Macbook Pro hard drive speed question
09-18-2009, 12:12 PM
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Macbook Pro hard drive speed question
I purchased my Macbook Pro in Oct/November of 2007. I have the Seagate 160GB 7200 rpm hard drive (Model #: ST9160823AS). Currently it is setup on my MBP at a speed of 1.5 Gb/s. However the drive is capable of a speed of 3.0Gb/s. Until now I never knew it was running at the 1.5 Gb/s speed because I hadn't ever bothered to check.
From what I've heard, the chipset in my MBP is capable of running 3.0Gb/s unless I've got my facts wrong which would speed it up a bit.
I found an archived thread on the Apple Discussions board talking about this issue as well. The thread states there are 2 helpful answers provided, and 1 solved answer provided, but it doesn't show them.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....readID=1114521
Does anyone know how I can change the speed at which my hard drive is running at if its even possible???
From what I've heard, the chipset in my MBP is capable of running 3.0Gb/s unless I've got my facts wrong which would speed it up a bit.
I found an archived thread on the Apple Discussions board talking about this issue as well. The thread states there are 2 helpful answers provided, and 1 solved answer provided, but it doesn't show them.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....readID=1114521
Does anyone know how I can change the speed at which my hard drive is running at if its even possible???
09-18-2009, 01:01 PM
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I should have known about the jumper, it slipped my mind.
I wonder if I should try taking my MBP apart and seeing if the jumper is there or not.
09-18-2009, 01:32 PM
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You won't see any speed difference going from 1.5Gbit/s to 3.0Gbit/s. 1.5Gbit/s is NOT your bottleneck. Your standard HDD is still not fast enough to max that out. If you had an SSD drive then yes 1.5Gbit/s would be your bottleneck but not with a standard drive. max speed of SATA 1 is 150mb/s (1.2Gbit/s) which is higher than any notebook hard drive. Don't waste your time. Usually companies will limit the bandwidth speed to increase battery life so if you want no speed increase and less battery life go ahead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-ATA#S..._generation.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-ATA#S..._generation.29
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09-18-2009, 02:00 PM
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You won't see any speed difference going from 1.5Gbit/s to 3.0Gbit/s. 1.5Gbit/s is NOT your bottleneck. Your standard HDD is still not fast enough to max that out. If you had an SSD drive then yes 1.5Gbit/s would be your bottleneck but not with a standard drive. max speed of SATA 1 is 150mb/s (1.2Gbit/s) which is higher than any notebook hard drive. Don't waste your time. Usually companies will limit the bandwidth speed to increase battery life so if you want no speed increase and less battery life go ahead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-ATA#S..._generation.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-ATA#S..._generation.29
perhaps I should run a benchmarking program.
Yea, that's what I'm trying to figure out, from what the dude posted in that thread on the Apple Discussion Forums, it seems as though the SATA controller is capable of it, but I don't know for certain and I'm having a hard time finding that information.
09-18-2009, 02:10 PM
#11
Sanest Florida Man
it wasn't until SSDs came out that 3.0 was put to the test.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-ATA#S..._generation.29
still think it's a waste of time. your notebook drive is not putting out 150mb/s sustained or peak transfers.
Originally Posted by wikipedia
Soon after the introduction of SATA 1.5 Gbit/s, a number of shortcomings emerged. At the application level SATA could handle only one pending transaction at a time—like PATA. The SCSI interface has long been able to accept multiple outstanding requests and service them in the order which minimizes response time. This feature, native command queuing (NCQ), was adopted as an optional supported feature for SATA 1.5 Gbit/s and SATA 3 Gbit/s devices.
First-generation SATA devices operated at best a little faster than parallel ATA/133 devices. Subsequently, a 3 Gbit/s signaling rate was added to the physical layer (PHY layer), effectively doubling maximum data throughput from 150 MB/s to 300 MB/s.
For mechanical hard drives, SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate is expected to satisfy drive throughput requirements for some time, as the fastest mechanical drives barely saturate a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s link. A SATA data cable rated for 1.5 Gbit/s will handle current mechanical drives without any loss of sustained and burst data transfer performance. However, high-performance flash drives are approaching SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate.
First-generation SATA devices operated at best a little faster than parallel ATA/133 devices. Subsequently, a 3 Gbit/s signaling rate was added to the physical layer (PHY layer), effectively doubling maximum data throughput from 150 MB/s to 300 MB/s.
For mechanical hard drives, SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate is expected to satisfy drive throughput requirements for some time, as the fastest mechanical drives barely saturate a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s link. A SATA data cable rated for 1.5 Gbit/s will handle current mechanical drives without any loss of sustained and burst data transfer performance. However, high-performance flash drives are approaching SATA 3 Gbit/s transfer rate.
still think it's a waste of time. your notebook drive is not putting out 150mb/s sustained or peak transfers.
09-18-2009, 02:13 PM
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^^^ Thanks dude. it's funny, I was reading that same article at wikipedia and was gonna post about it.
Yea, I'm not gonna bother with it. I'm happy with how it's performing, I was simply trying to juice it up a bit more. I'll just wait till SSD are more reliable and when I get a new MPB, consider getting one then, hopefully after the SATA 6.0 Gb/s takes off.
Yea, I'm not gonna bother with it. I'm happy with how it's performing, I was simply trying to juice it up a bit more. I'll just wait till SSD are more reliable and when I get a new MPB, consider getting one then, hopefully after the SATA 6.0 Gb/s takes off.
09-18-2009, 06:44 PM
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Prior to upgrading to SL, I was running Leopard with a boot camp install of XP SP3 with my hard drive split in half between the two Operating Systems. I didn't fill those partitions either. At the moment I have Adobe CS4 Master Collection, Office 2008, and a few other programs and I still have 120GB of free space on my system.
I try to keep all my files on my NAS at home, and if there are files I need I copy them down. I had the master plan of using the VPN software I purchased to connect to my home network anytime I needed to, but I switched to the iPhone after I purchased that, and the iPhone doesn't have tethering yet and I didn't want to buy a mobile broadband plan so I just make due with copying files as I need to for now.
09-18-2009, 07:24 PM
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I'm thinking of keeping mine as the 120 as well, and just buy a external HDD to fill with my photo back ups and what not.
I currently split mine in half with SL and Vista, but after looking at just 80GB of space on each side, it kinda got me thinking.
I currently split mine in half with SL and Vista, but after looking at just 80GB of space on each side, it kinda got me thinking.
09-19-2009, 12:28 AM
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09-19-2009, 01:01 AM
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Needs more Lemon Pledge
Use it on a treadmill. Then it will take off. Or will it?
09-19-2009, 01:19 AM
#19
Sanest Florida Man
The MacBook Air is the only laptop in Apple's line that will takeoff from a treadmill.
That and the G4 Cube.
I always wanted one of those back in the days, so cool looking, yet useless.
That and the G4 Cube.
I always wanted one of those back in the days, so cool looking, yet useless.
Last edited by #1 STUNNA; 09-19-2009 at 01:21 AM.
09-19-2009, 08:37 AM
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Since you're into photography dude, I'd seriously consider an NAS so that you don't lose your pictures in a hard drive failure. An external hard drive is by no means any safer than a larger hard drive in your computer which i'm sure you know. A redundant setup is invaluable and they are cheap these days. The slightly higher version NAS above mine, the ReadyNAS NV+, has been going on sale at fry's repeatedly for $499 (reg. $750 - $250 MIR) and it came with 2TB worth of storage!
09-19-2009, 11:54 AM
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09-20-2009, 01:55 AM
#22
Sanest Florida Man
^Yeah I watched that video last night! Steve is one hell of a salesman right up there with billy mays! Steve was at his best back then. That crowd went nuts, they hang on his every word! Too bad no one went out and bought one.
09-20-2009, 11:07 AM
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For reference look at this....
https://acurazine.com/forums/technology-16/nas-network-attached-storage-discussion-thread-348877/
www.infrant.com (netgear bought them out a few years ago).
This is just one company that makes them, there are many more these days as the little device has begun to take off for consumers and smaller businesses.
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