Got a new white Macbook (2010 model - 2.4 GHz unibody) - need new hard drive and ram.

[GodWhomIsMike]

Good Morning Folks. I had a 4 year old white Macbook at work, and put in a request for a new 13" Macbook Pro. They had a bunch of new 2010 white Macbooks in their inventory, so they gave me one of those and told me to order what I need for it.

I need a 500GB hard drive, and 8GB of ram. Are their any particular hard drives that are good and quick (for a 5400rpm drive)? I was looking at the Seagate Momentus XT drive, but saw that there those 7200rpm drives cause the unit to vibrate. Not the best thing when it will be sitting on a wood desk all day long.

So, what hard drive and any particular brands of ram work best?

Here is what I am looking at:

WD Scorpio Blue WD6400BEVT - hard drive - 640 GB - SATA-300
Mfg. Part: WD6400BEVT

Crucial memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - DDR3-1066


Opinions?

I put the order request in for the following

Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545050B9A300 - hard drive - 500 GB - SATA-300

Crucial memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - DDR3-1066

(2) Apple DVI (MB570Z/A) adapters

I wanted the 640 GB hard drive, but read a ton of horror stories on Apple's forums about that drive.

 

[mgford11]

I put the order request in for the following

Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545050B9A300 - hard drive - 500 GB - SATA-300

Crucial memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - DDR3-1066

(2) Apple DVI (MB570Z/A) adapters

I wanted the 640 GB hard drive, but read a ton of horror stories on Apple's forums about that drive.

I thought the White 2010 Macbooks supported a max of 4gb of ram...

 

[alust2013]

I put the order request in for the following

Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B HTS545050B9A300 - hard drive - 500 GB - SATA-300

Crucial memory - 8 GB : 2 x 4 GB - SO DIMM 204-pin - DDR3-1066

(2) Apple DVI (MB570Z/A) adapters

I wanted the 640 GB hard drive, but read a ton of horror stories on Apple's forums about that drive.

Why 2 DVI adapters?

 

[happle]

i had a seagate momentus 500gb 7200.4. then i got a hitachi 7k500, but i returned it and got another seagate 7200.4. i did this because the seagate was more quiet at idle, also cooler at idle. it seemed faster and the took up a noticeable less amount of battery. the hitachi was alright but pretty much in every aspect i liked the seagate better.

also what do you do on your computer? you probably wont need 8gb of ram depending..

edit: my seagate 7200.4 does not vibrate not even in the slightest bit. def go with the 7200. trust me.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

i had a seagate momentus 500gb 7200.4. then i got a hitachi 7k500, but i returned it and got another seagate 7200.4. i did this because the seagate was more quiet at idle, also cooler at idle. it seemed faster and the took up a noticeable less amount of battery. the hitachi was alright but pretty much in every aspect i liked the seagate better.

also what do you do on your computer? you probably wont need 8gb of ram depending..

edit: my seagate 7200.4 does not vibrate not even in the slightest bit. def go with the 7200. trust me.

I run and test software on multiple operating systems, and rely on VMs.

I thought the White 2010 Macbooks supported a max of 4gb of ram...

Mactracker and OWC show 8GB.

 

[hamlin]

I thought the White 2010 Macbooks supported a max of 4gb of ram...

It's just the recommended amount. It can support 8 gigs.

 

[ohmsy]

It's just the recommended amount. It can support 8 gigs.

I was told it only supports 4 gig from someone at the apple store..

 

[hamlin]

I was told it only supports 4 gig from someone at the apple store..

They just say that for legal reasons. If apple says 4 they will only say 4 because if you put in 8 and something goes wrong they are responsible.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

White MacBook7,1 (mid-2010) offers terrible performance with 2GB of ram!!!

I reluctantly got a new white Macbook this week, which did not meet what my hardware requirements at work (my request was for a Macbook Pro with a minimum of 4GB of ram, and a 500GB hard drive). My Macbook Pro request was denied, and I use lots of VMs for cross-platform software testing. What I got was a base configuration of the white Macbook.

I obviously have not been able to run any VMs, BUT, what is surprising me is how quickly I am using up all of the ram in here. Having Apple Mail, Acrobat Pro 9, Adium, TextWrangler, Firefox, and MS Excel 2011 open is showing that I am using 1.98 GB of RAM in Activity Monitor. Seriously?

I am coming from a 3.5 year old Macbook, which had a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, and a 320GB hard drive (which I upgraded myself). I do not see any additional performance with this new Mac at all, in some cases, I think it's slower!!!! My hard drive is almost completely full, since I went from a 320GB drive to a 250GB drive.

Maybe upgrading the hard drive and ram will make this Macbook run smoother, and become capable of doing what I need. But, judging from my first two days with this Macbook, I am extremely underwhelmed by this upgrade.

 

[GGJstudios]

... I am extremely underwhelmed by this upgrade.

So what was "upgraded"? You had 2GB of RAM before, and still have 2GB. You now have a smaller hard drive. That's not an upgrade.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

Well, I hope the request for 8GB goes though, because this Macbook is completely unable to do any software testing using VMs with 2GB of ram. I am doing light work, and utilizing 1.98 GB of ram according to Activity Monitor.

So what was "upgraded"? You had 2GB of RAM before, and still have 2GB. You now have a smaller hard drive. That's not an upgrade.

Faster CPU isn't anything that is noticeable. Taking a break and watching videos is significantly better now, but that's about it.

 

[akhbhaat]

How much swap space are you using? That's really the crucial figure. OSX handles memory in such a way that data from recently closed programs will continue to occupy address space in RAM (to be called up again quickly if you choose to reload that same program), so you can't draw any substantial conclusions from the amount of available free space shown in the Activity Monitor.

The slowness that you're describing usually occurs when the OS runs out of address space in the physical RAM (heavy multitasking) and starts paging data into the swap space on the hard drive, which has arduously slow read/write/transfer rates relative to RAM. I think it's a bit disappointing that Apple is still putting only 2 GB of RAM into the base Macbook in 2010, which is technically a premium computer even if it's Apple's entry-level model (it sits at a premium price-point, at least). This is a bit less of a problem in the new MBAs because paging to a solid state drive is much faster than doing the same with a traditional 5400 rpm magnetic drive.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

See attached of a screen grab of activity monitor.