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Unibody MacBook.... max hard drive and ram possibilities?

wangchunggti337

wangchunggti337

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 14, 2007
208
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I am looking to upgrade my 13" aluminum unibody MacBook... would like to max out the ram and hard drive.... but I am not sure where to start. I have done a little research and see where the HDD and ram would go under the back latch, seems easy enough.

What I don't know is what the max possibilities are for each. What is involved in swapping? What brands and where to order? How do I format the drive and get all my info on the new drive? I assume I could use carbon copy, etc

Any help or a point in the right direction would be appreciated.
 
I've figured out how to swap the hard drive and ram... seems pretty straight forward, especially considering I have the aluminum macbook with the removable panel on the back.

But I am still wondering... can I get away with 8gb of ram?

What's the biggest hard drive I can get away with?
 
wangchunggti337 said:
But I am still wondering... can I get away with 8gb of ram?
Click to expand...

You can find specs on all Apple products, including maximum RAM:
  • By visiting EveryMac.com: Actual Maximum RAM
  • By using Mactracker
  • By entering your serial number here to find specs for your model. (Be aware that some models can use more RAM than Apple shows. Check EveryMac or MacTracker to verify.)
wangchunggti337 said:
What's the biggest hard drive I can get away with?
Click to expand...
Whatever will physically fit (2.5 inch) .... I believe the highest capacity available now is 1TB.
 
Last edited:
wangchunggti337 said:
I've figured out how to swap the hard drive and ram... seems pretty straight forward, especially considering I have the aluminum macbook with the removable panel on the back.

But I am still wondering... can I get away with 8gb of ram?

What's the biggest hard drive I can get away with?
Click to expand...

Those guides I linked to explained everything, even the maximum amount of RAM and the maximum HDD size (any 2.5" HDD with a maximum height of 12.5mm - 1 TB).
 
if you have done your updates, you should be able to put 8 gigs of ram in there no problem.

as for harddrive, its just like everyone said, 2.5" sata 12.5mm thick. There is no real restriction on how much space the drive can have. At least not one that can be reached at this time.
 
Hey,
Merry Christmas...
You can put 8gb of ram in no problem. Many arder it from OWC and Amazon. Crucial is generally a good brand and you can get 8gb for just over 35 USD's
Your mac uses a 2.5 inch drive so whatever could physically fit will work. Right now the largest is 1 tb (or 1000 gb) I have heard (but no real evidence) that 2.5" drives that are 1tb are prone to failing so you may want to consider a 750gb Hard drive.

Enjoy the upgrades, it will be like a new mac!

Happy Holidays.
 
Thanks for all the tips....


Any other advice on 1TB vs 750GB... a failing hard drive is not something I want to deal with. An extra 250gb could definitely come in handy, but 750gb is better if more reliable.
 
wangchunggti337 said:
Thanks for all the tips....


Any other advice on 1TB vs 750GB... a failing hard drive is not something I want to deal with. An extra 250gb could definitely come in handy, but 750gb is better if more reliable.
Click to expand...


I've been a Western Digital fan for nearly 20 years.
Personally, if it was in the budget I would have no problem buying a 1TB WD drive simply because of the history I've had with them.

7200RPM WD drives are very expensive. 750GB is well over $200 right now on Newegg.. I havent looked anywhere else but I would suggest you decide on a budget and buy the highest capacity and highest quality drive you can within that range.
 
Quick bump - what's the consensus on ram speeds these days? Last time I checked, people were claiming ram faster than Pc8500 (1066 MHz) caused issues. I'm weighing up upgrading to 8 GB and would like to get the fastest memory I can as I might buy a new MBP next year and I can see Apple sticking with 4 GB as a baseline.

So, will PC10666 (1333MHz) or above work in a late 2008 unibody?
 
That sucks. On Windows systems (with old-school bios chips) you can put faster memory than spec'd and the system will "underclock" it to run at the lower speed that the system expects (memory is supposed to be backwards compatible as specified by JEDEC). From some reports I've heard it sounds like Macs actually run the memory at full speed even if the motherboard chipset isn't compatible leading to all sorts of problems, but then others seem to be able to run faster memory than spec'd quite happily with no problems!
 
They will down clock you are right. But what is the use of buying a higher clock speed and then the system would later downclock? You are not getting your money's worth then. Am I right?
 
Nameci said:
They will down clock you are right. But what is the use of buying a higher clock speed and then the system would later downclock? You are not getting your money's worth then. Am I right?
Click to expand...

Not exactly.
For example...

My desktop maxes out at 1333Mhz RAM
On Black Friday, Newegg had a rockin deal on 1600Mhz RAM.
Bought 16GB for $60! and it works fine at 1333Mhz in my machine.

So that flexibility in many PC components is a good thing for techies who know how to play with stuffs. ;)
 
I'm probably going to get a new mbp this year and I can see Apple sticking with 4 gb ram so I'd like to get 8 gb now that I can move across to a new machine.
 
kiranmk2 said:
I'm probably going to get a new mbp this year and I can see Apple sticking with 4 gb ram so I'd like to get 8 gb now that I can move across to a new machine.
Click to expand...

And your question (if there is one) is still about the RAM speed?

If that is the case, I use a 2009 MBP with two 4 GB RAM modules with 1333 MHz, and Mac OS X even recognised them with that speed, though I don't know, if they run at that speed.
 
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