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MBP Horror Story... Lesson Learned

W

wnxgenral

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 14, 2008
286
16
so not even a year into owning my shiny MBP 15.4, the OSX partition crashed and I lost everything. Lesson learned, I need to buy a nice external HD to backup my stuff. So here are my questions for you guys.

What is a nice portable small external HD... one I don't need to plug into the wall and the computer, pref around 320GB.

Also I am going to freshly install OSX 10.6 so I think its time to go from 2GB to 4GB, what is the best RAM for my MBP 15.4 2.4GHz Unibody and where should I pick that up from?

Thanks,
Jack :apple:
 
wnxgenral said:
so not even a year into owning my shiny MBP 15.4, the OSX partition crashed and I lost everything. Lesson learned, I need to buy a nice external HD to backup my stuff. So here are my questions for you guys.

What is a nice portable small external HD... one I don't need to plug into the wall and the computer, pref around 320GB.

Also I am going to freshly install OSX 10.6 so I think its time to go from 2GB to 4GB, what is the best RAM for my MBP 15.4 2.4GHz Unibody and where should I pick that up from?
Click to expand...

There's a great thread about suggestions for various small bus-powered external hard drives here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/792245/

And, yes, definitely agree with the upgrade to 4 GB RAM though I hear it can be bit of a PITA opening up an unibody due to its small screws. Places to get RAM includes newegg.com, OWC (macsales.com), amongst others.

When you get the new hard drive, be sure to turn on Time Machine and tell it to use the drive for backups. The first backup will take the longest, but subsequent backups should normally be quick.
 
For ram, I went with Crucial, and for HDDs I always go with Western Digital. Never had any problems with either companies.
 
Personally,

I recommend some of the Westerdigital passports...(granted most USB ppowered drives will consume two usb ports as an FYI)

Otherwise a build it yourself solution is nice.

OWC has a nice 2.5" drive enclosure for around $20 and you can pick up a drive of any size from newegg for relatively cheap $49 ~ $60 for a 250~320gb drive.

otherwise firewire ishighly recommended, and the link above has the firewire enclosure that would work fine.
 
Does it really need to be portable???

It might be better (not to mention cheaper or bigger capacity) to get a normal external hard drive that stays at home / work for the backups. At least that way if you laptop gets stolen you still have the backup, rather than potentially having the portable hard drive backup in the same bag.
 
AppleNewton said:
Personally,

I recommend some of the Westerdigital passports...(granted most USB ppowered drives will consume two usb ports as an FYI)

Otherwise a build it yourself solution is nice.

OWC has a nice 2.5" drive enclosure for around $20 and you can pick up a drive of any size from newegg for relatively cheap $49 ~ $60 for a 250~320gb drive.

otherwise firewire ishighly recommended, and the link above has the firewire enclosure that would work fine.
Click to expand...
I have yet to use one of those little enclosures but they're a great idea especially if you upgrade your stock drive and have an old drive just laying around.
 
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