macbook hard drive shopping

[MacBH928]

Ok,
This is my first time I am going to buy a hard drive for a laptop.
I see they are a lot more cheaper than external ones on amazon.

Yet i have no experience.
Can any one tell me what brand or specs I should be looking for?
I am running macbook late 2008 model.

anything i should pay attention too?
some stuff is hard to believe, 500gb for $50. My hard drive is 160GB only! such a nice upgrade!

most important to me is reliability!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

You can buy any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 12.5mm if you have the Unibody MB.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD​

How to format a new HDD/SSD to install Mac OS X or make a bootable copy onto​

And yes, 50 USD for 500 GB on a 2.5" S-ATA HDD is an okay price, you can get 1TB for less than 100 € too.

 

[stisdal]

Swapped out my HD this weekend using the directions in the post above, easy to do and all is working great! (went with a 500gb Scorpio blue for about $50)

 

[Dark Void]

i'd recommend a scorpio drive. scorpio blue if you want a 5400 rpm or scorpio black if you want a 7200 rpm.

 

[mossypointman]

I got the WD Scorpio Black 750GB 7200 RPM 2.5" HD for $78, it works great.

 

[MacBH928]

while we are on the subject, can I back up my hard drive to a none matching hard drive in size?
ex.

I got 500GB HD, but filled with only 100GB of data
will Carbon Copy Cloner make a bootable copy if I backed it up on a 250GB drive?
or both drives must match in size?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

while we are on the subject, can I back up my hard drive to a none matching hard drive in size?
ex.

I got 500GB HD, but filled with only 100GB of data
will Carbon Copy Cloner make a bootable copy if I backed it up on a 250GB drive?
or both drives must match in size?

Yes, you can use non-matching HDDs to clone 100GB from a 500GB HDD to a 250GB HDD.
I do that all the time (40GB from 60GB SSD to 120GB HDD or 1TB HDD and so on).