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Upgrading my Late 08 MB

Z

ZenWLH

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 5, 2009
14
0
Hey everyone... I bought a new Late 08 Macbook a few weeks ago and I'm ready to upgrade it's RAM to the capacity and putting in a huge hard drive. I believe the max RAM is 4GB so I'll be putting in RAM from http://www.macramdirect.com/macbook.html

I'm also looking at new hard drives. I'm not sure if a 7200 rpm will ruin and burn out my macbook. Is it worth getting that extra speed? I'm just really worried that if I get the 7200 around 500 GB(1TB if it's available on a 2.5") hard drive it will overheat my new Mac.


Also, when you guys open up your computers, do you use grounding straps?


Thanks.
 
A 7200RPM hard drive will not burn out your macbook if anything you will lose a little bit of battery life seeing as the drive has to spin faster. Also you don't need to use a grounding strap at least I didn't when I upgraded my RAM.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. Are there 1TB hard drives for laptops? And can anyone direct me to the most reliable RAM and Hard drives? Everywhere I look it isn't right and I'm also worried if my MB will 'reject' the RAM...
 
500GB is the max. I personally don't think 7200RPM drives are worth the extra money. They tend to be louder/hotter than 5400 drives and the extra performance you get out of them is negligible.

I would recommend this drive. Some say it performs almost as good as its 7200rpm rivals, but at 5400rpm.


As for the RAM, I am not all the familiar with macramdirect.com. Most people go with 3rd party RAM producer crucial. I always buy from them and their RAM has never let me down.
http://www.crucial.com/mac/index.aspx
 
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Buy the RAM from Crucial - they test it for your computer, so it will work (barring a defect, that is).

500GB is currently the biggest notebook drive you can get.
 
Aluminum or White? 6GB is the max but 4GB SODIMMs are very expensive so for all practical purposes, 4GB is the max. There are no 1TB laptop drives yet. 500GB is the biggest. I haven't noticed my 7200RPM drive being any hotter or louder than 5400RPM drives.
 
I think you can get a better buy from www.newegg.com where you can still buy crucial RAM. I bought my crucial from there and they have reviews from people who have used the RAM in their computers so that's how I knew it was going to work.
 
Thanks a ton guys.


Oh, sorry for all the questions but I don't want to mess everything up. So here's my last question, when I buy my new Hard Drive, how do I move all my apps and files to the new hard drive?
 
ZenWLH said:
Thanks a ton guys.


Oh, sorry for all the questions but I don't want to mess everything up. So here's my last question, when I buy my new Hard Drive, how do I move all my apps and files to the new hard drive?
Click to expand...

I would buy a small external USB case. Newegg has them starting at $8. Pop the new drive in. Format. Clone the old drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! Reboot on the external to test. Then swap drives.
 
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