[geeks] Disk ugprade in Mac Mini - worth it?

[Lionel Peterson]

On Mar 29, 2009, at 2:51 AM, Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net> wrote:

> I was dismayed to discover that the internal disk in my Mac Mini (2007
> Intel Core2Duo) isn't any faster than the FW400 external interface:
>
> http://www.mrbill.net/disktest.html
>
> Internal drive is a 160G 5400rpm with 8M cache.

Several years ago I read an article about upgrading a G4 Mac Mini HD  
by adding a Firewire 400 external HD, and it was shown to have been  
faster than the internal IDE drive at 4200 RPM. The external drive was  
5400 RPM 3 1/2" IDE, IIRC.

> So, I'm thinking of dropping one of these babies in:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136279
>
> 7200rpm, 16M cache, WD's "Black" performance line.

I'm not sure the performance upgrade will be worth the money, but some  
people swear by upgrading to 7200 RPM, especially on Mac laptops.

> Think the effort will be worth it?  I'm definitely keeping this  
> system for
> at least another year (can't afford to upgrade to the latest Mini, and
> really dont *need* to right now)...
>
> Anybody gone from a 5400rpm drive to a 7200 in a MacBook?  Was it  
> worth it?
>
> I'll probably take the 160G disk out of the Mini and put that in my  
> CoreDuo
> MacBook (which has a 60G drive right now).

 From what I've seen (but not done myself), most people upgrade for  
space, and a performance boost from the jump to 7200 RPM is  
noticeable, but rarely a reason for the upgrade...

Are you really after speed or storage?

I'm going to get a new MacMini, and hand my G4 off to my 12 year-old  
for GarageBand fun - this means he'll have his first KVM!

Lionel