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Upgrading hard-drive black macbook

M

mojohojo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 24, 2006
140
0
noob question.

My macbook is a rev B (Late 2006). i want to upgrade my hard drive for more disk space. Is there some kind of maximum hard drive support they have like RAM or do any hard drive (of same type) work?

I believe my current is a 5400rpm 160gb. looking to upgrade to whatever biggest i can find, maybe 320gb 7200rpm. there won't be any problems with getting a 7200rpm right?
 
Any 2.5" (laptop) hard drive with a sata connection will work. The biggest one made is a 500 gig 7200 rpm drive by seagate, but they're hard to find. Otherwise, you can get a 320 gig seagate or wd drive with 7200 rpm. The wd scorpio black is quicker at reading and writing small bits of data, the seagate is faster at moving larger pieces. WD has 3 yr warranty, seagate has five.
 
Cheers.

clyde2801 said:
The wd scorpio black is quicker at reading and writing small bits of data, the seagate is faster at moving larger pieces.
Click to expand...

Don't quite get what you mean by that. Quicker at reading/writing meaning files/document load faster? and moving larger pieces as in copying data around? Mind elaborating on that?

I've also looked up abt difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm on a macbook, comments saying that there is not much improvements but much more noiser/vibration.
However, i do find right now my macbook is under stress, such as using Photoshop, illustrator, indesign consistently there will be lags, or even playing .mkv videos lags. Would getting a 7200rpm have any improvements over this?
 
From a hardware standpoint, if your intention is to get the maximum performance from your MacBook, you need to install a 4GB Ram kit (you'll get about 3.3 RAM usage) and a 7200 rpm hard drive* with extra room for swap space (500GB being the current maximum size). There is also a height restriction of 9.5mm that hasn't been mentioned in this thread as of yet.

I've had 2 different 7200 rpm drives (120GB Seagate and 320GB Scorpio Black) in my first gen white MB and neither one brought on the conditions that have been mentioned in threads that I've read; namely: excessive battery use, hotter temperatures, and excessive vibration. -GDF

*SSD technology seems to be competing in this arena but I feel that it's still in the development stage and thus cost prohibitive for larger drives.
 
yes, im thinking i might get a 4gb RAM too, not sure if it would make much difference to my current 2gb.

btw, how do i find out the height of hds? its not noted anywhere on like newegg.com

Any opinions on hitachi drives? WD and Seagate seem to be the 2 popular ones, but read some comments that Hitachi has a pretty good record. My macbook came with one with no problems so far (actually, i nvr had any hard drivers crash on me before), also cheaper than the other two.
 
Just make sure whichever one you buy is a 2.5" drive, thats the size you're looking for. As regards to the Hitachi, I just bought a 320GB one off OWC and have had no problems. I think it's just whichever brand/price you prefer.
 
mojohojo said:
btw, how do i find out the height of hds? its not noted anywhere on like newegg.com
Click to expand...

You can goto the manufacturer's site for complete specs. The greater than 9.5mm drives are becoming rare but just to be safe, it's better to check it out before you buy it. If it's too tall, it won't fit your MB.
 
The specs seem to say that for a 2006 macbook, the max hard drive is 200gb & max ram is 2gb. Would exceeding these, as suggested above, not cause problems?
 
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