Macbook Upgrades

[ChrisN]

Well over the summer I am planning on improving my 10 month old MacBook. I plan on saving around a thousand dollars just to cover everything. Right now I plan on upgrading the ram and hard drive, is there anything else I can do? And what are some good brands to buy from(I hear crucial and Kingston are good). Finally what is the degree of difficulty.

 

[Neil321]

Well over the summer I am planning on improving my 10 month old MacBook. I plan on saving around a thousand dollars just to cover everything. Right now I plan on upgrading the ram and hard drive, is there anything else I can do? And what are some good brands to buy from(I hear crucial and Kingston are good). Finally what is the degree of difficulty.

Both crucial and Kingston are good makes of RAM, as for installing it yourself in
a macbook,its as easy as falling of a log

http://www.ifixit.com/

 

[xUKHCx]

There really isn't anything else you can upgrade.

It is really easy to upgrade both the ram and the hd.

$1000 seems overkill.

for example cruical ram is $114 for 4GB

OWC sells a 320GB hd for $190

So assuming you want to stuff it full and you have to buy the screwdrivers it wil set you back at most ~$330

 

[McGiord]

Well over the summer I am planning on improving my 10 month old MacBook. I plan on saving around a thousand dollars just to cover everything. Right now I plan on upgrading the ram and hard drive, is there anything else I can do? And what are some good brands to buy from(I hear crucial and Kingston are good). Finally what is the degree of difficulty.

Like xUKHCx posts with less money you can maxout your MB.

With $1K you could buy a new one during summer...
Sell yours + your saved money and could get to a new MBP!
________
Virago

 

[nikhsub1]

There really isn't anything else you can upgrade.

It is really easy to upgrade both the ram and the hd.

$1000 seems overkill.

for example cruical ram is $114 for 4GB

OWC sells a 320GB hd for $190

So assuming you want to stuff it full and you have to buy the screwdrivers it wil set you back at most ~$330

I don't understand why people order from OWC, newegg has the same stuff cheaper.

 

[xUKHCx]

Like xUKHCx posts with less money you can maxout your MB.

With $1K you could buy a new one during summer...
Sell yours + your saved money and could get to a new MBP!

This is also a worthwhile point to consider. By the summer the MB might be updated again so you could see your and use the $1000 to buy the latest one and with the extra money upgrade that.

I don't understand why people order from OWC, newegg has the same stuff cheaper.

I have no idea as I am a brit but OWC seems to come up regularly enough so it stuck out in my mind when I was trying to dig up american prices.

 

[ChrisN]

Just wondering if it is better to put in 2 sticks of 2gb of ram or 1 stick of 4gb ram.

Also when switching hd is there a way to transfer the things on the hd from hd to hd or do i need to backup my original hard drive then just put it in?

Thanks,
ChrisN

 

[Neil321]

Just wondering if it is better to put in 2 sticks of 2gb of ram or 1 stick of 4gb ram.

Also when switching hd is there a way to transfer the things on the hd from hd to hd or do i need to backup my original hard drive then just put it in?

Thanks,
ChrisN

First things first you will find you have a hard job finding 4GB of RAM in a single stick

My way of doing a HD swap

1 buy a 2.5 enclosure
2 put new drive in it
3 use http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html to clone over contents to it
4 boot from it
5 if ok swap drives

Some people have different ways of doing this but it all amounts to the same thing

 

[nikhsub1]

Just wondering if it is better to put in 2 sticks of 2gb of ram or 1 stick of 4gb ram.

Also when switching hd is there a way to transfer the things on the hd from hd to hd or do i need to backup my original hard drive then just put it in?

Thanks,
ChrisN

You want 2 identical sticks of RAM, so 2x2GB is better than one 4GB stick, although, I wasn't aware of any 4GB laptop RAM modules yet.

 

[ChrisN]

I dont know if there are I was just wondering if 2 sticks of identical are better than 1 stick of double but I guess 2 sticks are better. So all the hd in the topic of best hard drives for under 200 are good to use with the macbook right?

 

[Neil321]

I dont know if there are I was just wondering if 2 sticks of identical are better than 1 stick of double but I guess 2 sticks are better. So all the hd in the topic of best hard drives for under 200 are good to use with the macbook right?

yep,i have the WD 320GB its a great drive

 

[juanster]

i don't exactly know how you want to do the transfer of hd, but if you justw ant to keep everything you've got right nw and just swap hd's the best way I'd say make a clone of you drive right now with CCC (it's donationware) and just swap em afterwards extreeeemely easy and painless, but you ll need a 2.5 hd enclosure and the cable also keep in mind it will take about 3 hours for 80 gbs of data with a usb cable

 

[ChrisN]

Finally when you install the new things and your all done and reboot will all of the changes show up in about my mac or my mac section?

 

[ChrisN]

How do I know how much memory my macbook can hold? Can I find it out by serial number, I got mine around May from Micro Center. So can it hold 3 or 2 gb of ram?

 

[Yaboze]

I believe only the Fall 2007 Santa Rosa ones can run 4GB.

 

[147798]

I don't understand why people order from OWC, newegg has the same stuff cheaper.

I used to buy at Newegg all the time when I was PC. Now with Mac, OWC's products are easier to determine if they are Mac-capable. Also, OWC has more Mac options (e.g. last I looked, I couldn't find a FW800 external HDD enclosure on Newegg).