MacBook – How much will adding an extra hard drive to the MacBook Pro affect battery performance

hard drivehardwaremacbook properformance

I have a current MacBook Pro 15" i7 2.2Ghz with a 500GB 7200RPM (default) hard drive.

I am thinking of replacing both the current hard drive and the superdrive with two Seagate Momentus Hybrid 500 GB drives and placing them in RAID0 for optimal performance.

Now, I don't think performance will be a problem, but how about battery life? Are there any examples of users who already have done similar things and noticed the effect on battery life?

Best Answer

Having a second hard drive will certainly decrease battery life by a noticeable amount. Behind the CPU and LCD, the hard drive is the largest drain on battery.

A word of caution: RAID 0 is almost never a good idea, unless you'll be doing backups constantly and don't mind being totally down if a drive fails. You'll get better performance from an SSD and you'll be able to keep your optical drive.

Related Solutions

MacBook – What hard drive is used for the 500 GB Macbook Pro option from Apple

I don't know about the 7200, but my mid-2010 MBP has the following (from system profiler):

Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02:

  Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
  Model:    Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02                 
  Revision: PB4AC60W
  Native Command Queuing:   Yes
  Queue Depth:  32
  Removable Media:  No
  Detachable Drive: No
  BSD Name: disk0
  Rotational Rate:  5400
  Medium Type:  Rotational

I too had trouble with noise and vibration with a Seagate Momentus XT (the hybrid drive). After reinstalling the stock drive it's quiet and vibration free again.

MacBook – Which 2nd hard drive for the MBP 2011

I have the Seagate in my 2010 15" MBP and I have had 0 problems with it. It's dead silent and there is no vibration. My battery life stayed pretty much the same after the upgrade, but since you are looking at dual hard drives (I'm assuming you removed your optical drive) I would expect to see a slight drop in your battery life.

I would stick with the 7200rpm drives over the 5400rpm myself.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacBook – What hard drive is used for the 500 GB Macbook Pro option from Apple

MacBook – Which 2nd hard drive for the MBP 2011

Related Question