7200rpm or 5400rpm HD

eisnein · Post by **eisnein** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:27 pm

i was thinking the same thing before i purchased a new laptop and was leaning heavily towards the 7200 BUT i just realized i aint recording audio to the internal drive anyway does it really make a difference?

Akshara · Post by **Akshara** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:19 pm

I have a MBP with a 160GB 7200 rpm drive.

If you plan on playing multitrack audio while recording, working with streaming or editing video, and triggering streaming or DFD based samplers/synths, and often needing to do all or any of these simultaneously, and need to do so from the internal drive while on the road or sitting on the couch, then a 7200 rpm is the better solution.

If you plan on running a dual boot with Bootcamp and intend to get an external FW800 drive, or an external eSATA drive, connected to an Expresscard to free up the internal firewire bus for an interface, then a 5400 rpm is the better solution, for lower heat and increased internal storage capacity, especially with two operating systems.

YMMV

fstfrwrd · Post by **fstfrwrd** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:33 pm

Akshara wrote:I have a MBP with a 160GB 7200 rpm drive.

If you plan on playing multitrack audio while recording, working with streaming or editing video, and triggering streaming or DFD based samplers/synths, and often needing to do all or any of these simultaneously, and need to do so from the internal drive while on the road or sitting on the couch, then a 7200 rpm is the better solution.

If you plan on running a dual boot with Bootcamp and intend to get an external FW800 drive, or an external eSATA drive, connected to an Expresscard to free up the internal firewire bus for an interface, then a 5400 rpm is the better solution, for lower heat and increased internal storage capacity, especially with two operating systems.

YMMV

oh ok, but what if you're planning on doing both of them

i'd like to use the mac side for music and the windows side for school (i study architecture)

but not at the same time, so yeah, with boot camp like you said.

Sleep Tyght · Post by **Sleep Tyght** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:40 pm

When I build DAWS for myself and others I only use Western Digital Raptors for system drives and recording drives. That's 10,000 RPMs. I'm impatient as hell when it comes to installing software. On a 5400 rpm drive it would probably take 3 hours to install the upcoming Omnisphere. With a Raptor we're talking an hour tops.

I have 4 drives installed in my main DAW(not including my G5 Tower). I use a Raptor for the system drive and main recording drive. I have two additional 500 Gig drives for samples.

My external drives are the business though. A Terrabyte a piece...for backups and even more samples. All 7200 rpms though.

Akshara · Post by **Akshara** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:13 pm

oh ok, but what if you're planning on doing both of them...

It really depends on what you want from the internal drive - storage capacity or high performance? Would you rather be tethered to an external wall-powered drive during high performance work, or occasionally carry around a small bus powered USB drive to access external storage?

Just get the 7200 rpm drive, split the drive 50/50 between OSX and Windows and don't look back.