Upgrading Macbook Hard Drive from 80gb 5200rpm to 320gb 7200rpm
I recently just upgraded a Hard Drive for a Macbook. I purchased the Western Digital Scorpio Black from newegg.com. The process was very easy and only took about 5 mins. Having the correct tools is key. You will need:
- coin (or something to unscrew the battery)
- Small screwdriver (I used a eye glass set)
- Torx 8 (T8) screwdriver
Since you can access the hard drive straight from the battery location, you can basically just pull the other one out, unscrew the casing, and put the new one in. Once it was loaded in, I booted off the Leopard Disc and proceeded with a “Restore My Computer” through Time Machine. The process took about 6 hours over ethernet and everything was restored exactly how it was before. I assume it could be drastically cut down based on how many backups you have inside Time Capsule. I was curious how much of a performance gain would occur with the new hard drive so I recorded some load times.
| Application | Before | After | Diff (% Faster) |
| Boot Up | 40s | 29s | 11s (28%) |
| Firefox | 17s | 8s | 9s (52%) |
| iTunes | 16s | 8s | 8s (50%) |
| Numbers | 17s | 7s | 10s (59%) |
| Parallels Resume Windows XP | 106s | 13s | 93s (88%) |
So there is actually a HUGE performance gain from using 7200rpm instead of 5400rpm. Now what are the downsides? We’ve noticed that the fan for the computer kicks on more often doing simple tasks. I’m sure this is due to the hard drive producing more heat. The hard drive is self doesn’t seem to be louder, but the macbook’s fans definitely are. Most people complain about vibrations, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference but if its spinning fast you can notice it if you feel the bottom directly under where the hard drive sits.
In conclusion, the performance gain and amount of space is totally worth it for the downsides mentioned above. I would recommend upgrading!
