2.16 Ghz Macbook Upgrade Advice?

[L-Stance]

Hi,

Iv always found macrumors helpful for getting mac related questions answered but all the past thread i could find for my macbook model were pretty old so Im hoping i might be able to get some more current advice.

I have a 2.16Ghz white macbook running snow leopard with no foreseeable plans to upgrade operating system.

I mostly use the laptop for music production using ableton live 8. I want to upgrade the hard drive from the original 120Gb 5200rpm hard drive.

I really want a bit more space and better performance for my system, however SSD drives still seem a bit pricey for me.

Ive heard of issues with 7200rpm drives having noise/vibration issues, which isnt a huge deal unless its significant.

Ive had a look at some drives such as...
http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate-500gb-momentus-sata-3gb-s-2-5--7200rpm-16mb-hard-drive-816G.html?refs=56330000-41580000&src=2

but i dont know if its the best in the price range (I could probably stretch to £100 but no more).

Can anyone give me any advice or recommendations for an upgrade?

Thanks guys 🙂

 

[Intell]

I have the same Macbook model as you, but the black one. I also have that same drive in mine. It makes a huge difference in terms of speed. I have not noticed any additional noise or vibrations. In fact, I've noticed less noise.

 

[miles01110]

A 7200 rpm drive isn't going to make as much difference for the price as an SSD would.

 

[L-Stance]

I have the same Macbook model as you, but the black one. I also have that same drive in mine. It makes a huge difference in terms of speed. I have not noticed any additional noise or vibrations. In fact, I've noticed less noise.

Thats good to know, I could really use a boost in speed, Im hoping to keep the same laptop for at least a year longer before I buy a new model so I figure upgrading it will extend its life a litte. 😀

Do you know anything about the possibility of upgrading your ram to 4gb? I was under the impression that I was already at my maximum ram capacity of 2gb but sites like Crucial now give me the option of buying 4gb of ram for my model macbook. A further RAM upgrade would be great for running music production programs. Its a core 2 duo model if that makes any difference.

A 7200 rpm drive isn't going to make as much difference for the price as an SSD would.

Thanks for the reply, yeh I understand that for speed SSD is the best option but as far as Ive seen anything above a 120GB drive is out of my price range, and since I do use the laptop for storage and work besides music production I think its probably worth sacrificing the speed for the drive space I would get on a Disc Drive for the same price.

 

[tersono]

Consider one of the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives. It's a 7200rpm hard drive plus a 4gb SSD in a single casing. The SSD acts as a cache and significantly improves drive performance - next best thing to a proper SSD

 

[L-Stance]

Consider one of the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives. It's a 7200rpm hard drive plus a 4gb SSD in a single casing. The SSD acts as a cache and significantly improves drive performance - next best thing to a proper SSD

I saw some of these when I was looking online, I was sceptical of how well they would actually worked. Do you have one installed on a macbook? If hybrid drives work well in MacBooks then it seems like they're the way to go!

Could you explain a little more about how the division between the hard drive and the 4gb ssd works, im not too savvy about how hard drives function exactly😱

 

[Intell]

Your Macbook can take two 2Gb sticks for a total of 4Gb. But because of the Macbook's 32-bit limitation it can only see and use 3.3Gb of it. Still a good upgrade over 2Gb.

 

[L-Stance]

Your Macbook can take two 2Gb sticks for a total of 4Gb. But because of the Macbook's 32-bit limitation it can only see and use 3.3Gb of it. Still a good upgrade over 2Gb.

Ah thats great, I'll definitely be upgrading to 4gb RAM then.

With regards to the hybrid drives I just looked up some pretty impressive videos of its speeds with comparison to an SSD drive and a 7200rpm disc drive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT1CRwqEv_8&feature=player_embedded
(wasn't sure how to embed)

I am aware that this video was made by Seagate though haha.

Even so if the speed of a hybrid drive is really this good I would be willing to push my budget to buy the Seagate 750GB Hybrid...

http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate-750gb-momentusxt-hybrid-sata-6gb-s-32mb-7WFQ.html?refs=41580000-56340000&src=3

 

[L-Stance]

I've been reading into the seagate momentus Xt hybrids and they are looking pretty good. I have read some issues with beach ball icons coming up and slight freezes happening but I believe this was with the first generation models not the current second generation. I think seagate has tried to adress these issues with firmware updates and also have provided firmware updates for the second generation models also.

Theres a really good review of it here...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5160/seagate-2nd-generation-momentus-xt-750gb-hybrid-hdd-review/1
And theres a great video summary at the bottom of the page.

Ive tried to hunt down directions for installing the new firmware for the second edition momentus xt model ST750LX003 but havent found anything except the instruction on the seagate support site for the older first generation firmware update.

Does anyone know where and how to do these firmware update, Im a bit hesitant to buy it incase i get left not knowing how to update the firmware.

Thanks for all the help guys, really helped a lot!

 

[treyjustice]

Thanks for the reply, yeh I understand that for speed SSD is the best option but as far as Ive seen anything above a 120GB drive is out of my price range, and since I do use the laptop for storage and work besides music production I think its probably worth sacrificing the speed for the drive space I would get on a Disc Drive for the same price.

You can remove you cd drive and put it in an external case then put an SSD where your cd drive was. That way you can still keep your normal hard drive ;]

 

[L-Stance]

You can remove you cd drive and put it in an external case then put an SSD where your cd drive was. That way you can still keep your normal hard drive ;]

That sounds really cool, I would be a bit scared about performing such a mod though because im not at all good with that sort of thing. Have you got a link about it though, just for curiosities sake?

 

[treyjustice]

That sounds really cool, I would be a bit scared about performing such a mod though because im not at all good with that sort of thing. Have you got a link about it though, just for curiosities sake?

Here is one guide. I'm really wanting to try it! Just need to save up the money :]

http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-replace-your-macbooks-optical-drive-with-an-ssd/

 

[markib85]

6gb PC2 6400 and 750gb WD Black

-I just put in a WD 750 gb Black with 16mb cache, and upgraded to 6gb pc2 6400 800mhz ram on my macbook white early 2009. Total cost was about $180. Total install of hardware took about 10 minutes. The SuperDuper! clone of about 120gb from my current hd to new hd took me approx. 45min.-1hr.
- I had two issues, initializing the new HD on the Mac for formatting and cloning process wasn't working so i did it on a PC first then formatted on Mac and cloned. The next issue was that the once the new HD installed it takes multiple full shutdowns and starts for the drive to fully collect system information. (meaning that disk utility doesn't read all file types properly at first). Just give it a few restarts it will all fix itself, also run repair permissions and disk verify.
-All in all a little vibration and very little noise. Nothing at all to complain about considering the HUGE performance boost. Running Ableton 8.2.1 and Scratch Live everything is HELLA FAST now compared to before when i had to wait for stuff to render and my Scratch would occasionally flutter and halt.
-Next project take apart the top case and install the lit keyboard myself without paying Apple for a new Top Case.

Email me for further questions on upgrade.

 

[L-Stance]

-I just put in a WD 750 gb Black with 16mb cache, and upgraded to 6gb pc2 6400 800mhz ram on my macbook white early 2009. Total cost was about $180. Total install of hardware took about 10 minutes. The SuperDuper! clone of about 120gb from my current hd to new hd took me approx. 45min.-1hr.
- I had two issues, initializing the new HD on the Mac for formatting and cloning process wasn't working so i did it on a PC first then formatted on Mac and cloned. The next issue was that the once the new HD installed it takes multiple full shutdowns and starts for the drive to fully collect system information. (meaning that disk utility doesn't read all file types properly at first). Just give it a few restarts it will all fix itself, also run repair permissions and disk verify.
-All in all a little vibration and very little noise. Nothing at all to complain about considering the HUGE performance boost. Running Ableton 8.2.1 and Scratch Live everything is HELLA FAST now compared to before when i had to wait for stuff to render and my Scratch would occasionally flutter and halt.
-Next project take apart the top case and install the lit keyboard myself without paying Apple for a new Top Case.

Email me for further questions on upgrade.

What are repair permissions and disk verify? Is it possible to put a fresh osx install on a brand new drive out of the box?