New Mac mini advice - 5400RPM or 7200RPM?

[olnacl]

This is a question I've been pondering too - whether to go with 7200 500GB or larger drive at 5400. In my case, most of my documents will be on a 1.5 TB drive in a Ministack enclosure, so the speed of the internal isn't all that important (I don't believe, anyway). I have the stock 160 internal now and speed seems fine, but since I'll be opening up the Mini to add RAM, I figure I may as well update the HDD at the same time.

Ditto Macmission's comment.

[mattkime]

if its a choice between a larger drive and rpms, go for a larger drive.

a larger drive pushes more bits past the hard drive head at the same rpm. that means its faster.

[tahoedrew]

mattkime wrote:
The scorpio blue drive is frequently recommended - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=506

Its as fast as most 7200 drives.

My 500GB 5400RPM "Blue" drive was faster than the stock 200GB 7200RPM Hitachi drive in my '08 MacBook Pro.

~A

[StingMe]

MacMission wrote: I'm not feelin' a consensus in this thread on this issue.

Just what I was thinking...better push the purchase off a day or two to mull things over

Anybody know what drives Apple is using in the new minis? Tech specs only state 500GB 5400RPM (no mention of the cache).

It looks like all 2.5" 5400RPM drives are 8MB cache - is that correct?

Hmmm...I guess the current contenders are:

500GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200.4 7200RPM SATA 9.5mm Notebook drive with 16MB Cache - New with 3 Year Seagate Warranty. (SEAST9500420AS)

500GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 7200RPM SATA 9.5mm Notebook Drive with 16MB Cache - New, 3 Year Warranty (HIT0A72335)

500GB 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400RPM SATA 9.5mm Notebook Drive with 8MB Cache - New, 3 Year Warranty (WDGWD5000BEVT)

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M7E HM501II 500GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

640GB 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400RPM SATA 9.5mm Notebook Drive with 8MB Cache - New, 3 Year Warranty (WDGWD6400BEVT)

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M7E HM641JI 640GB 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

[StingMe]

Here's a nice performance writeup based on the Early 2009 mini: http://blog.fosketts.net/2009/03/17/upgr...-attitude/

Here's another "mini" mini review: http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacMini.html

Still not sure what to do but I'm leaning toward opting for a larger cache, which means going for a 7200RPM drive. The Hitachi is at the top of my list at the moment...

[jdc]

In day to day use I bet you would never notice?

kinda old: http://www.barefeats.com/note05.html

[Mini 9]

I bought the seagate 500/7200 for $69 a month or two ago.
Easy peasy upgrade