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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Macbook Hard Drive Upgrade to Samsung 320gb (internal)

Macbook Hard Drive Upgrade to Samsung 320gb (internal)
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mclover
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Apr 28, 2008, 08:00 AM
 
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
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Apr 28, 2008, 08:47 AM
 
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
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Apr 28, 2008, 12:14 PM
 
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.
My Blog-pakos.me
     
Nodnarb
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Apr 28, 2008, 12:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by larrinski View Post
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
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Apr 28, 2008, 02:00 PM
 
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
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Apr 28, 2008, 03:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Gamoe View Post
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
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Apr 28, 2008, 07:36 PM
 
320GB WD upgrade was great on my MBP. Combined with the extra RAM, this will feel like a totally new machine!
     
Gamoe
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Apr 29, 2008, 05:25 PM
 
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
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Apr 30, 2008, 03:47 PM
 
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
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Apr 30, 2008, 11:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by SEkker View Post
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
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May 1, 2008, 10:09 AM
 
Where are these deals you speak of?
Backups are like guns and condoms. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
     
mduell
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May 1, 2008, 02:54 PM
 
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
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May 2, 2008, 09:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell View Post
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 View Post
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  (op)
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May 8, 2008, 04:35 AM
 
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.
     
mclover  (op)
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Jun 8, 2008, 10:06 PM
 
finally got my new hard drive! i ended up buying the samsung 320gb, partitioned in into 2 HD then restored from time capsule. Its really dead easy! Its nice & quiet too!
     
wataru
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Jun 8, 2008, 11:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by mclover View Post
Its nice & quiet too!
Hard drives (almost) always are when they're new.
     
molarszbt18
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Jun 10, 2008, 09:48 PM
 
I am debating now what I should do with mine??
     
mduell
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Jun 10, 2008, 11:01 PM
 
The 320GB Hitachi is now $109 after rebate ($139 less 30); I'd go with that. The Samsung M6 is also down to $120 with no rebates.
     
alligator
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Jun 15, 2008, 09:53 AM
 
Where did you find the instructions to replace your drive? I'll be dropping in the 320 GB WD drive, but this is my first time with m 15" MBP. I'm pretty handy, so this shouldn't be too difficult, unless I need to order some special tools.
     
ibook_steve
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Jun 15, 2008, 01:04 PM
 
Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
     
alligator
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Jun 22, 2008, 10:10 PM
 
Well, I did it. I purchased a 320 GB WD hard drive and installed it this weekend. It took about 15 minutes, but mainly because I was so careful about not losing all those small screws. I made a backup with Super Duper! and it worked well, except my Parallels installation did not copy over correctly. I found a temporary fix for that, an otherwise everything was fine.

Now, one last question. I'd like to use my old drive as an external drive. What cable or enclosure do I need to make this work?
     
amazing
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Jun 23, 2008, 12:30 PM
 
I've got the ATA version of this, works great, tight fit means it's small and the HD gets a great heatsink. Dual interface, firewire/usb 2.0.

Newegg.com - macally PHRS250CC Aluminum 2.5" USB 2.0 & 1394 External Enclosure - External Enclosures

Question: AFAIK, firewire is still faster than usb 2.0 even on Intel chips??
     
mduell
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Jun 23, 2008, 09:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
Question: AFAIK, firewire is still faster than usb 2.0 even on Intel chips??
Depends on the controller chips in the enclosure and what you're doing.
     
SEkker
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Jun 25, 2008, 10:50 AM
 
Is FW faster than USB? In my experience, almost always on a mac. I had one bad experience with a recent Seagate drive enclosure and FW, but when FW worked on that machine, it was faster than USB2.

otherworld computing (macsaled.com) also sells good enclosures.
     
HenrySeiden
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Jul 6, 2008, 05:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by alligator View Post
Where did you find the instructions to replace your drive? I'll be dropping in the 320 GB WD drive, but this is my first time with m 15" MBP. I'm pretty handy, so this shouldn't be too difficult, unless I need to order some special tools.
Apple's website! I simply searched for Macbook drive replacement on their DIY page... pictures and all.
'MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY.pdf'
     
AKcrab
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Jul 6, 2008, 07:25 PM
 
Just in case folks haven't heard, there is now a 500GB drive available for the MB/MBP.
OWC 500GB Kit
The kit comes with a (fugly) enclosure for your old drive, but it has Firewire 400/800 and USB 2.0. Price might be a bit high, but it's a brand new drive.
     
amazing
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Jul 6, 2008, 09:37 PM
 
"However, USB 2.0 performance is slower that FireWire 400, up to 15 percent slower in some of our tests."

Macworld | From the Lab | Review: My Passport Studio 320GB
     
Simon
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Jul 7, 2008, 05:52 AM
 
Let's set a couple of things straight.

That 500 GB iMac disk somebody mentioned is a 3.5" HDD and far from "the limit". It also has nothing to do with the 2.5" drives people are discussing in this thread. The MB will take a 500 GB 5400 rpm disk (for example the Samsung Spinpoint M6). Currently this is by far the largest disk available. Initial reports have been very enthusiastic. If you plan of using more than about 100GB of disk space these drives will also be faster than any available 2.5" 7200 rpm drive.

On Macs FW has always been faster than USB2. You have to really screw up royally (cheapest enclosure, fraid cables, etc.) to get FW to get comparable throughput to USB2 on a Mac. On Windows this is different though.
     
Ruf993Turbo
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Jul 30, 2008, 04:45 AM
 
I posted a thread awhile back about this. I got the wester digital passport 320gb. I cloned it and then took it out of the case and installed into my MBP. took me less than 30min. very easy to do. I'm going to upgrade to a 500gb soon so I will sell my 320gb if anyone is interested.
     
dustrho
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Jul 31, 2008, 09:22 AM
 
PM sent about your 320 GB hard drive.

Chris Rhoads / Forum Admin & Webmaster of Sandtroopers.com
     
   
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