MacBook hard drive upgrade???

J

jamesx

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i have had my macbook for about a month now and i am looking at putting a bigger hard drive in it. i bought the computer brand new and it has a 80 gb hard drive and 2GHz intel core 2 Duo. and 1gb of ram. i was looking around at different hard drives, but i'm not really sure where to buy it or what brand would work best. what about rpm? 5400 or 7200? i am looking to upgrade to about 160gb...


thanks for any help or pointers!
 
Right now, 160GB is quite large for a laptop, and is not available with 7200rpm. The important thing to look for is the SATA interface. So, 160GB/5400rpm.
Whatever hard drive you decide on - you will find this very easy to replace. You will need all of two minutes. Remove battery, loosen 3 tiny screws to gain access to the RAM area. Slide old hard drive out. Slide new hard drive in. Replace access panel, and insert the battery. And, that's it. Almost takes longer to read this.... :)
There's a variety of brands/sizes of hard drives at www.macsales.com
Just go to the area for 2.5 inch SATA, and browse around.
 
would i notice anything different going wth a 7200 rpm? i dont do any gaming or anything like that... also, is it worth it to pay more money for a more expensive brand?

thanks again.
 
Don't pay for brand, pay for performance/price. A 7200 rpm drive will use a little more energy and give a little more speed. I'd decide on the pricepoint or the harddisk size and look at what fits that criteria. If you, say, find 4 drives in your size and price range, choose the brand that fits you best. But I wouldn't put brand or rpm first.
 
ok thanks a lot. right now i am looking at either the hitachi 160gb for $149 or the seagate 160 foe $189. you dont think a more expensive brand will last longer?

thanks!
 
jamesx said:
ok thanks a lot. right now i am looking at either the hitachi 160gb for $149 or the seagate 160 foe $189. you dont think a more expensive brand will last longer?

thanks!
Click to expand...
No.

Hitachi has been making disk drives for a long, long time and have led with many technical advances.
 
7200 rpm has been proven to be a negligable increase in speed, and even, i've seen tests where a 200gb 4200rpm disk beat a 5400rpm 120gb disk, as the needle had less space to move across to read the data. the faster the drive the more noise it makes, the more heat it creates, the more energy it consumes and more than likely, reduces the life of the disk. Hard drives are slow...

on a similar note, has anyone booted from a system volume on an iPod? it's eeriely quiet, it's quite pleasant...
 
At long last . . . I can create:

Teh D34dly Thread Necromancy!!11!

My computer is as in the signature--specifically an "Early 2008" black Macbook 4,1. My internal HD may be failing. I have everything cloned so if "may" becomes "has" my data is safe. :) I am actually booted on one of those clones as I see if it is just OS fixing.

Anyways, assuming I have to order a replacement, any recommendations? Using "teh G00gle" I find all sorts of reviews, recommendations--but most of them old since this is an older Mac. One claimed it can only take SATA I and not SATA II. Mac store says, "ah, yeah, it can," but refuses to offer any recommendations.

The current is a Western Digital 320 GB 5400 RPM 8 MB cache

So, any recommendations? 500 GB should be enough--it is only half-filled as it is, and I have enough external storage. 7200 RPM better/worth the cost? 16 MB cache?

As with this thread, I am not "wedded" to a brand: I have had good experience with WD and Seagate. Long ago, I had a "bad" Hitachi.

--J.D.
 
If you want to use it primarily as a portable (mostly on battery), then I would recommend the Western Digital Scorpio Blue line (5400 rpm). They're power efficient and come in affordable bit-sized chunks.

If you want to use it primarily as a desktop replacement (mostly plugged in), then I would recommend the Western Digital Scorpio Black line (7200 rpm). They're fast and won't give you the runs.

In reality, you're really not going to notice much of a difference, unless you whip out some measuring tools.

If you wanna blow your mind like the grand ol' days of LSD, get an Intel 320 series SSD, like so:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167053

They're smaller in capacity, but will give your computer that long-needed enema as well as a shot of crystal meth laced with cocaine. Seriously. You won't believe how much "slowdown" and "sluggishness" of a computer, even a brand-new one, is attributed to disk speed. It's what a computer should have always been.

Oh, if you opt for a spinning-platter hard drive, be sure you know what you're getting into in terms of drive height. There are a few ultra-large capacity 2.5" laptop drives that are too tall to fit in a 13" MacBook. 9.5mm is what you want, not 12mm.
 
I use it primarily as desktop--and bring the power cord with me when I go outside to yell at random people.

I looked into "solid state" when getting an External HD recently. A lot of reviews say the damn things can fail within a year. Is that true? I am sure the performance is orgasmic for rendering video and the like, but at those $$$ I would like the next HD to last me until I upgrade the laptop.

--J.D.
 
Yep, but that same thing is also, potentially equally, true for spinning-disk hard drives as well.

A lot of manufacturers (Intel) predict, at the minimum, 5 years. That's more than the manufacturers will guarantee for a spinning-disk drive in many cases.
 
I'm in a similar position and was, in fact, about to make a thread on the topic when I saw this.

I see that 1TB drives are cropping up now. I saw the Scorpio Blue but was concerned about the 12.5mm height. I'm assuming a reputable Mac dealer like OWC would know better than to recommend a drive that won't fit in my machine (late 2009 13" MacBook Pro), but you never know. They also have the 1TB Samsung Spinpoint, which is only 9.5mm tall. Are these ready for prime time or should I stay in the 500-750GB range?

I definitely want more storage than I have now (160GB, and I've needed to clear space more than once).

The most important thing for me is noise. I've had bad luck with HD noise in the past and I do NOT want to go down that road again.

I'd love to go for an SSD, but not until those prices come down a LOT.
 
Mikuro said:
I'm assuming a reputable Mac dealer like OWC would know better than to recommend a drive that won't fit in my machine (late 2009 13" MacBook Pro), but you never know.
Click to expand...

You would assume wrongly. They sold me not one, but two that did not fit then tried to charge me "restocking fees." I no longer use them. Others may have better experience.

I'd love to go for an SSD, but not until those prices come down a LOT.
Click to expand...

Having nothing better to do as I fixed my Internal HD and pontificated about it elsewhere, I did some cursory research on SSD. Many claims it will bring you to veritable orgasm IF you are doing things like video rendering. Basic word processing, surfing, et cetera does not seem to matter. I do not know about gaming at all. One major check against is the small size. Also, I ahve read some reports that they tend to fail within a year. Now if--as EDCC notes--they are covered under a decent warranty at least you have not spend $$$, but a failed HD is always an inconvenience.

--J.D.
 
Thanks for the warning. I might buy from New Egg instead.

I have no problems that I associate with slow HD speed, but I've heard what ElDiablo said more than once: 'You won't believe how much "slowdown" and "sluggishness" of a computer, even a brand-new one, is attributed to disk speed.' But it's a moot point for me. I'm just not paying that much money. Once I max out my RAM I'm pretty sure I'll be a happy camper anyway. (Swap files, indeed! Bah!) I just need more space before I upgrade to Lion.

Right now I'm leaning toward the 1TB Samsung Spinpoint. With that much space, I can fit some good VMs, movies, photos and games all of which is currently relegated to my external. Maybe I'll even multi-boot.
 
Doctor X said:
Many claims it will bring you to veritable orgasm IF you are doing things like video rendering. Basic word processing, surfing, et cetera does not seem to matter.
Click to expand...

Oh, man, you don't even know what you're missing.

Of course an SSD isn't going to make much of a difference in word processing -- nothing but yourself can make yourself type faster. ;)

Surfing: exactly the same. How quickly you get from one page to another is dependent on your mousing abilities and your internet connection speed.

The things that have given me that "venerable speed orgasm" with SSD drives are the following:

- boot times: half or less of what they used to be. From power button to usable desktop in under 30 seconds. Sometimes under 20. Waking from sleep is sub-5-seconds.
- app launch times: EVERYthing launches in a single bounce, save for Photoshop and larger apps like that.
- file copy speed: oh, man.
- general responsiveness of the computer: awesome. Punchy and quick and responsive.

Seriously, upgrading to an SSD is like putting a turbocharger in your computer. It really does show you how much the CPU in your computer REALLY IS a BAMF and has just been hampered by a slow disk all this time. It's not just certain actions that are going to benefit from an SSD -- it really is the entire, computer-using experience that benefits. Not just a small segment of video editors, but the whole range of users from grandmas to power users.

I think a good analogy would be that upgrading your CPU is going to speed up processes when you're NOT using the computer: rendering, video converting, etc. An SSD is going to speed up processes when you ARE using the computer: navigating, launching, saving, copying, etc.

My MacBook Air 11" with 128GB SSD and pokey 1.6GHz dual-core Core 2 Duo beats the pants off of my quad-core, 8GB RAM Linux machine all day long in terms of usability. Now, when it comes time to start Handbraking some MKVs or what-have-you, it's quad-core all day -- but then again, it's sitting there, doing its thing, without me at the helm using it... a la my last paragraph...
 
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Great . . . now I have that whole Geek Satyromania over a "New Thing!"

WANT!WANT!WANT!

It will . . . make my life better! My breath will no longer stink of privy! Girls will no longer pass by and throw bricks at me! I shall have . . . well-being!

Unfortunately, the reality is I probably should save the $$$ for the Next Newest Thing [Tm.--Ed.] in Macbooks. Looking at just the bench marks, the current MB quad core processors eat my poor 2.4 GHz. So, I will probably just keep using this one until it dies then consider a cheaper "upgrade" to about a 500 MB, 7200 RPM. Besides, what if the SSD does not fit in my eventual new MB.

Still . . . jealous.

--J.D.
 
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