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

lovingsharks

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 13, 2008
3
0
I bought a white Macbook off ebay that works fine, but I would like to increase the memory, specifically the hard drive. The current hard drive is 120 gb, and I would like to increase it to 500 gb. I was looking at some of the hard drives available online, but I don't know which one would be good to put into my computer. Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated.
 
I bought a white Macbook off ebay that works fine, but I would like to increase the memory, specifically the hard drive. The current hard drive is 120 gb, and I would like to increase it to 500 gb. I was looking at some of the hard drives available online, but I don't know which one would be good to put into my computer. Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated.

increasing the hard drive isn't the same as increasing memory.

if you want to increase RAM goto www.crucial.com and do their system scanner.


if you want to increase your Hard Drive space - google for a 2.5" SATA with whatever storage type you want - (5400RPM vs 7200RPM is another question all together)


you can search MacRumors on the top right of each page, and you can search google to find these answers very easily. which you should probably try to do next time


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=MacBook+hard+drive&btnG=Search
 
Thanks, but ...

Thank you, but I want to know what brand of 2.5" SATA 500 gb hard drive has the better or more reliable hard drive. I know the general drive that I want, but I don't understand what the differences are between the different brands available.
 
For the past several years, I've bought nothing but Seagate drives and they've been great... HOWEVER, Seagate's desktop drives have been getting sorry reviews lately, so I'm a bit leery to recommend any Seagate. I've also had excellent luck with Western Digital drives.

Size is a question you have to answer yourself. How much space do you need? Have you used the 120GB yet? If not, why upgrade? Unless...

Speed is another question. 7200 RPM drives are faster (I have one in my white Macbook), but they often cause vibration (I can feel mine on the wrist rest and around the trackpad) and eat into battery life (I see basically no difference here). They're also more expensive. For most people 5400 RPM drives are fine, but if you want max performance, get a 7200 RPM.

Finally, have you upgraded (or plan to upgrade) the memory/RAM? The white Macbook only comes with 1GB standard (unless its the newest model) and that's just not enough for Leopard (barely enough for Tiger). I recommend maxing out the memory - depending on the model, it may be 2, 3, or 4GB. What are the other specs of the Macbook? You can check the max memory capacity on www.everymac.com.

The white Macbooks are still great little computers - I love mine! The only thing I'd trade mine for is the new white one with the nVidia graphics. :D
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.