Apple Macbook Pro question
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- KVRian
- 1161 posts since 17 Nov, 2002 from Middlesbrough,UK
Im quite interested in buying one of these (Pro 2.4GHZ 17") i was just wondering for such a cutting edge machine why do they only come with 5400rpm hardrives ?
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- KVRian
- 781 posts since 26 Feb, 2004 from UK
Most laptop's do come with only 5400 one reason is because they knock out considerably less heat than the 7200. However you can chose the option to have the 7200. I have the macbook pro 2.16 and have no problems with the 5400 doesn't make a major effect at all to my life 
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- KVRAF
- 4229 posts since 9 Apr, 2003 from Right here, in front of my computer...
Because most people buying them don't necessarily need faster continual disk access like us audio types do. If you do, simply choose the one you want from the Apple Store, and customise it with the 7200 drive for a bit extra.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1161 posts since 17 Nov, 2002 from Middlesbrough,UK
I can buy one off Ebay for much cheaper however i dont have the option of a 7200 drive there....
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- KVRAF
- 4229 posts since 9 Apr, 2003 from Right here, in front of my computer...
They come in three standard models - if you want to configure your own options, then it's a custom config, but you can't obviously buy custom configurations from anywhere other than the Apple Store online.
If you are buying an off-the-shelf model, wherever you get it from, you are stuck with the standard configs of that model.
If you want to do that, get a 5400, and use an external 7200 firewire drive for audio purposes. Having said that, you can still do quite a lot with a 5400 drive, they are still pretty good these days (not like 5400 drives of old).
If you are buying an off-the-shelf model, wherever you get it from, you are stuck with the standard configs of that model.
If you want to do that, get a 5400, and use an external 7200 firewire drive for audio purposes. Having said that, you can still do quite a lot with a 5400 drive, they are still pretty good these days (not like 5400 drives of old).
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- KVRAF
- 4222 posts since 23 Feb, 2004 from Tucson Arizona USA
Quieter and cooler. Performance of 5400RPM drives and 7200RPM drives, all else being equal, converges on random read and write. If you have enough RAM and a good buffering algorithm, they converge even more.CANE CREEK wrote:Im quite interested in buying one of these (Pro 2.4GHZ 17") i was just wondering for such a cutting edge machine why do they only come with 5400rpm hardrives ?
Sustained large reads and writes cross into a use case where the 7200RPM drive is an advantage. It's also advantageous to do this work on an external firewire drive, as long as you use Firewire800. Firewire400 leads to a net loss.
I have a source for this information but I can't cite it right now.
On the other hand, 5400 RPM drives aren't exactly slow in DTR. And I think it is a huge, overriding benefit that the fundamental frequency of 70-90 Hz versus 120-150Hz for a 7200RPM drive means it's much quieter.
But I'm a misfit in many of my opinions on KVR because, being a folkie, I'm way more obsessed with the computer being quiet enough to use near a really quiet source and a really hot mike.
Others are more concerned with getting the last drop of performance out of the machine -- I can understand that, but for me, the machines are overpowered and I like to do things like underclocking in order to quiet them down.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1161 posts since 17 Nov, 2002 from Middlesbrough,UK
just been doing some more home work.....
on the apple website to up grade the ram from 2GB to 4GB they charge £480
HERE you can buy 4GB of mac memory for £157
and
as total saving of £323 [;)]
on the apple website to up grade the ram from 2GB to 4GB they charge £480
HERE you can buy 4GB of mac memory for £157
and
as total saving of £323 [;)]
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- Banned
- 78 posts since 29 Jun, 2007
Since the internal drive would only be for the OS and apps, 5400 is fine, and as other posters pointed out runs much cooler than 7200rpm drives.
One should always be recording to a second physical drive.
One should always be recording to a second physical drive.
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- KVRAF
- 2249 posts since 6 May, 2003 from rat city au
christ on a bikeCANE CREEK wrote:on the apple website to up grade the ram from 2GB to 4GB they charge £480
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- KVRian
- 623 posts since 28 Jan, 2005 from hollywood
Wow: that's like ..the opposite of true.audiorules wrote: One should be recording to a second physical drive.
Internal drives are A LOT faster than FireWire on MacBooks.
FW400 vs. 800 / 5400 vs. 7200 Benchmarks
http://www.barefeats.com/5472.html
Faster drives are ALWAYS better for audio but spend money on RAM first. You can always swap out the internal if it becomes problematic, or use FW800, or get an ExpressCard with a separate FW port, or use eSATA, etc.
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- Banned
- 78 posts since 29 Jun, 2007
No, it's SOP for recording. Recording to the same drive your apps and OS is on is asking the single drive to:
Read and execute OS commands
Read and execute DAW commands
Wrtie audio files
All at the same time, in different sectors of the same drive. Doing so severely limits your track and plugin count.
BTW your "test" compares two different types of drives, SATA and ATA. Not to mention the specs are total bs. FW transfer rates are 400 Mb/s, your "test" states less than 1/20 of that.
Then an even bigger laugh when you recommend that they get more ram. More ram is always good, can't hurt, but for laptop recording the Macbooks are more than adequately equipped out of the box. It's the HDD speed, and the lack of multiple drives (one for OS/apps, one for audio, you know, SOP for digital recording) that is the limitation for track and plugin count.
Your post gets even funnier when you then recommend a FW port, after posting claims of how slow FW is and it's not the correct way to go.
Education is key, ignorance is not bliss, it's just lazyness.
Read and execute OS commands
Read and execute DAW commands
Wrtie audio files
All at the same time, in different sectors of the same drive. Doing so severely limits your track and plugin count.
BTW your "test" compares two different types of drives, SATA and ATA. Not to mention the specs are total bs. FW transfer rates are 400 Mb/s, your "test" states less than 1/20 of that.
Then an even bigger laugh when you recommend that they get more ram. More ram is always good, can't hurt, but for laptop recording the Macbooks are more than adequately equipped out of the box. It's the HDD speed, and the lack of multiple drives (one for OS/apps, one for audio, you know, SOP for digital recording) that is the limitation for track and plugin count.
Your post gets even funnier when you then recommend a FW port, after posting claims of how slow FW is and it's not the correct way to go.
Education is key, ignorance is not bliss, it's just lazyness.
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- KVRAF
- 13446 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
As a 100% non-technical but 100% own experience figure: I can run around 50 stereo tracks in 24bit from the internal 5400RPM drive of my Macbook (2GHz, pre-Core2Duo, 2GB RAM).
I can run about the same amount (maybe sligthly higher) of tracks from external USB or FW (400) drives, using 7200RPM disks.
If I combine internal and external drives, I don't get the double performance but something around 150% (didn't test too thoroughly though).
So, what I'm doing is to keep all my samples on the internal drive, because I need them all the time (a lot of my most used instruments are based on samples).
Whenever I'm working on a truly disk-intensive project, I may then record all audio on external drives. That way, the disk burden is split at least a bit.
In an ideal world (because I'm using more streaming samples than audio tracks), I'd probably do it the other way around, to put less stress onto the system/internal drive, but as said, I also want to be able to work in "full mobile" mode, which means no external drives attached at all - and I need the majority of my samples to be with me all the time.
Ok, in addition, I'm sort of distributing my sampler tasks between Logics EXS and Kontakt. The EXS is set to not stream any samples, so I'm using smaller patches there with the EXS' efficiency in all its glory (800 voices with the filter activated), for larger, streaming patches, I'm using Kontakt 2 and Battery 3, which also allow to activate diskstreaming on a per patch base (something the EXS doesn't).
Anyways, what I wanted to say is that, at least so far, the internal 5400RPM drive hasn't given me much reasons to worry about. For "usual" projects, I never need to worry about disk speed.
I can run about the same amount (maybe sligthly higher) of tracks from external USB or FW (400) drives, using 7200RPM disks.
If I combine internal and external drives, I don't get the double performance but something around 150% (didn't test too thoroughly though).
So, what I'm doing is to keep all my samples on the internal drive, because I need them all the time (a lot of my most used instruments are based on samples).
Whenever I'm working on a truly disk-intensive project, I may then record all audio on external drives. That way, the disk burden is split at least a bit.
In an ideal world (because I'm using more streaming samples than audio tracks), I'd probably do it the other way around, to put less stress onto the system/internal drive, but as said, I also want to be able to work in "full mobile" mode, which means no external drives attached at all - and I need the majority of my samples to be with me all the time.
Ok, in addition, I'm sort of distributing my sampler tasks between Logics EXS and Kontakt. The EXS is set to not stream any samples, so I'm using smaller patches there with the EXS' efficiency in all its glory (800 voices with the filter activated), for larger, streaming patches, I'm using Kontakt 2 and Battery 3, which also allow to activate diskstreaming on a per patch base (something the EXS doesn't).
Anyways, what I wanted to say is that, at least so far, the internal 5400RPM drive hasn't given me much reasons to worry about. For "usual" projects, I never need to worry about disk speed.
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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- Banned
- 78 posts since 29 Jun, 2007
And you use what to back your audio up?