[mclover]

Just wondering if you've done this to your mac. How was it? I've got a 2.16Ghz Macbook mid 2007 model. Thinking of ugrading + 3gb of RAM.

[mdc]

I've upgraded to the Western Digital Passport 250gb hard drive in my MacBook with 4gb of memory. Nothing to complain about since everything went through very smoothly.

I'd like to swop out the 250gb drive for a 500gb drive.

[larrinski]

I just upgraded to a Hitachi 160Gb from Hitachi 80Gb, but it was loud as hell, and kept sounding like it was about to die. Just exchanged it this morning for a Toshiba. We'll see how that goes...

The upgrade process in the Macbook is super easy though! Took all of 5 minutes, but you need a Torx #8, which is harder to come by...Swapping over the files will be the long part of the process.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by larrinski 

swapping over the files will be the long part of the process.

Time machine came in so handy for this- I popped in the leopard DVD and chose to restore from a time machine backup, about 1-2 hours later I had my same mac, just as I'd left it, with a couple hundred extra gigs!

[Gamoe]

I wish I could put a 750+ GB hard drive in my MacBook, but alas this is one of the tradeoffs of going with a portable over a desktop. Still, I'm considering the same thing. I have to ask myself, "Will a compatible (physical size-wise) 500 GB notebook drive come out shortly after I get a 360 GB drive?" Or maybe we'll see 72K notebook drives soon. This seems to be my main issue: Should I wait a little longer, or just go for it now. It's not a question of whether to upgrade, but when.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by Gamoe 

I wish I could put a 750+ GB hard drive in my MacBook, but alas this is one of the tradeoffs of going with a portable over a desktop. Still, I'm considering the same thing. I have to ask myself, "Will a compatible (physical size-wise) 500 GB notebook drive come out shortly after I get a 360 GB drive?" Or maybe we'll see 72K notebook drives soon. This seems to be my main issue: Should I wait a little longer, or just go for it now. It's not a question of whether to upgrade, but when.

You can get a great deal on the Western Digital Passport drives with 320 gigs. I understand your concern about larger capacity drives coming out, however that is always the case with technology. Is 320 gigs acceptable for what you need? If so, I say go for it. That way, you can put that drive in your macbook, and then put the macbook drive in the passport and have a pocket sized 80 gig external too. And the passport was so freakin easy to take apart and put in the macbook, as someone else pointed out, it literally took me 10 minutes (could probably do it in less than 5 now, it just took longer cause I was used to the iBooks innards and had to follow online guides for the macbook... but they really were unnecessary)

I say, if 320 is suitable, go for it. They can be had for a little over $100

[SEkker]

320GB WD upgrade was great on my MBP. Combined with the extra RAM, this will feel like a totally new machine!

[Gamoe]

After waiting for a since November, I decided to go for it and get a 360 GB HD upgrade for my MacBook. I realized I was going to need to upgrade eventually, but decided to stick it out with the 120 GB stock drive till I could. By now, I have less than 6 GB free on my internal HD, so I thought it was about time. I also decided to get an external WD passport drive, also at 320 GB, mostly to store video and other media, to access on the go without taking up more space on the internal drive.

At less than $150 on Newegg, I do agree the passport drives are a good deal. I decided to go with an internal Western Digital HD for the internal, though, because I believe those have a bigger cache than the external passport drives. In any case, the difference was only a few dollars and not an issue, anyway.

I was going to happily post about this when I got the mentioned items (they should get before the end of the week, most likely tomorrow or the day after). Instead, today I read about Verbatim announcing a 9.5mm 500 GB HD. So instead of being unconditionally happy with my purchases, I'm now in a bit of a quandary of what to do.

Do I accept the shipments and proceed as I had planned, or deny delivery, get refunds and wait a little longer for the opportunity patience and some luck has provided me. Then again, this drive is supposedly going to cost around $300 (less, I'm sure, but not probably lower than $250), while that was about the cost of both of the drives I purchased together. So again, it's not a completely obvious decision here. Ah, decisions, decisions...

[SEkker]

There is a risk going with these new 500GB drives - they are really pushing the technology. I purchased a 3.5" internal drive for my iMac when the first mactels came out, Apple was one of the first to ship machines with those drives, and in the end mine was replaced because it because defective in the first 4 months or so. Turns out the first drives to ship had some issues and had a high failure rate.

So far, the 250/300+GB 2.5" drives seem to have a good track record - maybe the 500GB drives will be fine, too.

My iMac experience leads me to check out these drives on mission-critical machines. Gamoe, you can always swap in a 500GB drive when they are available and use the 360GB drive in either another machine or as a FW-powered portable hard drive.

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by SEkker 

There is a risk going with these new 500GB drives - they are really pushing the technology. I purchased a 3.5" internal drive for my iMac when the first mactels came out, Apple was one of the first to ship machines with those drives, and in the end mine was replaced because it because defective in the first 4 months or so. Turns out the first drives to ship had some issues and had a high failure rate.

I was actually thinking about this earlier, too, SEkker. The MacBook is my main Mac, not an auxiliary or experiment machine (I have an old Linux box for that), so a reasonable amount of reliability is important to me. Apart from that, the 500 GB drives are about double the cost than the 320s, without double the capacity.

As you say, I can always swap drives later on. So, I think I'll accept the upgrade and wait till I outgrow the capacity, by which time the technology should have matured further and competition should have driven costs down.

As they say, happiness is not in wanting what you don't have, but rather in appreciating what you do, or in my case, are about to have!

[bishopazrael]

Where are these deals you speak of?

[mduell]

There may be some increased risk by going with the latest and greatest drive capacity, but I don't think a few random anecdotes quantify it very well.

What deal are you looking for? 320GB for $145 shipped?

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by mduell 

There may be some increased risk by going with the latest and greatest drive capacity, but I don't think a few random anecdotes quantify it very well.

Perhaps. But the higher overall (and per byte) price was enough to dissuade me in the end.

Originally Posted by mduell 

What deal are you looking for? 320GB for $145 shipped?

Great deal. Now there price is even lower if you look at the page.

I got the drives yesterday, BTW. Got them up and running quickly. I love how trivial it is to replace the internal HD on a MacBook! It sure beats all the disassembly I had to do on my prior iBook.

It's too early for me to gauge the overall performance of the new internal, but so far so good. I've definitely not noticed any slowdown compared to the stock drive. It's nice to have some legroom again. Now I count my free space in three digits instead of one.

[mclover]

Thanks for the post guys, i live in australia & it is cheaper for me to buy the 320Gb Samsung hard drive which is $166 compared to $279 for the passport. I also upgraded my RAM to 3Gb & so far so good.