Old MacBook hard drive upgrade query

I've got a 2006 2.16GHz 2GB white MacBook that originally came with a 120Gb hard drive, that was clearly woefully inadequate and a couple of years ago I upgraded it to a 250Gb version [Seagate Barracuda 5400rpm, same as OEM].

Now I'm down to around 50-60Gb of space and I can see me running out of space again soon so I'm contemplating another hard drive upgrade, this time a 500Gb size.

A quick look on Amazon's UK site shows that the 500Gb Barracudas are now 7200rpm versions. I'm aware that this may drain battery life quicker than a 5400rpm drive, but is there any reason my "old" MacBook couldn't use one of these newer spec drives?

ES, are you sure you mean Barracuda drive? As far as I've ever seen, Seagate Barracuda drives only come in a 3.5-inch variety. So if you're using that size drive in a Macbook.....well then that is some modification you've done to get it to fit!!!!!

Are you sure you don't mean Seagate Momentus or Constellation?

Ah! You may well be right, my memory's not what it was

Yep, sorry for the confusion, twas indeed a Momentus drive I'd used before!

I thought I understood what you meant, but just checking!!

If you skim the reviews from Newegg on the Seagate Momentus drives, the 500mb versions seem to be working just fine with Macbooks.

Just curious though....what are you storing on there that takes up so much space? Why not just pick up a 500gb/1TB FreeAgent drive (or the like) and use that for storing stuff?

You should just put a 750 gb drive in if you can. Also, today's 7200 rpm drives use just as much electricity as the 5400 rpm drives, and some 5400 rpm drives perform better than some 7200 rpm drives because they have greater platter density.

Thanks guys.

As regards storage, well I've got an iPhoto library with currently 100Gb of photos and a little video plus an iTunes library in excess of 35Gb, add in the OS and everything else and I can see that 50-60Gb of space disappearing reasonably quickly.

I might cost up a 750Gb option, but I suspect I'll be wanting a new MacBook before I use all that up.

I recently upgraded the HDD in my 2006 MacBook Pro. I had the factory 80 GB, 5400 rpm Seagate that was always full. I installed the 500 GB, 7,200 rpm Hitachi Travelstar and couldn't be happier. Its fast.

It's fast because of platter density. That's why some 5400 rpm drives perform better than some 7200 rpm drives.

Tony-S wrote in post #10613374
It's fast because of platter density. That's why some 5400 rpm drives perform better than some 7200 rpm drives.

English please? I am not computer tech savvy.

Each notebook drive has two disc platters (the 1TB drives have 3 platters, but are also thicker drives). Right now the most dense platters are those in the Western Digital 750 GB notebook drive (about 375 GB/platter). Your 80 GB drive has 40 GB per platter. Moving hard disc read/write heads on a surface that has greater data density means you can access data much faster. Even if your 80 GB drive was 7200 rpm, the WD drive at 5400 rpm would be substantially faster at data access because the heads have a much shorter distance to travel to access the same amount of data.

Tony-S wrote in post #10611292
You should just put a 750 gb drive in if you can. Also, today's 7200 rpm drives use just as much electricity as the 5400 rpm drives, and some 5400 rpm drives perform better than some 7200 rpm drives because they have greater platter density.

I just ordered that drive earlier today. I've got a 7200rpm 500GB drive that I'm running out of room on, so it was the next logical step... but it supposedly will hold it's own with a smaller 7200 drive... we'll see - I hope so.

Electric Shepherd wrote in post #10611853
Thanks guys.

As regards storage, well I've got an iPhoto library with currently 100Gb of photos and a little video plus an iTunes library in excess of 35Gb, add in the OS and everything else and I can see that 50-60Gb of space disappearing reasonably quickly.

I might cost up a 750Gb option, but I suspect I'll be wanting a new MacBook before I use all that up.

If you're not going with the big drives, then I'd get this one:

Seagate Momentus 7200.4

Tony-S wrote in post #10613468
Each notebook drive has two disc platters (the 1TB drives have 3 platters, but are also thicker drives). Right now the most dense platters are those in the Western Digital 750 GB notebook drive (about 375 GB/platter). Your 80 GB drive has 40 GB per platter. Moving hard disc read/write heads in on a surface that has greater data density means you can access data much faster. Even if your 80 GB drive was 7200 rpm, the WD drive at 5400 rpm would be substantially faster at data access because the heads have a much shorter distance to travel to access the same amount of data.

Thank you. That makes perfect sense.

Here's my xBench scores from my HDD swap. Factory 80 GB 5,400 rpm Seagate on the left, new 500 GB 7,200 rpm Hitatchi on the right.

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Quick xbench comparison with intel ssd

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

MaxxuM wrote in post #10613528
If you're not going with the big drives, then I'd get this one:

Seagate Momentus 7200.4

I've just ordered this one, hoping it will be here Monday as I only have 10gb free.