Hard Drive upgrade

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I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook's hard drive, as the one i've currently got is only a 60gb and I've got roughly 9gb left. Will any of the following drives work on a MacBook?:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=14&subid=896&sortby=priceDesc
If not, which will? I'm really only looking to spend about £50-60 (maybe less if I can get away with it) although I would be willing to up to £70 if really neccessary.

Also, which is the best brand of Hard Drive to get? I used to use Maxtor on my desktop but that was a long time ago, and i'm not sure anymore.

Any advice on upgrading my Hard Drive would be great. Is it fairly straightforward?
 
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Hey, thanks for the link:) Will all of the drives on that website work in a Macbook though?
 
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I don't know how economical this will be for you, but this is what I did.

I bought a WD Passport 250gb drive, took it apart, removed that drive and installed into my macbook. took the old macbook drive and put it in the WD enclosure
 
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Hmm, I dunno if i'd find it easier just to buy a new drive that can go straight into my MacBook. Really I just wanted to know if any SATA 2.5" HDD will work in a MacBook?

Western Digital do seem to be the most reliable drives as well, as they are all mostly out of stock on Overclockers.co.uk
 
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yes, any SATA 2.5" HDD will work.

As far as the portable drive goes, it's pretty simple you pry it open (no screws) and remove a small pcb board. then reverse to put your old drive into the enclosure.

if you get a drive, then you will have your old drive just laying around or go through the hassle of selling it
 
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are the 250gb passport drives the same as the regular internal drives wd makes. like in same speed?
 
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yes, same speed, I don't know what the cache size is for the original but this one is only 2mb.

I have not noticed a difference between my old 60gb original mac drive and this one
 
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yes, any SATA 2.5" HDD will work.

As far as the portable drive goes, it's pretty simple you pry it open (no screws) and remove a small pcb board. then reverse to put your old drive into the enclosure.

if you get a drive, then you will have your old drive just laying around or go through the hassle of selling it

Okay so I can buy a portable external hard drive with the capacity I want for my macbook. Take the hard drive out of it. Put it in my Macbook and install OS X. Then I can put my original macbook drive into the portable external hard drive and copy my files over?

This would actually be really good because I was thinking about getting an external hard drive anyway so that I can use Time Machine.
 
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you got it! That's exactly what I did.
 
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how big of a hdd will the MBP recognize?

I read on another forum about someone putting in a 320gb drive in a MBP.

However, I don't think there is a limit to the size that would be recognized. I think the limiting factor is the physical size.
 
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you got it! That's exactly what I did.

And you're sure its as straight forward as you say? Will I void my warranty? What can go wrong?

Surely the hard drives in portable externals arent designed to work in any old laptop? Are they all standard 2.5" SATA drives?
 
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Is it straight forward: It really is that simple. ok, was thinking what else I did and I did forget one thing, you will need a #8 or #9 torx drive (the * shaped tip screwdriver) you will need this to take the four screws off the original mac hdd and attach it to the new drive. All drives have standard placement for screw holes. You will then have to format the new drive and install the OS, but you would do that anyway with a new drive purchase

Will I void my warranty: you will void the warranty on your portable drive, you won't void the warranty on your macbook.

What could go wrong: hmmm what could go wrong mac side, I guess if you try to force the drive in (it only goes in one way) then that would mess it up.

Portable side, if you pry too hard you could snap a tab off the case but the WD portable was SUPER easy. When you take off the PCB (printed circuit board) and don't pry off evenly you could bend the pins.

Surely (don't call me shirley): only portable drives will work, a desktop external will not work because it is a 3.5" drive. You have the same model laptop I have, it worked for me

Are they all 2.5" SATA drives: No, you will have to read the box or specs online, make sure it says 2.5" drive and SATA
 
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Okay thanks. I'll probably give it a try, as it does work out so much cheaper, especially considering I want an external hard drive anyway.

I quite like the look of this drive:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-115-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=170

Is this the one you had? Also I notice it only has a 2MB Cache buffer, whereas all the 2.5" SATA drives have like an 8mb cache buffer. Will I notice the difference?

Also, one more question. When I put my old Macbook hard drive back into my external hard drive, will my files be THAT easy to transfer over to my new hard drive (Once i've formatted it and installed OSX)?
 
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same enclosure, I got the 250gb drive though. I have not noticed any difference at all between the original drive and this one with 2mb cache.

Since you're going with this enclosure, here's another tip for taking it apart. I did not take the side with the light apart, I pried open the other side and when it was far enough apart, I slipped the drive out of the enclosure.

As far as your files go, when you connect the drive to your usb port, it will mount and you can navigate to where ever you like and copy over to your new drive
 

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