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I recently got a new MacBook. How can I determine the hard drive speed (RPM)? I am using Mac OS X Version 10.5.8.

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Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> Hardware -> Serial-ATA

Depending on what type of hard drive you have, the RPMs may be listed as Rotational Rate. Not all drives report this however. If not, as that's the case, as jtb points out, you'll have to do a Google search on your hard drive model.

In my limited testing, Seagate and Hitachi drives seem to report the drive's RPM, but Western Digital drives do not.

EDIT: Update due to not all drives report RPM rates.

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I don't have "Rotational Rate". I'm on 10.5.8 – gnavi Oct 19 '09 at 19:53
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Me neither. The simple way is to just put the drive model number into Google. The first hit for TOSHIBA MK2553GSX confirms that my Macbook has a 5400 rpm drive. – jtb Oct 19 '09 at 20:08
That did the trick! Google knows all :-P – gnavi Oct 19 '09 at 20:35
Must be a Snow Leopard thing. Google search the hard drive model that shows up is a good idea. – emgee Oct 19 '09 at 20:35
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For what it's worth, I'm also running Snow Leopard 10.6.1, but still don't have the Rotational Rate info; it's probably specific to the drive rather than the OS version, though I don't know how that list is actually populated. – jtb Oct 19 '09 at 23:19
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Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> Hardware -> Serial-ATA Then I Google searched the Model. The results page will usually show the speed!

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