I have a MacBook, and the little 80GB hard drive is almost full. I am looking for a large capacity replacement hard drive to put in. Any suggestions? so far, I've found this: Hard Drive
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June 17, 2008 5:00 p.m. Tommy Suddard
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June 17, 2008 5:01 p.m. Salanis HalfDork
I was going to suggest Seagate. That looks like a good choice. If possible, I'd say get two and run a RAID 0 array.
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June 17, 2008 5:05 p.m. Osterkraut New Reader
+1 Seagate. They're the bestest.
Does IBM still make the Deskstars aka Deathstars? If so, avoid those. I've also had problems with Maxtor.
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June 17, 2008 5:11 p.m. Tommy Suddard
Okay, I think I'll order it. On a related note, any suggestions on ram for this computer?
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June 17, 2008 5:26 p.m. Salanis HalfDork
Corsair
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June 17, 2008 5:27 p.m. Jerry From LA Reader
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1651
All the specs for your RAM are at the above URL. Any manufacturer meeting those specs will be fine. There isn't very much difference between memory board manufacturers. Not like a mechanical device such as your hard drive. So look for a good price. Your MacBook accepts only 500 meg or 1GB boards. There are only two slots.
Seagate is a great hard drive, but if money is an issue, try Western Digital or even Maxtor. Due to differences in software between PC and Mac, your MacBook doesn't need the hottest drive on the planet. Actually, they tend to work better with something a little slower. That can save you money.
If you haven't found them yet, there are many grassroot-y Mac upgrade websites. Check 'em out. Don't forget to ground yourself.
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June 17, 2008 5:41 p.m. ignorant SuperDork
I use whatever is a cheap USB plug in.
I got a 500GB USB plug in drive for $40 on close out from staples. It was a WD inside, but an elements brand outside.
I suggest www.slickdeals.net to look for cheap stuff. Your dad would be proud. -
June 17, 2008 6:40 p.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor
There's nothing special about mac drives. Find a good one for a good price. My sister got a 120 gig drive recently from Microcenter for a good price. And ask JG... he's got some sort of radar for good cheap drives.
However, Macs can be picky about good RAM. i usually go to ramseeker.com to find the best prices on any given day, and it's almost always 18004memory or whatever they call themselves.
You can put in 2gig ram for 4 total, but for most folks that's overkill. They purr along nicely with 2 gigs. They do like lots of RAM, so don't skimp there. It'll be way faster and more stable with more RAM in it.
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June 17, 2008 7:04 p.m. JG Pasterjak Production/Art Director
The last few things I've bought I've bought from Other World Computing. They know Macs and they build a lot of their own good stuff as well. And their prices are awesome.
I'd think about getting some portable drives, though.
jg
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June 17, 2008 7:09 p.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor
Yeah, OWC... that's 1800.. same folks. Good stuff.
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June 17, 2008 10:35 p.m. Lesley Dork
I have two LaCie external drives. Great for transporting big files back and forth, they work seamlessly with my G4, ibook, and the Mac Pro at the office. Best of all, I purchased the second one, 80 gig, off ebay for the grand sum of $40.
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June 18, 2008 9:44 a.m. Tommy Suddard
I just bought a 160GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 5400RPM SATA Notebook Drive with 8MB Cache from OWC for 69.99. Thanks for the tips.
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June 18, 2008 10:17 a.m. CivicSiRacer New Reader
Ok this forum is starting to annoy me with the error messages and my post not sticking.
Don't get anything from Maxtor (I know they were bought out by Western Digital - but do you want to trust your years of pictures or videos and documents on something that may or may not work?). I worked at Staples for 5 years and we had so many returns/exchanges with their harddrives we had to start shipping off wooden palates.
I would go with Segate or Western Digital. I purchased a 500gb internal drive for $90 at Circuit City during one of their sales. Awesome price per gigabite.
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June 18, 2008 10:35 a.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor
Sorry.. that was me causing the error message you got.
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June 18, 2008 4:11 p.m. SupraWes HalfDork
CivicSiRacer wrote: Don't get anything from Maxtor (I know they were bought out by Western Digital - but do you want to trust your years of pictures or videos and documents on something that may or may not work?). I worked at Staples for 5 years and we had so many returns/exchanges with their harddrives we had to start shipping off wooden palates.
Maxtor was actually bought by Segate, I prefer Hitachi hard drives these days. I never had any problems with any Maxtor drive I owned, I had 2 WD drives die on me in a row so I swore those off a long time ago. All hard drives fail and they don't give much warning usually so backup, backup, backup!
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June 18, 2008 4:28 p.m. Duke Dork
The Macbooks also use the main system RAM for video processing, so considering 4gb (2x2gb) of name brand RAM is around $100, I'd say go for it.
I just ordered that from OWC for my daughter's new MacBook, which came in today. They'll even give me $20 rebate for the RAM I take out of the new machine.
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June 18, 2008 4:42 p.m. Tommy Suddard
Actually, since I have a 2nd generation MacBook (the first one with a core 2 duo) the maximum supported RAM is 2 gb.
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June 18, 2008 7:39 p.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor
Nope, that's what Apple says, but I'm pretty sure it'll take 4 gigs.
Apple's done that for years. Way back in the day I had my 6100 (max 32 gigs, according to the manual) up to 128, as I recall.
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June 18, 2008 9:42 p.m. Tommy Suddard
Cool, thanks for the tip. Is there any way to make sure of this?
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June 18, 2008 9:49 p.m. Tim Baxter Online Editor
Looks like 3.3 is the max it will actually see: http://forums.dealmac.com/read.php?4,2709202,2709202
So I'd give up matched and do a 2 and a 1.
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June 19, 2008 10:53 a.m. CivicSiRacer New Reader
SupraWes wrote: Maxtor was actually bought by Segate, I prefer Hitachi hard drives these days. I never had any problems with any Maxtor drive I owned, I had 2 WD drives die on me in a row so I swore those off a long time ago. All hard drives fail and they don't give much warning usually so backup, backup, backup!
That is strange. I've owned everything WD for about 15 years and just recently purchased a Seagate (on sale).
