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Uni MB 13" Upgrades - up to 1TB HD and 4GB Ram

L

LERsince1991

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
1,245
37
UK
Intro
Hi, I'm looking for some advice. I'd like to spend the least amount possible to upgrade my laptop to a better spec. Ideally I'd get a 1TB WD HD and 4GB RAM but not sure if I can afford it! This totals at about £230.
There are other options but I'm not sure what to go with -

Hard Drive:
I currently have 250GB and its pretty much full
500GB for £55
500GB Passport (old model) for £78 (and swap drives)
750GB for £100 or
1TB for £140
Update: Got a 500GB passport for £55! and successfully swapped the drives over now so its all done!

I will probably use whatever I get with all my music, RAW photos, CAD models, all my work and stuff

RAM
I currently have 2GB RAM
3GB total (2GB stick) for £47
4GB total (x2 2GB sticks) for £94
UPDATE: I've ordered 4gb set for £70 offical Apple :)

I think I will use whatever RAM I have with RAW editing, CS4 (soon CS5), CAD software, rendering etc...

Just can't decide how much I should spend, what is priority and what to get
Luke.
 
Wow, your UniMB works fine with all that software? It seems as if mine (2.4, 4gb RAM, 640gb 5400rpm drive) slows to a crawl when trying to run just Aperture or iMovie.

But, I saw a noticeable speed improvement from both the hard drive and the extra RAM (I did them separately), so I would try to get both if you can afford it.
 
Most I want to spend really is 150 and thats still quite a bit at the moment.
It would cost about £230 for exactly what I want/need, I have the money, just not sure if its worth it really.

Would people say get 4gb RAM or just 3GB would be alright?
also not sure what HD I want lol :p
If I had money to blow then I would max it out but I just cant justify 230!

Aperture 3 is rather slow, well everything thats intensive is slow... :/ only got my macbook a year ago and wanted it to last about 5 years... didnt think i would max it out in a year...
 
I would recommend getting the 4gb of RAM first, since the paired RAM sticks will give you better speed, rather than mismatched sticks with 3gb.

While a bigger hard drive is good if you are running out of space, in my experience, a bigger drive with the same rotational speed of 5400rpm makes less impact on performance than extra RAM with heavy software like that.
 
Ditto to getting the 4GB of RAM. Upgrading from 2GB to 4GB on my 13" MBP made the biggest difference, it was very noticeable. I also upgraded my HDD to a 7200 drive. I know a lot of people say there's limited difference I'm sure things were opening faster and OS X was more responsive (though it could be psychological!) Unfortunately I'm not sure whether you can get 1TB 7200 2.5" drives without spending a bucket load, so on that basis I would say the biggest difference you will see will be with the RAM upgrade.
 
Thing is I need more HD space as well as mines full (nearly).
Apparently the 1TB disk is faster due to the more dense platters so it will be a speed increase but I'm not buying it for that.

RAM for more speed, HD for more space... I need both :/
 
Check the Marketplace. A guy is selling 2x2gb DDR3 for Macbooks/Pros for £79.99. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/877860/ :) Saves you a little bit you could put to a HDD.

Edit: Don't buy RAM new at the moment. It's not worth it. It's getting more and more expensive as each week goes by. It'll crash back to normal prices again eventually.
 
Ah awesome, thanks again ryan :)

yeh I thought it doubled in price lately!? sort of need it now though...
 
Currently sitting anywhere from £90 right up to about £140 depending on the manufacturer. It's expensive stuff! Two or three years ago I got 4gb DDR2 for £38 shipped. Goes to show how times change. I read something a while back that claimed the reason the price shot up was due to a coup in Guinea in 2008, where the minerals for RAM were sourced.
 
ordered 4GB RAM

Now... I might just go for the 500GB HD
Although the 1TB is VERY tempting!
 
The TB HDD has three platters of 300 ish GB, so it's more like a 640GB in terms of speed. There's more moving parts and more chances for something to fail. If I were you I'd go for an SSD and stick it in your CD drive area like I did.

You can get a small one for your price, probably an 80GB Intel, and it will give the most noticeable results.
 
if you just need more space I would recommend a usb powered external hard drive as you would still have your hdd (500gb) and a external one (500gb+) giving you 1TB+
 
Hi would anyone please be able to tell me if I can buy this WD passport hard drive then swap the drives around with my macbook?

Seems a really good price?! And looks like the older model where i believe people can swap the HD inside it?

Luke
 
Update: Got a 500GB passport for £55! and successfully swapped the drives over now so its all done!

- I actually swapped the drives last night at 4am drunk lol...
 
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