Switching hard disks: Process and selection

[Exploding Hat]

I'm finding the 160gb hard disk in my macbook to be a tad limiting and I was planning to switch it out for a bigger one. A few questions come to mind:

When I have the new hard disk, do I have the option of choosing either doing a fresh install of Leopard on my macbook using the disks that came in the box or creating a copy of my current hard disk on to an external and reinstalling from that?

In terms of choosing the new hard disk, Western Digital seem to be the most popular (on amazon, also fairly cheap). Not had a hard disk from this manufacturer before.. anything I should know about reliability?

Also, what's the big difference between 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm (aside from £13)?

 

[GfulDedFan]

When I have the new hard disk, do I have the option of choosing either doing a fresh install of Leopard on my macbook using the disks that came in the box or creating a copy of my current hard disk on to an external and reinstalling from that?

In terms of choosing the new hard disk, Western Digital seem to be the most popular (on amazon, also fairly cheap). Not had a hard disk from this manufacturer before.. anything I should know about reliability?

Also, what's the big difference between 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm (aside from £13)?

Yes, you have those options and here's another to consider. Buy an enclosure along with your drive. Next, put the new drive in the enclosure and clone your existing drive to it. Finally switch the drives to have a bigger version of everything exactly as it was plus a 160GB external in the enclosure to use as seen fit.

Western Digital is a reputable brand and seems to be reliable. Some of their products carry a 5-yr warranty. I'm very happy with mine.

The difference is speed which comes into play with boot time and program startup time. The 7200 will be somewhat peppier.

 

[Exploding Hat]

That's a good point... I was thinking of adding a 1TB external into the equation for some awesome storage... do you know what the best way would be to wirelessly network all my externals so that I can access them whilst I'm using my macbook in BBB (bed-based browsing) mode?

 

[sporadicMotion]

That's a good point... I was thinking of adding a 1TB external into the equation for some awesome storage... do you know what the best way would be to wirelessly network all my externals so that I can access them whilst I'm using my macbook in BBB (bed-based browsing) mode?

External hard drive? Yeah, just get a wireless network drive.

 

[Narcosynthesis]

I currently have a 320gb external drive, and have just bought another 320gb drive to replace the 120gb one in my macbook.

Using time machine, can I backup to the external drive, switch to the new one then reload the last image to the new drive?

I guess this may not be practical in many cases as it needs another drive, but I have that already...