Macbook Upgrades Question...

[soccerb12ku]

I am planning to buy a Macbook 2.4ghz after wwdc and I am planning on upgrading the RAM and maybe the hard drive. I know I want to upgrade the RAM I was wondering if I should have Apple do it when I buy it for $90 (thats how much it says when I customize it on their website with student distcount) or if i should buy some somewhere else and install it myself? I don't know how hard it is or if it voids your warrenty or anything...

I was also maybe planning on upgrading the hard dirve, I was wondering if doing this will boost my speed or not because if it doesn't i probably won't need bigger than the 250g hard drive. I can upgrade to the 320g hard drive for $67 at apple store or should i get my own and install it if i need it? Is this hard or does it void your warrenty?

thanks for any help!

[rgarjr]

just do the work yourself, dude. Its a no brainer.

[soccerb12ku]

how much would it cost me and I dont know what is compatible or recommended?

[secondfox]

Upgrading RAM and the hard drive doesn't void the warranty. I would recommend buying the memory from Crucial, and getting a 7200 rpm drive from Newegg. That's what I did, anyhow. Replacing the components is simple enough. The only thing you really need are some tiny screwdrivers for the hard drive casing.

[Finlandboy]

i suggest buying your own ram and harddrive...

apple rips you off, you can get them way cheaper elsewhere (crucial.com and newegg.com) and installing them yourself is not hard at all, there are PLENTY of websites with easy and complete instructions for you to follow (youtube, google)

[secondfox]

Crucial has a program you can download, or you can look up your particular model in the drop-down menus. As for hard drives, any SATA drive will do. Your computer will like 3.0 Gb/s drives best (the ones most prominent anyway).

A 320 (290ish actual) 7200 rpm drive costs $80. The RAM will be about $60 I think.

[soccerb12ku]

I heard some people that have installed their own hard drives have had issues with them being loud or rattling....Is there any recomened hard drives that will work well and dont have issues? Also do you think that I should upgrade the hard drive even if i dont necesarily need it? Does increase the speed or performance?

thanks for the help

[Finlandboy]

Western Digital and Seagate are pretty reliable brands.

a 7200 rpm drive should increase performance, such as opening applications and copying files

[bozz2006]

my suspicion is that those who've installed their drives and experienced vibration/noise didn't get the drive seated properly. be careful. check to make sure everything looks OK (this requires looking at the factory drive and taking note of its position). do this, and you'll be fine.