebook Hard Drive

I run a MacBookPro6,2. Purchased December 2010. 2.8 GHz dual core i7 processor (got it about 3 weeks before the quad cores came out). Configured it with 500 GB 7200 rpm disk, largest available at the time.

Rendering video is probably the most strenuous thing I do as far as this machine goes. Final Cut Pro 7. I recently did the MacSales swap out for a second internal drive in place of the optical disk. 1TB 5400 rpm for the second drive. My rendering times have been greatly reduced, but I still wait for a long time. I also have a 1TB iomega external hard disk connected via FireWire 800. It seems that the second disk is what improves the rendering times the most, whether it is the internal or external. Cheapest solution is the external, then you don't need an external optical drive and you don't void the warranty if it is still under warranty.