MacBook Maximum Hard Drive Upgrade?

Hello peoples,

Sorry if there's somewhere obvious for this information, I've just failed with my google searching.

I have a MacBook (Mid 2007) and I'm hoping to upgrade the hard drive, i've found plenty of tutorials online and feel ready enough to do this.

But can someone tell me, is there a maximum hard drive capacity that this MacBook can cope with and is there a maximum speed that it can handle?

I'm looking at a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive.

Thanks for your time,
Eddy

EddyB said:

Hello peoples,

Sorry if there's somewhere obvious for this information, I've just failed with my google searching.

I have a MacBook (Mid 2007) and I'm hoping to upgrade the hard drive, i've found plenty of tutorials online and feel ready enough to do this.

But can someone tell me, is there a maximum hard drive capacity that this MacBook can cope with and is there a maximum speed that it can handle?

I'm looking at a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive.

Thanks for your time,
Eddy

Click to expand...

A 500gb will work perfectly fine.
A very popular one is the Seagate Momentus XT with 4gb of built of flash storage. If you read the reviews on Newegg, they seem to be hit or miss.

Other options include:
Seagate Momentus
Samsung Spinpoint
WD Blue

Opinions on hard drives vary widely, but I think Samsung is pretty universally derided as a second-rate manufacturer. My personal experience across hundreds of machines confirms a very high failure rate indeed.

I have a Hitachi 7K500 that has done very well for me. It replaced a slow Seagate 7200rpm 320GB and a fast, but very noisy 320GB Western Digital 7200rpm. The Hitachi has been a good balance and seems to be doing very well.

Just be sure to stick with a drive that lists a 9.5mm height. I believe may of the larger capacity drives (650GB+) use a 12.5mm height, and that may be difficult to fit to your machine.

Thanks for your help guys. It was the seagate momentus I was looking at.

That's the one I'm using in my 2009 MBP. No, I don't hear any loud vibrations coming from it, and no it does not run any hotter than the stock hard drive

Just some of the "issues" people have with them.

cwa107 said:

I have a Hitachi 7K500 that has done very well for me ... Just be sure to stick with a drive that lists a 9.5mm height.

Click to expand...

To someone new to the world of Macbook, your advice has been helpful. I too prefer the Hitachi brand (even though it's now been absorbed into the WD fold).

You specify 9.5 mm maximum, the 7K500 lists in its specs Travelstar 7K500 | Hitachi Global Storage Technologies 7 mm, which suggests to me that it'll fit inside a Macbook [4.1, A1181]. Is that correct?

Yes, it will fit. The only time you'd have cause for concern is if it's taller than 9.5mm.