Upgrading Macbook pro unibody

[kmkarim]

Hey guys,

I am thinking of upgrading my laptop which is a macbook pro 15" unibody laptop with a 5400RPM drive and 2GB of RAM (2.4GHz). I was wondering would it be more effective to upgrade to 4GB of RAM or to upgrade to a 7200RPM drive? Also if I get a drive would it make a difference if I get one with G-force protection or not?

Thanks,

kmkarim

 

[Bill Gates]

Adding more RAM would be more effective for most tasks, so I would tackle that first. A hard drive upgrade would make launching new applications, booting, and loading files faster, but only if you have sufficient memory for whatever programs you are running to begin with. If you upgrade the hard drive get a model that does not include a shock sensor, since there is already one built into the computer.

 

[0985463]

Whether RAM or Faster HD is best depends on what you are running, how memory intensive your applications are, and how much your applications rely on "swapfiles" (or "scratchfiles") on your hard disk. If I was running 2 GB RAM, I'd upgrade that first. However, in every case where I have upgraded RAM, to improve speed, I have also ended up upgrading to 7200 rpm hard drives eventually before I was really happy with speed.

When it comes down to it, I have found slow stock hard drives to more often be the most important speed bottleneck.

I'd not view upgrading HD and RAM as en either/or situation, altogether. I'd consider doing both, if you can afford it.

I upgrade just about the time I find I am really starting to get frustrated with speed as OS's and software "advance." Upgrading both gives me an extra year or two of tolerable use from a laptop.

 

[kmkarim]

Hrm well I game in windows and that seems fine for now but for Final cut pro would extra RAM or a faster HD be more beneficial for rendering times?

 

[nippyjun]

Both are very cheap now. You can get the memory for $50-60 and the hard drive for $70-85. The memory is easier to replace then the hard drive as far as time involved.

 

[kmkarim]

Well the reason im asking is because I can only afford one upgrade right now and im trying to decide which one would be more beneficial right now. Also is the motion RAM preview faster more RAM?