New MacBook hard drive replacement

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jamesx

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i have had my macbook for about a month now and i am looking at putting a bigger hard drive in it. i bought the computer brand new and it has a 80 gb hard drive and 2GHz intel core 2 Duo. and 1gb of ram. i was looking around at different hard drives, but i'm not really sure where to buy it or what brand would work best. what about rpm? 5400 or 7200? i am looking to upgrade to about 160gb...


thanks for any help or pointers!
 
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I suggest you go with a Seagate hard drive their warranty is great and the drives seem to last. Seagate has a 100 Gb 7200 hard drive which I think is the largest notebook drive you can buy at that speed. If you want a larger drive you will have to settle on the 5400 but again I would look towards Seagate.
 
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jamesx

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thanks for the info! what difference would i notice a difference going to a 7200 rpm? i dont play games or anything. also, after i install the new hard drive... would i be able to use my restore disks that came with the computer to install mac osx? thanks.
 
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I installed a Seagate 100Gb 7200 in my MacBook although it seems a bit quicker I am not sure how much faster it really is.

You will be able to use your OSX disks to install on the new drive, just ensure that you partiton the drive before you attempt to install.

Get a good enclosure for your 80 Gb drive and use it as an external for backups and storage.
 
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jamesx

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how would i partition the drive? the new hard drive will be blank, correct? would i just follow the instructions that it guides me through? i am used to re installing windows on a pc but i am new to the mac. is it any different?
 
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how would i partition the drive? the new hard drive will be blank, correct? would i just follow the instructions that it guides me through? i am used to re installing windows on a pc but i am new to the mac. is it any different?

I'm pretty sure you just boot off the tiger CD's that came with your mac and then to a fresh install of mac osx on the empty drive.

Shouldn't be too difficult.
 
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you have to start up the disk utility to partition the drive its included on your OS X install DVD under the tools menu. I just did a install of a 120 gig 5,400 Fujitsu drive in my MacBook this week
 
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todd51

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Doesn't a higher speed hard drive take away some battery life? I could have swore I heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure how much.
 
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Doesn't a higher speed hard drive take away some battery life? I could have swore I heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure how much.

Yes. The 5400 speed 120Gbyte drive I fitted to my iBook this weekend (not a job for the unsteady hand I can tell you ;)) is rated about 50% higher current draw than the 4200 speed 30Gb it replaced. The 100Gb 7200 speed I put in my MacBook is about 30% higher again. (55mA for the 30G 4200, 85mA for the 120Gb 5400 and 110mA for the 100Gb 7200)

I reckon the best bang for buck at present would be a 160Gb 5400, the performance increase on the iBook was very pronounced whereas the MacBook was hardly noticeable.

The other difference in the drives is that the 120G 5400 drive has 8Mb cache whereas the 4200 30Gb only had 2Mb (I'm not sure what the 7200 drive had, probably 8Mb as well).

Amen-Moses (who should really stop taking his computers apart!)
 
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it should work, i dont see why not, if the macbook can take upto a 160g HD, RPM's doesnt matter, the computer looks more at the gigs and if it is made to read that many, which is not really an issue these days.
 
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quoting this because I'd like to know the answer

Yes they will work, but whether the imperceivable performance increase is worth the large amount of extra money and smallish loss of battery life is something you'll have to decide for yourself.

160Gb 5400 drives are cheap as chips in comparison.

Amen-Moses
 
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eh, I'll probably end up with a 100GB 7400
 
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Hi, sorry to jump on this thread but it's of similar nature and I hoped you guys would be able to help.

I have a 13" Macbook and I recently bought a Fujitsu 2.5" Sata 100gb replacement hdd for it. similar to this
Fujitsu-SATA-170.jpg


Unfortunately the one I've removed from the Macbook has a different kind of power connector with pins whereas the Fujitsu one I just bought has a hole (to the far right as above) where they should be.

Have I simply bought an incompatible hdd or can anything be done in terms of an adapter of some sort ?

Thanks in advance of replies.
 
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Hi, sorry to jump on this thread but it's of similar nature and I hoped you guys would be able to help.

I have a 13" Macbook and I recently bought a Fujitsu 2.5" Sata 100gb replacement hdd for it. similar to this
Fujitsu-SATA-170.jpg


Unfortunately the one I've removed from the Macbook has a different kind of power connector with pins whereas the Fujitsu one I just bought has a hole (to the far right as above) where they should be.

Have I simply bought an incompatible hdd or can anything be done in terms of an adapter of some sort ?

Thanks in advance of replies.
I noticed the same thing on my 120gb Sata 5,400 Fujitsu drive, those are just legacy power connectors and are not needed on MacBooks
 
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Ahh right so it should work on my macbook ? Wonder why the original in the Macbook has them then :s

Just I tried earlier and it wouldn't boot.
 
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Ahh right so it should work on my macbook ? Wonder why the original in the Macbook has them then :s

Just I tried earlier and it wouldn't boot.

The power connectors are redundant, there are also Sata power connectors on the hard drives that the MacBooks use to supply power to the hard drive.

I am not sure I understand your comment that it wouldn't boot.

Did you boot off your OS X install DVDs? and then try install OS X or did you just boot off the new hard drive?
 
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Thanks for your continued help...

I've put the new hard drive in then I've just tried to boot with the Install disk (1 of 2) it boots to a black screen and says 'no bootable device - insert disc and press any key'.

I've tried pressing keys but it just sits there. The new hdd is formatted to ntfs - does that matter ?
 

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