Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Epiphron

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
234
10
I got the base 15 inch 2010 model with the 320 GB harddrive. I plan to use it for college and movies/music/pictures. I have had it for two months now and have already used up 150 GB. Is it worth it to upgrade to a bigger internal drive? or should i buy a 500 GB external drive instead? if i do buy a bigger internal drive, i would have to buy an even bigger external for backups. Thanks for any suggestions/experiences.
 

Jaro65

macrumors 68040
Mar 27, 2009
3,822
926
Seattle, WA
You still seem to have quite a bit of space on your drive. But...the 500 GB internal drive would be a pretty inexpensive upgrade, so if you feel you may need the extra capacity, I would just do that. You can go up to 1 TB on an internal drive, which is a ton of space. I use a 2 TB WD My Book Studio as an external drive for backup. You have plenty of options in terms of external drives.
 

Rubydoppler

macrumors 6502a
Jan 25, 2010
942
0
USA
I got the base 15 inch 2010 model with the 320 GB harddrive. I plan to use it for college and movies/music/pictures. I have had it for two months now and have already used up 150 GB. Is it worth it to upgrade to a bigger internal drive? or should i buy a 500 GB external drive instead? if i do buy a bigger internal drive, i would have to buy an even bigger external for backups. Thanks for any suggestions/experiences.

what is your comp filled up with? Pictures? Do you expect to keep packing on the GB's as time goes on at the same pace? I would invest in a external drive with a ton of space, for a lot less work / money than just putting a bigger one in your MBP.

I have a 500GB now, and I have used about what you have in 4 -5 months. I am about to start college so I expect to be adding pictures and documents, but if I hit 200GB used by the end of this year I would be floored.

I am saving for a 120 - 180 GB SSD, I can deal with less room.
 

alust2013

macrumors 601
Feb 6, 2010
4,779
2
On the fence
If you get down to under 70GB free or so, I think I would upgrade to a 500GB (or bigger) drive. While externals are easy to use, it is nice to be able to have all of your stuff in your computer, so you don't have to take extra drives when you go somewhere with it. Internal hard drives are cheap, and pretty easy to install as well.
 

Epiphron

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 25, 2010
234
10
oh ok thanks guys i think i will look for a larger than 500 GB external then, in case i do upgrade my internal drive later on. do you guys recommend any external in particular? most of the portable ones i found are 500 GB capacity (iomega ego, seagate freeagent goflex, western digital)
 

TheBritishBloke

macrumors 68030
Jul 21, 2009
2,532
0
United Kingdom
For me, Personally.. 320GB was enough until earlier this year when I went on a kind of iTunes HD Spending spree (and ripping movies onto iTunes).. So now I've already used over 320GB.

Oh, and having VM's doesn't help considering they stick a whole OS onto the computer too :p

I'd say wait.. See what you try out and you still have 170GB of space (about) left, that's plenty of space, and unless you do what I did, should last you a long time.

Bigger External drive can never hurt, especially as that will then allow you to keep more previous and up to date time machine backups on the one drive.
 

aeboi

macrumors 65816
Sep 20, 2009
1,094
0
Bay Area
oh ok thanks guys i think i will look for a larger than 500 GB external then, in case i do upgrade my internal drive later on. do you guys recommend any external in particular? most of the portable ones i found are 500 GB capacity (iomega ego, seagate freeagent goflex, western digital)

Go with the one that fits the bill, the manufacturers simply rebrand many of their external drives, it pretty comes down to the looks, speed (5400 vs 7200 etc..) and connectivity (usb or firewire or usb+firewire) and whether you want it to be portable(usb powered) or desktop externals. "Exclusive software" is simply a marketing strategy, don't buy into it.

I use at least 10+ different branded external drives and the "cheaper" drives work just as well. But do look at reviews, some certain models have higher failure rates.
 

davidlv

macrumors 68020
Apr 5, 2009
2,291
874
Kyoto, Japan
oh ok thanks guys i think i will look for a larger than 500 GB external then, in case i do upgrade my internal drive later on. do you guys recommend any external in particular? most of the portable ones i found are 500 GB capacity (iomega ego, seagate freeagent goflex, western digital)
I have 3 portable drives, two cheap USB cases and one more expensive Firewire/USB case, all work just the same using USB 2.0, so the extra money for the one case was a waste, since I do not have a good cable now (one firewire 800 cable gone bad). If you are looking for more space, check out OWC's external cases for 3.5" drives, look good to me.
Buy the drive (brand) you like, and out it in a case yourself, to save some serious bucks.
 

Gr80Likes2Boogi

macrumors regular
Oct 3, 2009
163
0
NoHo, CA
I JUST replaced my stock 320gb to a Seagate Momentus XT 500gb. Put the Hitachi in an enclosure. 320 worked for me for a good long while, but as I started getting large SFX libraries, loops, virtual instruments and Logic files, I needed a bit more room. I know I can put them all on external HDD's, and I do, but when I'm building a show, I don't like to carry a bunch of stuff with me =)

So the 320 did great for me with music/movies/pictures, all that. My iTunes alone is 65gb. To sum it up, I think 320 will be fine, and when you need more, you can upgrade then! Easy peasy.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.