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smitty8202

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 18, 2011
82
12
Okinawa, Japan
would it be cheaper to buy a low end macbook pro with a 250gb hard drive and 4gb ram then upgrade it later or just add it when im checking out of the apple store.
 
RAM and HDDs are always cheaper outside Apple. You can get a WD drive that holds 500GB for $80 or cheaper... Apple charges you what? Minimum $120 for that.

Edit - Prices on a WD 500GB Drive:

Bare Drive Scorpio Blue - Click Me $53.99

Scorpio Blue Retail - Click Me $59.99

Bare Drive Scorpio Black - Click Me $69.99


Even the most expensive Black drive is not even half what Apple charges...
 
Wow the HDD drives are SO CHEAP now! I feel so ancient. 50?!? I think even a year ago they were 180+
 
The WD Caviar Black is IMO one of the best hard disk drives on the market today. It is a much better drive than the standard Apple ones, and costs a fraction of what Apple charges to go from the standard to 'premium' hard drive. You could also purchase a solid state drive (SSD) as well for much less.

As far as RAM, buy it from an outside source. IIRC it is $400 to go from 4 to 8 GB from Apple; some people here have gotten 8GB for as little as $75; I got mine for about $100.
 
so what is the difference between the hard drives. cause i was looking on apple and there are raid, solid state and just a regular i guess. i have no idea knowledge of this king of thing
 
so what is the difference between the hard drives. cause i was looking on apple and there are raid, solid state and just a regular i guess. i have no idea knowledge of this king of thing


You don't need a RAID. HDD is the standard spinning hard drive. SSD is super fast, and super expensive
 
You are probably just looking for a regular internal hard drive to upgrade so a 500gb or even 1Tb hard drive would be nice upgrades and a lot cheaper than apple. You can check http://www.newegg.com to check prices and read reviews.. SSD will make your macbook boot and load apps faster but they are really expensive.
 
You are probably just looking for a regular internal hard drive to upgrade so a 500gb or even 1Tb hard drive would be nice upgrades and a lot cheaper than apple. You can check http://www.newegg.com to check prices and read reviews.. SSD will make your macbook boot and load apps faster but they are really expensive.

ok thanks but what kind will work in a 15" MBP
 
The WD Caviar Black is IMO one of the best hard disk drives on the market today. It is a much better drive than the standard Apple ones, and costs a fraction of what Apple charges to go from the standard to 'premium' hard drive. You could also purchase a solid state drive (SSD) as well for much less.

As far as RAM, buy it from an outside source. IIRC it is $400 to go from 4 to 8 GB from Apple; some people here have gotten 8GB for as little as $75; I got mine for about $100.

I'm sure for a desktop they are, but i don't think those models will fit in the MBP. I'm sure you meant to say WD Scorpio Black.;)
 
ok thanks but what kind will work in a 15" MBP

I would go to newegg in the internal laptop hard drive section. Find the size you want and then start reading the reviews looking for satisfied macbook pro customers. I have heard the WD scorpio black hard drives are good as others have stated.
 
ok i am look on newegg.com and i can refine the search to search only SATA drives but which gb size do i need?

We can't make that decision for you. What are you going to be using your mbp for? Some people need lots of room for movies or games. Some are just fine with the 250gb available already.

If you are not sure you will use the 250gb you have I wouldn't upgrade just yet. I use my macbook for lots of movies so id like atleast 720gb or even a 1TB so I have plenty of space.
 
Take this with a grain of salt. Copied directly from WD's site. Screen shot 2011-01-24 at 8.36.58 PM.png
 
thanks for all the advice guys. i mainly will be using it for pretty much everything as well as making mac applications which can be over a gig depending on the app, so i think a tb would be good.
 
thanks for all the advice guys. i mainly will be using it for pretty much everything as well as making mac applications which can be over a gig depending on the app, so i think a tb would be good.

Your an application developer but you didn't know what size HDD to get, what type of HDD to look for, or the diference between an SSD, HDD, and RAID?
 
well up an coming. i am new to mac cut me some slack.

That's a lot of code to need multiple gigabytes to store it.

Personally I'd go for a fast processor, an upgraded [high resolution] screen, and a good amount of RAM. You probably want to invest in an external drive for backing up your data.
 
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