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Replacing the MacBook RAM, Hard Drive (Video) and Benchmarks

3007FPW 30" 2560 x 1600 Is $2199 From Dell But Already $1660 Buy Now On eBay

PaulinMaryland said:
If it comes soon, you'll be wringing your hands for buying a MacBook instead of a MacBook Pro!

I'm fanatical about the virtues of large displays with millions of pixels. For years, I've been saying that prices fall by about 20 percent a year. However, I think that that figure is proving conservative. What we're seeing is a hastening of the trickle-down of good things to the masses. So: $999 shipped for a 30-inch 2560 x 1600? My guess is the second half of 2008. But not from Apple.
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Well I don't think Dual DVI support from the MacBook is in the cards for another year or more anyway. But I wonder if two more years isn't excessively conservative. The Dell 30" is already down to $1660 on eBay - delivered. :eek: :)

Please pardon me for straying off topic. Seems like tangentally relevant info to me. :)
 
Multimedia said:
2mm hex-L Key Opens the skid. Thank you. :)
Click to expand...

Hi, can anyone verify this? Because it doesn't open mine. It's one of those star shaped/headed keys (looking like this ---> * <---, with six symmetrical points) that seems to be required.

Lord only knows where you get one of them from. I might have to file grooves into my hex key!!!! So near, yet so far! :eek:

Dave
 
mrfop said:
Hi, can anyone verify this? Because it doesn't open mine. It's one of those star shaped/headed keys (looking like this ---> * <---, with six symmetrical points) that seems to be required.

Lord only knows where you get one of them from. I might have to file grooves into my hex key!!!! So near, yet so far! :eek:

Dave
Click to expand...


i used a small flat head, worke perfect.
 
That's a TORX Screw. Apple Loves Them

mrfop said:
Hi, can anyone verify this? Because it doesn't open mine. It's one of those star shaped/headed keys (looking like this ---> * <---, with six symmetrical points) that seems to be required.

Lord only knows where you get one of them from. I might have to file grooves into my hex key!!!! So near, yet so far! :eek:

Dave
Click to expand...
Torx. Sold in sets at your local HW store. Most are size 0 and 1 that Apple uses. :)
 
Multimedia said:
If you go with a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 120GB (or 160GB in July) drive the performance may be better than other brands because of their new perpendicular technology.

7200 RPM drives will wear your battery down faster. I advise against the 7200 for this reason. If battery life is not important to you, then 7200 is fine. But you can only go to 100GB so far - from what I've read here. I am not convinced you'll see that much performance improvement with 7200 for most applications.

I would rather have a bigger hard drive inside. It's the 160GB Seagate Momentus 5400.3 SATA for me after it ships in July.
Click to expand...

Did you actually get the 5400.3 and install it in your MacBook? I would like to do so, but see no indication that it is compatible with a MacBook. (Reply by e-mail appreciated)
 
Segate 5400.3 HDs Are 9.5mm Compatible Thin

AllenWatson said:
Did you actually get the 5400.3 and install it in your MacBook? I would like to do so, but see no indication that it is compatible with a MacBook. (Reply by e-mail appreciated)
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It's 9.5mm compatible thin. No problem. :)
 
OWC Offers 160Gb Hitachi Drive Upgrades

OtherWorld Computing is now offering the Hitachi 5K160 160Gb PMR HDD upgrade for the MacBook and MacBook Pro for $279 with same day shipping.

Now where's the Seagate 5400.3 so that they'll be some competition to drive the prices down? ;)

Details
 
OWC Offers 160Gb Hitachi Drive Upgrades - FINALLY!

I've been watching this thread for a while and was holding out for Seagate's SATA flavor of the 160 GB Momentus 5400.3 that was mentioned earlier to be released in July. I want as much breathing room as possible so I can comfortably run Boot Camp, Parallels, and all the OS X apps that I want to carry with me. My 60 GB drive on my MacBook is completely stuffed and have resorted to running Windows applications (both apps on Boot Camp and my Parallels drive image) on an external drive.

After trying deperately to keep my System drive from running out of space this weekend, I caved and placed an order for the 120 GB Seagate drive. Luckily I found the last post and quickly cancelled that order and ordered the Hitachi 160 GB drive instead! I would've kicked myself if I found out these were out and it was too late. Thank you for that! :)

I'm pretty loyal to Seagate products, but I can't wait any more and there didn't seem to be a good reason why Seagate hasn't released their SATA flavor of the 5400.3, so Hitachi wins my dollars this time.

I'll let you know how it works out...anybody else been holding out for a 160 GB SATA drive to use in their MacBooks?

P.S. The OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW 800/USB 2.0 drive enclosure for 2.5" SATA drives is now available, also! Now I can use my 60 GB drive as an external drive (in a very stylish case to boot!). It's available here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MSTG800U2K/.
 
I have also been following this thread and have been holding out for either the 5K160 (Hitachi) or the 5400.3 (Seagate) 160GB SATA drive.
I don't know why it is taking so long to get these out. Newegg has had the Seagate pATA version since just after I purchased my MBP almost 4 months ago and I expected these drives to be out in SATA months ago.
Anyway I am also partial to Seagate and they are always my first choice, however I have read a lot in the past few days regarding Hitachi's perpendicular recording process and it is supposed to be the best in the industry, they were not the first (Seagate was) but from what I read Hitachi changed the process on how they do it and that is why they were lagging behind Seagate but they are proud that they waited because they claim a better product than Seagate when it comes to these drives. I don't know how much of that is true, Seagate has a 5-year warranty but I have to admit after reading all that I did I am leaning toward the Hitachi 5K160 drive now.
Now the main reason I haven't jumped on the Macsales.com (OWC) deal is because I questioned if they truly had the drive in stock and ready to ship as they claimed on thier site because I can't find a SINGLE e-tailer (such as Newegg) who carries these drives, I don't see why OWC gets first "dibbs" on the Hitachi drives but I chatted with thier customer services today as well as e-mailed thier sales department and both confirmed that the drives are in fact in stock and they will ship the same day you order.
So now the only thing holding me back is the price, Newegg sells both the Seagate and Hitach drive (ATA versions) for just under or right at $200 and I know that when they get the SATA versions they will be priced the same or just a little above that price.
So my thinking has been that "if OWC truly has these in stock then Hitachi is shipping them and we are talking a matter of days at most before other e-tailers get them, at that point the prices will come down." So unless someone can explain to me why OWC is the only e-tailer who can get these drives I am going to keep waiting for Newegg or another e-tailer to get them.
 
I have a UPS tracking number

Altimeter88 said:
So my thinking has been that "if OWC truly has these in stock then Hitachi is shipping them and we are talking a matter of days at most before other e-tailers get them, at that point the prices will come down."
Click to expand...

I agree, it is odd (and that the drive is a bit overpriced)...but I do have a UPS tracking number for my order shipped out same day (as long as you order before 5 PM CST), so I'm pretty sure it's for real. I've never bought anything from OWC, but they're well respected (and I love their enclosures)...I usually order from Newegg myself, too.

I probably would have waited too for the price to come down and for more general availability (along with a competitive drive from Seagate), but my need for space was immediate...I waited 2 months already for the Seagate 160 GB drive to come out.
 
OK screw it, I am tired of waiting so I just placed my order. Total was $282 so definatly a little steep but I really need the space and am tired of waiting. I did find 2 more (not well known) e-tailers carrying this drive today but they were the same price or more than OWC.

Now I need to figure out the best/easiest way to get my data off the current 100GB drive and onto the new drive. If this were simply windows I could just use ghost or something. Perhaps I will make a ghost image of my Windows partition and just backup the data from the OSX partition, install the new hard drive, install boot camp, then try and use ghost to restore the XP image to the partition that boot camp created. I guess I will have to do some forum searching b/c I am sure that someone has had to do this before.

One more question, my OSX partition was filled with about 30GB of data when I first got my MBP, that seemed like an awful lot compared to the 2-3GB that windows installs, is there utterly useless stuff (like extra languages/fonts etc.) that Mac puts on by default that I can get rid of? If the 30gigs of data are the programs like iPhoto and iLife I want to keep that stuff but if there is stuff I don't know about and would never use I wouldn't mind trying to free up some space when I reinstall OSX.
 
Cloning your old drive to the new one

Altimeter88 said:
Now I need to figure out the best/easiest way to get my data off the current 100GB drive and onto the new drive. If this were simply windows I could just use ghost or something. Perhaps I will make a ghost image of my Windows partition and just backup the data from the OSX partition, install the new hard drive, install boot camp, then try and use ghost to restore the XP image to the partition that boot camp created. I guess I will have to do some forum searching b/c I am sure that someone has had to do this before.

One more question, my OSX partition was filled with about 30GB of data when I first got my MBP, that seemed like an awful lot compared to the 2-3GB that windows installs, is there utterly useless stuff (like extra languages/fonts etc.) that Mac puts on by default that I can get rid of? If the 30gigs of data are the programs like iPhoto and iLife I want to keep that stuff but if there is stuff I don't know about and would never use I wouldn't mind trying to free up some space when I reinstall OSX.
Click to expand...

I think you can just insert your Mac OS X install disk and can add/remove additional items (iLife apps, printer drivers, languages, etc.) I know you can do this when first setting up the OS. Yes, there is a lot of stuff that is installed that you probably won't use (I don't even have a printer and don't need language support other than English, for example) and you can save a lot of space by not including them. I had to reinstall OS X on my MacBook last night due to a failed 10.4.7 update (probably due to my storage shortage), so it's pretty nice and clean now.

I have an external drive that I can clone my System Partition to (using CCC or SuperDuper!), so that will help with the migration. When the new drive comes, I'll just clone from the external drive back to the internal. I haven't invested much in my Windows install, so I'm just going to re-run the Boot Camp Assistant and reinstall Windows.

Somebody on the forums has probably successfully copied both their OS X and Windows to new drives...and since I'm not attempting this, I'm speculating based on my experience with Windows.

1) If you use any type of partition cloning program for Windows, you'd have to make sure the partition size is the same on both your old drive and the new one...these programs will let you resize as needed, but I probably wouldn't change the size of the partition on your new drive. The little slider on the Boot Camp Assistant isn't very exact, so you likely won't get them exactly the same as you did when you ran it on your existing drive.

2) The easiest option (if it works) would probably be to use Partition Magic or something on the ENTIRE drive with the OS X partition and the Windows partition. Then you could resize the partitions the way you want them to adjust for your newly acquired space.

3) If there's a cloner program like Carbon Copy Cloner of SuperDuper! available for Windows (which copies files, not the partition), that should work just fine, also.

Good luck with this! :)
 
I got my Hitachi 5K160!

My Hitachi 5K160 arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I missed the step about using a size 8 Torx screwdriver to remove the old drive from the bracket. I was still able to get the drive in the MacBook without the bracket, but I need to get the bracket off so I can put it in the 2.5" SATA enclosure that will be arriving today.

The drive seems to run fast...it was copying about 16MB/sec using SuperDuper! I selected 31 GB for my Windows partition with Boot Camp Assistant which made the partition 31.7 GB...just under the FAT32 limit. I don't know if I'll keep the partition as FAT32, but at least I have the option to and shouldn't need more than 32 GB for Windows.

Once I get everything up and running again, I'll be a very happy camper :D
 
ShadowStar said:
My Hitachi 5K160 arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I missed the step about using a size 8 Torx screwdriver to remove the old drive from the bracket. I was still able to get the drive in the MacBook without the bracket, but I need to get the bracket off so I can put it in the 2.5" SATA enclosure that will be arriving today.

The drive seems to run fast...it was copying about 16MB/sec using SuperDuper! I selected 31 GB for my Windows partition with Boot Camp Assistant which made the partition 31.7 GB...just under the FAT32 limit. I don't know if I'll keep the partition as FAT32, but at least I have the option to and shouldn't need more than 32 GB for Windows.

Once I get everything up and running again, I'll be a very happy camper :D
Click to expand...

My drive should be here on Monday, I am thinking of refusing the shipment b/c it looks like ZipZoomFly.com has the drive listed on their site now for $179 with free shipping. It is out of stock indicating that it quickly sold out or that they don't have it yet and should have it anyday. They usually put the item up (but out of stock) a few days/weeks before getting the item. I order a decent amount of stuff from them and they are quite good. I imagine if they have it soon so will Newegg.
I will keep an eye on those sites this weekend.

Also where did you get the instructions for replacing the hard drive in the MacBook Pro, I heard that it is not as easy as the regular MacBook.

I noticed you were doing Fat32, you can make your partition bigger than 32GB for windows if you want, XP will only format up to 32GB but if you needed/wanted a bigger partition you could always install partition magic and it would format the remainder of the space and still have it as one partition. Or if it is possible, make the partition with Boot Camp, boot with Partition Magic and format the entire partition if it is bigger than 32GB, then put the XP install disk in and just install to the partition.
I don't even know if you want a bigger partition but just in case I thought I would throw that out.
It would be nice if 10.5 could read/write to NTFS.

Anyway good luck with your new drive, it looks like it should be pretty fast and do a good job, I am excited to get mine installed.
 
Altimeter88 said:
Also where did you get the instructions for replacing the hard drive in the MacBook Pro, I heard that it is not as easy as the regular MacBook.

I noticed you were doing Fat32, you can make your partition bigger than 32GB for windows if you want, XP will only format up to 32GB but if you needed/wanted a bigger partition you could always install partition magic and it would format the remainder of the space and still have it as one partition. Or if it is possible, make the partition with Boot Camp, boot with Partition Magic and format the entire partition if it is bigger than 32GB, then put the XP install disk in and just install to the partition.
I don't even know if you want a bigger partition but just in case I thought I would throw that out.
Click to expand...

ZipZoomFly is a good source and where I ended up cancelling my order for a 120 GB Seagate drive before I knew the 5K160 was out. the 120 GB was about $167 there, so if the 5K160 comes out there at the $179 price point, that would be a steal.

Yeah, I've heard about the trick about extending the partition after the fact, but I really don't need more than 32 GB anyway. The only real reason I need that partition is for games. I will use Parallels mainly for Visual Studio and Streets and Trips (which is WAY better than the mapping software that's available for OS X). I'm just now sinking my teeth into Cocoa development with Xcode, so it will be easier to port over some C# code in a virtual machine than having to reboot with Boot Camp.

I have a MacBook, not a Pro, and know the Pro is not as easy to install as the MacBook.
 
Gma 950

Hi there, I just bought a MacBook. I was just wondering....How many video memory will windows xp take from the gma 950 if I try to install windows xp using bootcamp? Will it be 64MB just like Tiger or can I set it higher (for example 128MB).

Thanks for the help
 
I didn't realize that NewEgg had the SATA version in stock; you must have ordered the day they arrived.

I just received mine from mwave.com--same price you paid.
 
If anybody has put a 7200rpm drive in their MacBook, please let me know.

I want to see some hard numbers on performance and battery to see if its worth it.

And I don't need people telling me that there won't be a performance difference between a 5400rpm and 7200rpm drive, the hard drive is the first bottleneck in a computer.
 
Huzzah

PaulinMaryland said:
I didn't realize that NewEgg had the SATA version in stock; you must have ordered the day they arrived.

I just received mine from mwave.com--same price you paid.
Click to expand...

Just placed my Newegg order last night for 2Gb of RAM and the 5k160 and it has already shipped. I tried to wait for the Seagate, but with 2Gb left of the BlackBook's 80Gb disk, I had to move on the Hitachi.

I doubt I'll be disappointed. My Macbook is now a Maxedbook
 
Can anyone confirm exactly what tools are needed to replace your ram and hard drive? I have heard its a #00 Phillips for the 3 screws and a Torx number 8 for the hard drive casing. Is that correct? Oh, I am speaking specifically about the macbook.
 
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