What is the fastest possible harddrive I can put in a Macbook Pro?

SSD or Solid State Drives are by far the fastest drives. They are also expensive.

Since SSDs are so expensive right now, my question is mainly focused on standard hard drives. Any suggestions?

7.2k is the fastest physically possible as far as I am aware. The 10k SATA drives (Raptor, etc.) generate too much heat as I understand it. The 10k/15k drives are usually SAS and I believe slightly taller than laptop drives despite being described as coming in a 2.5” form-factor.

a lightning bolt!

also I hear there is a new “Hybrid” drive from Seagate that has something like a 4 or 8gb flash cache and physical spinning platters. Supposedly the best of both worlds.

Thanks – very helpful answers.

SSD (solid state) is the fastest hard drive around and also the most expensive. If you’ve got an extra $800 to drop on a 128GB drive, then go for it!