Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Upgrading My Hard Drive

A

AliensExist4

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 2, 2007
49
0
Hi guys,
I have a late 2007 2.4 GHz 'Santa Rosa' MacBook Pro with a 160GB 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive. It's starting to get full and I already use an External so I think I'm ready to upgrade. What are my options? I'm looking for something maybe twice the size but still a 7200RPM. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
clyde2801: Thanks for the response. Is there anywhere I can check for updates or read anything about the 500GB? I was looking through OWC and the 320GB 7200RPM Seagate was what I was thinking about, but if a 500GB should be coming out soon then I'll def. just wait. Ya, I need 7200RPM due to mainly using the hard drive for audio recording/playback.
 
I have heard similar rumors about Seagate releasing a 500 GB 7,200-rpm notebook hard drive, however if you are comfortable performing the upgrade then most certainly get the 320 GB drive, that's twice the amount of space that you have now and should last you a bit longer.
 
will a faster drive speed help with Audio recording/playback? My impression was that faster drive speed was good for random reads and writes, but that constant read and writes wouldn't improve, and I would assume that audio wouldn't be random.
 
Please be aware that some 500GB 2.5" drives are a little thicker than standard. A colleague of mine attempted this and found that the case wouldn't quite close flush.
Some of the more recent 500GB drives are thin and do fit.
I can't be specific with makes and models but I would check the manufacturers specs for size before buying.
 
that's right, the height of the drive going into a 15" mbp should be 9.5mm, not 12mm. The 17" can handle 12mm apparently. Seagate's new 500GB 7200rpm drive that's not quite available yet is 9.5mm and should fit in a 15"mbp.
 
Ok, cool So I guess I'll just wait it out and see. As of right now I only have 8.17GB available on my current internal hard drive. Thanks,
 
Have you thought about SSD? i was strongly debating it when specing up my MBP but thought if i was going to go SSD i would do it myself as apple wanted an extra £330 for a 128Gb, i may wait for a bit as in the near future SSD's will be fitted as standard im sure of it.
ive watched a few comparison clips on youtube and looks like you will notice increased read a right speeds with less heat.
 
T10HJS: Ya, I have thought about SSD and think their awesome but they are still too low of a capacity for to much money. I'l prob. just end up getting the Seagate 320gb or the 500gb when it comes out.
 
Opinion: For most people there is little real world performance differences between having a 5400 vs 7200 RPM hard disk. Now if you are into OS builds and you are repeatedly running lengthy compiles that involve thousands of files you would want the fastest hard drive and the most memory that you can afford. However that is a corner case as is video processing. Again, most people are not IO bound to and from their hard disks.

That said, I run a 5400 RPM 500 GB hard drive in my Unibody MBP and carry all of my tunes along with a bunch of movies and a large BootCamp partition for XP and my MS work environment. Drives are cheap so why not?

Neil
 
Ha, thank you for all the replies everyone. I'm currently using Time Machine and an external hard drive for my backups. What would be the "right" way to install the new hard drive? A restore off of Time Machine? I'm considering doing the install myself, but how much would it be to have an Apple authorized reseller do it?

Thanks,
 
Restoring from a time machine back up is really easy, all you will have to do is install the new drive boot up with MAC OSX Cd install that then it will ask if you want to migrate from an old mac/back up and just select yes attach it via firewire and it will rebuild your Mac exactally as it was, obviously with your extra space :D

I'm toying with going for a 256GB SSD for the OS and Applications and using my 500Gb Lacie Rugged drive for all my data.
 
AliensExist4 said:
Hi guys,
I have a late 2007 2.4 GHz 'Santa Rosa' MacBook Pro with a 160GB 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive. It's starting to get full and I already use an External so I think I'm ready to upgrade. What are my options? I'm looking for something maybe twice the size but still a 7200RPM. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Western digital already has come out with a 500GB 2.5 inch notebook drive. Just google it and you should see it. I believe they are going for just $100.
 
Has anyone done full drive encryption with the 5400? How does that feel?
 
I've tried looking this up but is there any estimated guess till when Seagate would release a 500gb 7200rpm hard drive? Thanks,
 
just came in looking for this exact question: my question is: will the drive still use the accelerometer that protects the harddisk or is that only an option when built into the drive itself?
 
shigzeo: Good question, also wondering.

I guess I'll be waiting to get the 500gb then. I might give the install a shot as well. Is there any way to boot up the computer after I make the hard drive swap to know I installed it properly before screwing it all back together?

Thanks,
 
you could boot off any external disk: i think holding alt at startup to load the source disk selector. choose your usb, esata, firewire or other disk and boot up, try some transferring around with the new disk, then use your (hope you have it) time machine backup and get back in the game! good luck (for me too)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back