MBP buying advice - CTO online or stock from a store?

[alFR]

I'm after a bit of advice from the MacRumors hive mind, if you please.

I'm going to buy my first Mac, a 15" 2.33 C2D MBP, in the New Year (don't need it before that, so I thought I would wait until after MWSF in case iLife gets updated). I am trying to decide whether to buy the 120Gb HDD stock model from our local Apple store or to get the 160Gb HDD as a CTO option online. Obviously this partly depends on my storage requirements, which I'm in the process of estimating - I currently have about 55Gb of data, but it's hard to be sure how quickly that's going to expand! However, I could either go down the larger internal HDD route or get the smaller internal drive and buy an external (if required later) if there was a compelling reason to go stock over CTO.

I wondered if there were any other factors I should take into account re: where to buy. As I see it, the pros and cons are:

Buying online: can CTO, but if I buy CTO I'll have to ship it back if I need an exchange and there may be (according to some posts I've read on here) more chance of issues with CTO machines than stock.
Buying in store: immediate satisfaction , can easily do an exchange on the spot if I need to but can't get CTO options.

Anyone think of any other things I haven't considered? Anyone got any comment on whether you're more likely to have issues with a CTO machine vs. a stock one?

Thanks!

 

[gr8tfly]

I'm after a bit of advice from the MacRumors hive mind, if you please.

I'm going to buy my first Mac, a 15" 2.33 C2D MBP, in the New Year (don't need it before that, so I thought I would wait until after MWSF in case iLife gets updated). I am trying to decide whether to buy the 120Gb HDD stock model from our local Apple store or to get the 160Gb HDD as a CTO option online. Obviously this partly depends on my storage requirements, which I'm in the process of estimating - I currently have about 55Gb of data, but it's hard to be sure how quickly that's going to expand! However, I could either go down the larger internal HDD route or get the smaller internal drive and buy an external (if required later) if there was a compelling reason to go stock over CTO.

I wondered if there were any other factors I should take into account re: where to buy. As I see it, the pros and cons are:

Buying online: can CTO, but if I buy CTO I'll have to ship it back if I need an exchange and there may be (according to some posts I've read on here) more chance of issues with CTO machines than stock.
Buying in store: immediate satisfaction , can easily do an exchange on the spot if I need to but can't get CTO options.

Anyone think of any other things I haven't considered? Anyone got any comment on whether you're more likely to have issues with a CTO machine vs. a stock one?

Thanks!

As it turned out, I waited a week and a half more than the original on-line orders to get mine in-store. Main reason: I could check out the machine before leaving. wtb: 17" MBP C2D stock config.

Both stores I contacted on Tuesday had CTO glossy and stock matte machines. Don't know about drive upgrades. As far as I knew, they all were 160GBs (again, these were 17").

In-store checkout was stressful, but I did end up with a perfect machine.

Virtually silent operation, even when fans get up over 3000 RPM. Case top MUCH cooler than PBG4 17". Don't know about bottom, as it's on a Podium CoolPad (not the one with fans - just the "lazy susan" kind).

 

[FFTT]

If your laptop is your one and only machine, that means your digital life
is on that machine.

Even the best HD's out there can fail, so without a good fast external drive,
you're leaving yourself vulnerable.

I like the new 160 GB perpendicular drives, but you would be safer buying
something like the WD MyBook Pro external 250GB HD.

Obviously if you can find a local store that stocks the 160 GB drive
on a special purchase, then that's the way to go, but you should still
have an external for back-up.

 

[alFR]

Thanks for the input. Yes, I will be backing up! The reason I want to keep all my data in the one place is that at the moment I find myself constantly swapping files between a PC desktop at work, my home desktop and an ultraportable PC laptop (and inevitably I find I don't have the file I need when I'm working on a project). It'd be easier to keep everything on the laptop, but it really doesn't have the screen size or processing power for it to be my main work machine, hence the MBP (and my need for an onboard HDD big enough for all my stuff).