Looking to upgrade my 2007 13" Macbook

Hey everybody. I'm looking to upgrade my 13" white Macbook from 2007 into something much more modern. Many of the applications are outdated, and somethings (e.g. my 2nd Gen IPod and my Playbook) require Mac OS X 10.5+. Edit: additionally, the macbook performs fairly sluggish, and overheats quite easily now

My question is, is it worth upgrading each component (e.g. hard drive, RAM) or should I just buy a refurbished or new Macbook instead?

My stats for the current Macbook:
OS X 10.4.11
Processor - 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory - 1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
SATA - speed: 1.5Gbit, size: 74.53GB

I'm thinking of doing any upgrades myself, and have chosen this as a start:

Hard drive from Newegg.ca

Any input or help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Best site for Awesome Upgrades and products for any Mac is Otherworldcomputing.com.

They have a lot of awesome stuff, and most of their products surpass specs of any other company. I have been using them for the past 7 years, and never once had any issues. Highly recommend them.

And good luck!

Upgrading RAM will give you the most improvement. 1GB isn't much by todays standards. Depending on your model, you can either take 3GB or 6GB of RAM.

Upgrade your memory will definitely give you a significant boost in power. Once that is done, it will be able to run OS 10.6 with no problems. 10.7 might push it a little hard, though. Hard drive upgrade really depends on how much room you need. Some users need huge hard drives for what they do. Others, no so much.

Bottom line, though, is upgrading your MacBook would be far less expensive. <$50 for the memory, $75-100 for a larger HD, and $30 for 10.6. Apple no longer sells refurbished MacBooks, so you'd have to choose between an Air or a Pro, either one running close or well over $1000.

Thanks for the responses guys! I really need the space since I'm usually anywhere between 10-20GB. It's fairly annoying since I don't like storing my movies/tv shows on USB sticks. As for RAM, I always figured that'd be an issue... I've looked into it, I can top out at 3GB RAM only, 4GB maybe. I probably won't get into the upgrades until the summer anyway, but when it turns out successful, I'll report back in.

Hey guys! After posting this thread I still haven't upgrade my Macbook like I said I would. I've done some research and the original harddrive I found apparently isn't up to par -- SSD's are the way to go. For a 2007 Macbook, is it worth it? Or should I buy a refurbished MB at this point?

Edit: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291 -- here's a drive I'm looking to purchase, not SSD, but I do enjoy the large space.

Edit 2: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/5300DDR2S4GP/ -- here's the RAM sticks I'm looking to use

To be honest, I woudn't spend any money on your 2007 MacBook. It's limited in many ways: 1. You can only upgrade to Lion 2. Max memory 4 GB 3. Graphics are limited to what you have - Intel GMA

You can max out the memory, buy a bigger hard drive or SSD, but in reality while it will give you a performance boost, in my opinion, the money you spend would be better spent on a later model used MacBook Pro or even a refurbished 13" MacBook Pro or Air.

chscag said:

To be honest, I woudn't spend any money on your 2007 MacBook. It's limited in many ways: 1. You can only upgrade to Lion 2. Max memory 4 GB 3. Graphics are limited to what you have - Intel GMA

You can max out the memory, buy a bigger hard drive or SSD, but in reality while it will give you a performance boost, in my opinion, the money you spend would be better spent on a later model used MacBook Pro or even a refurbished 13" MacBook Pro or Air.

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Ahh, great advice... I'll see what's available.

I ended up purchasing the RAM and new Hard Drive. The refurbished Macbooks are still expensive... even on local RedFlagDeals, Kijiji, Craigslist.

Just a question regarding the new Hard Drive: what I'm planning to do is forgo anything on my old hard drive (i.e. just chuck it), so is it possible to purchase the Recovery Discs for Lion and simply install that on the new HD? Or are there additional steps to it.

There are no recovery discs for Lion. Lion and beyond are all digital downloads. There is no media. You can make a recovery USB from the download if you desire.

what I'm planning to do is forgo anything on my old hard drive (i.e. just chuck it),

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Why? Buy an enclosure/caddy and use it as an external drive. Some thing like this:
Amazon.com: Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure: Electronics

Stretch said:

There are no recovery discs for Lion. Lion and beyond are all digital downloads. There is no media. You can make a recovery USB from the download if you desire.

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You were right. I ended up buying Snow Leopard first. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it weird it costs twice as much on eBay than on the actual Apple site?

MightyGem said:

Why? Buy an enclosure/caddy and use it as an external drive. Some thing like this:
Amazon.com: Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure: Electronics

Click to expand...

Smart idea. Since I bought the 1TB HD, I'll probably sell my 70GB drive.

Hey guys, thought I should update you. The upgrade was a success. What I bought:

- 1TB HD Seagate ST1000LM024 1.0TB 2.5" Momentus/Samsung... in stock at OWC - $69
- 4GB RAM sticks OWC 53IM2DDR4GBK 4.0GB Kit (2.0GB+2.0GB) PC2-5300... in stock at OWC - $59
- Snow Leopard - $22
Total Cost (after taxes): $156

I decided to keep my 70GB HD, and only backed up the most important files. Lost a lot of good music, but it's all good!

The installation process (physically) was super easy, except those **** RAM sticks took forever to fit properly.

Overall, I'm a lot happier with my "new" Mac. It runs smoothly, I finally have updated programs, and it doesn't overheat as much as it used to.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Congratulations! If I were you I'd keep that machine on Snow Leopard for as long as possible.

Be aware that both the machine and the OS are pretty old now and it won't be long before you start running into the "I can't do this on my machine" syndrome with regards to new Web technologies, new software, system requirements for things etc.

Your upgrade will squeeze maybe another two years out of that machine if you are lucky. I would be saving up for my next computer if I were you.

chas_m said:

Congratulations! If I were you I'd keep that machine on Snow Leopard for as long as possible.

Be aware that both the machine and the OS are pretty old now and it won't be long before you start running into the "I can't do this on my machine" syndrome with regards to new Web technologies, new software, system requirements for things etc.

Your upgrade will squeeze maybe another two years out of that machine if you are lucky. I would be saving up for my next computer if I were you.

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I figured as much. I'll run with it as long as I can, but for now it'll do it good.