MacBook White - Harddrive Upgrade

[shabba]

I know this question has been asked before (probably countless times LOL) but I just need everything cleared up since im a new(ish) comer to OSX.

As it currently stands I have a MacBook 13inch White 512mb RAM 60gb HD.

I plan on upgrading to 2gb of RAM and 120-160GB HardDrive, I want to use this as my desktop computer, I have an external monitor well I have a few eventually I want to get a external graphics box so I can have all 3 monitors running (not including the mac). Is this a bad idea? I see no reason for it being bad but is there a major issue to doing this?

The ram upgrade actually came out rather cheap just £82 pound for 2gig, RAM's not to badly priced in the UK, but I haven't a clue what harddrive I will need, I think it should be 4200rpm, 160gb S-ATA 2.5inch erm thats about all I know could anyone share a link to a reasonably priced 120-160GB Harddrive.

Last question, how do I go about ghosting my current 60gb one to the nice and big one?

~shabba

 

[Lovesong]

Any of these HDs will do
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000150380+1035907918&name=Serial+ATA150

Basically you're looking for a 5400 RPM, 2.5-inch HD, using a SATA connection. You can ghost it using Carbon Copy cloner or SuperDuper.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Now, I'm not sure that you'll be able to push that much screen real estate with the intergrated graphics chip. That thing can push up to 1900 by 1200, externally. I'll leave that to someone else.

 

[xJulianx]

You'll need a hard drive enclosure to make the copy of your drive. You can then use your old HD as an external.

 

[shabba]

Thanks for all of the advice

I am just about to purcahse a 160GB Segate harddrive.

I am going to use SuperDuper as it looks like better software, I am having some worrys about how to do the backup, do I need to backup the whole harddrive exluding system settings and tempory files? Also do how to I clone it back-on as this is the only mac I own?

I am going to be backing up to an external harddrive and the new harddrive is in a caddy.

 

[onebloodonelife]

I upgraded my spankin' new Macbook with a 160GB Western Digital drive. It really was very, very easy. I opted to not clone my old drive and just backed up my iTunes library and a few other things I needed from my old computer. Works like a charm

 

[shabba]

how did you do it then? Just install with the OSX discs?

 

[odinsride]

I just replaced my 80gb macbook HDD with a 100gb 7200rpm one last night.

Just some advice for you, when you're ready to replace yours, MAKE SURE you have a TORX T8 screwdriver. When I pulled out the hard drive, I cursed, and had to run to radio shack to pick up the right screwdriver.

 

[IAmNotMyName]

I expect to be replacing the HDD in my MB sometime soon too. 2 questions:

are there any heat issues if I upgrade to 7200rpm?

what's the largest capacity drive I can put in there? I use Parallels, and in addition to OS X I want a windows partition and probably 2 for Linux, one stable for 'real' work and one to play around and experiment with and possibly break.

 

[onebloodonelife]

how did you do it then? Just install with the OSX discs?

Yep, first I booted up with the original drive, put in the OSX discs and shutdown the computer. Then I replaced the drive and booted from the OSX discs. I had to format the drive with Disk Utility, then I reinstalled OSX, and it was all set to go.