I am thinking about getting a mac mini. I am wondering if a the 1.25 system with the 40GB HD and then a external hard drive at 7200RPM connected to firewire 400. But i was also thinking about just getting the 80GB hard drive, which would be faster?
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What Would Be Faster?
- Thread starter runninmac
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well, for the external drive to be faster, it would have to be 7200 rpm. that being said, if memory serves me correctly, firewire doesn't come close in bandwidth to ata/ide.
I used to have a TiPb with a 4200rpm drive in it and external a 7200rpm LaCie drive on FireWire400... the external was still a little slower, but maybe thats because the LaCie is still a 2MB buffer drive... (I tried booting from the FireWire thinking it was faster... well its not...) 8MB buffer might make a difference to fill the FireWire bandwith completly and probably come close to internal speeds, rmp is not everything, but the Mac mini 40GB drive is told to be a 5400, so even less RPM difference...
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
Dag... I think it was here that I read about a review that compared the speed of the internal drive to a Firewire external and a USB 2.0 external... Can't remember where. I know the firewire was close. Perhaps it's better to wear out an external instead of your internal...
You could consider replacing the internal 4200rpm drive with a 5400rpm drive. The speed difference from 5400 to 7200 is actually pretty small, while the 4200->5400 is somewhat substantial. You could then either sell the old drive, or mount it in an external enclosure for extra storage space.
Rob
Rob
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
mrgreen4242 said:
Not sure I see that math... 5400 is 1200rpm more than 4200. 7200 is 1800rpm more than 5400, so that seems like a more substantial leap... OR from 4200 to 5400 is a 28% jump, while 5400 to 7200 is a 33% jump...
What's your info based on?
Thanks for the help i thinki i am probobly going to be getting the 80GB version and then just back up everything or use one to store my growing music libray (gosh i hate but love iTMS)
jayscheuerle
macrumors 68020
jayscheuerle said:
There's a lot more going on with HD speeds than just the rate they spin at... So the drives rotational speed isn't going to have a direct mathmatical relationship to it's performance. This is pretty well established if you look at any number of benchmarks. For reference, here is one conducted by barefeats.com, wihch is Mac specific. http://www.barefeats.com/pb12.html (It's "Question #2, about halfway down).
Regards,
Rob
mrgreen4242 said:
basically, it's one of those cases of diminishing returns. you are still going to see an increase in speed, but you will pay more for not as helpful an improvement.
jayscheuerle said:
I read that comparison this morning and I might get me that 100GB Seagate HD... nice and speedy... a good replacement for the stock 60GB 4200RPM HD in my powerbook
vSpacken
from all reports, it is fairly random which drives turn out to be 5400 RPM. though if there were particular rhyme or reason to it i guarantee i would be getting that one!Yvan256 said:
