5400 or 7200 RPM HDD in a new MBP?

There will be significant performance differences, in boot, shutoff and 'heavy duty' applications.

Best to examine these bench tests for the differences:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Benchmarks/CS5BenchmarkPag e-MacBookPro15.html

Ciao.

Transmit to external drives will still be governed by the connection.

Message was edited by: OGELTHORPE

Yes - there is a significant difference in speed when going from a standard hard drive to a SSD.

See images below - first image - standard 5400RPM Hard Drive. second image - sandisk extreme ssd connected to SATA II controller in my late 08 Macbook Unibody. third image is my kingston hyper x ssd in my late 2011 13 Inch Macbook Pro.

see the difference?

To summarize, 7200RPM hard drives used to be strongly recommended for performance-critical uses. But that all changed once SSDs came out, because the difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM is not much compared to the difference between either of those and an SSD.

An SSD is a much better solution...if you can afford the price for the capacity you need, since they cost much more than a hard disk. The only argument left for a 7200RPM is if you absolutely must have something faster than 5400RPM but need a capacity that you absolutely cannot afford in SSD form. For most users the choice is 5400RPM or SSD.

My MacBook Pro has the stock 5400RPM drive because I needed a lot of space and I didn't want to spend what it costs to get a 500GB SSD.

It will Void the Warranty on the original drive not on the whole system. But really what is voided, and that is not the right term it should say what is not covered by the warranty, is the hard drive you installed. That would be covered under the Manufacturers warranty which in most cases is longer then the Apple one year warranty. Hard drive warranties, from the manufacturer, are usually 3 to 5 years.

Yes and no. If you buy a hard drive and have Apple install it, which I doubt they will unless the Apple store sells it to you, you still retain the original drive to use for whatever you want to. If you buy the system from Apple with a 7200RPM drive installed you will never see that originally included 5400RPM drive and the drive will cost more from Apple then you you would pay for it form most anywhere.

SOUNDER4 wrote:

I got my warranty info from Apple tech support. He told me that if I replace the OEM hard drive myself it will void the warranty as it applies to the HDD. Yes, i can pay Apple to install it but then I lose the economic advantage of purchasing the std 5400 rpm drive and replacing it myself with a 7200 rpm drive, right?