Ram or Disk Upgrade?

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Which is a better upgrade to purchase?

I'm looking at buying a 13" MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram and a 160GB/5400rpm drive. I can afford to upgrade one of these.

Do I upgrade from 2GB of ram to 4GB or do I upgrade from a 160GB/5400rpm drive to a 320GB/7200rpm or 500GB/5400rpm drive?
 

CrimsonRequiem


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Just by the stock MBP and upgrade the RAM and HDD yourself. 4GB of RAM cost around $70 and the HDD for a 320GB is around $75.
 
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As a student, I don't have much money to spare - even after the student discount. Which would be more worthwhile upgrading?
 
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As a student, I don't have much money to spare - even after the student discount. Which would be more worthwhile upgrading?

Hey,

It depends on what you are going to do with the computer. If you are going to do work that require a large amount of storage then go for the hard drive. If not, go for RAM ...

What are you going to do mostly with the laptop?
 

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As a student, I don't have much money to spare - even after the student discount. Which would be more worthwhile upgrading?

Hey,

It depends on what you are going to do with the computer. If you are going to do work that require a large amount of storage then go for the hard drive. If not, go for RAM ...

What are you going to do mostly with the laptop?

2GB of RAM is more than enough for everyday computing. IE. Listen to music, watching movies, surfing the web, light photoshop work, and word processing.

Also if you look closely if you wanted to add a bigger HD, apple charges you 90 dollars when you can save ~20 dollars by getting it from a third party vendor and installing yourself.

Same goes with the HDD for a 320 GB you can save around ~20 dollars here as well. You save more on a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD. You can get one for less than ~120 dollars from new egg with free shipping. While it's 180 from apple, and that HDD is slower.
 

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As a student, I don't have much money to spare - even after the student discount. Which would be more worthwhile upgrading?

Actually...if you don't need more ram or more hard drive space...it would be a waste of money upgrading either one!...especially since you "don't have much money to spare".

- Nick
 

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We're always wanting to get the best and biggest we can inside our computer. However, being on a budget and if you don't have a backup device, I would suggest investing in an external drive before either of the two upgrade options.
 

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And if you don't have an external drive for backup - I would suggest investing there before either of the two upgrade options.

AWESOME suggestion! An external backup hard drive is something most folks forget about, and can be a much more valuable investment than a possible unnecessary ram or internal hard drive upgrade.

- Nick
 
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AWESOME suggestion! An external backup hard drive is something most folks forget about, and can be a much more valuable investment than a possible unnecessary ram or internal hard drive upgrade.

- Nick

Agreed.

With an external, not only can you back it up, but you can also partition it so that you have more storage! So you kinda' get to expand the capacity there.

I'd highly recommend an external drive to back up the system. It has save me a lot of frustration many times.
 
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We're always wanting to get the best and biggest we can inside our computer. However, being on a budget and if you don't have a backup device, I would suggest investing in an external drive before either of the two upgrade options.
Yea. I think I might go for an external drive. I didn't do this on my last computer and it died with all my files on it.... oh well.
Do you guys have any suggestions for external drives (not Time Capsule, it costs too much)?
 

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Do you guys have any suggestions for external drives (not Time Capsule, it costs too much)?

Just about anything will work...if price is a concern...look for low prices.

Asking for hard drive recommendations is like asking folks who their favorite football team is...you'll get 5-10 recommendations...and still be confused as to what to buy.

- Nick
 
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Yea. I think I might go for an external drive. I didn't do this on my last computer and it died with all my files on it.... oh well.
Do you guys have any suggestions for external drives (not Time Capsule, it costs too much)?

Yeah just go to your local store that sells hard drives and find what suits your needs there. I found a killer deal on boxing day for $90 and got a 640GB drive
 
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You might like this one...

Yea. I think I might go for an external drive. I didn't do this on my last computer and it died with all my files on it.... oh well.
Do you guys have any suggestions for external drives (not Time Capsule, it costs too much)?

I can personally recommend this Western Digital for $109 after tax on amazon.com with free shipping.

I would like to upgrade my RAM and HDD but opted for purchasing that external drive instead. I'll save up and get the RAM and internal HDD later in the year.
 
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I would like to upgrade my RAM and HDD but opted for purchasing that external drive instead. I'll save up and get the RAM and internal HDD later in the year.

Good choice. I did exactly the same. I bought my MacBook a year ago, and then bought an external a few months after my purchase. Then, half a year after that I upgraded the HD and RAM, which was a smooth transition thanks to my external. Before the HD upgrade, I used my external as extra storage as I found I kept my internal 120GB drive quite full all the time.
 
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a LaCie fan

i bought a 1TB LaCie d2 quadra and am a big fan of it.

from my experience, buying "for Mac" versions isn't really necessary...all you have to do with a normal HDD is erase it with Disk Utility and set it to run on Mac OS X instead of MS-DOS. (i'll default to the more experienced users here, though. any particular reason to get "for Mac" HDDs?)

my recommendation? buy a LaCie d2 quadra. it gives you 4 connection options (USB2.0, F400, F800, and eSata) and is a pretty slick looking drive.

ps: the LaCie is a bit less expensive than the Seagate, now that i look at it
 

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