Upgrading - What do you think?

Hello everyone.

I am coming to the end of 8 projects in November and will have enough (spare) cash to do one of 2 things. I will either buy an iPod Touch, or upgrade my MacBook Pro.

I have decided to do the latter and put the cash as an investment into the biggest tool I use for my work, my Apple Laptop. I cannot reason buying an iPod touch appart from the reason it is gorgeous, blew me away when I used it and is the latest thing. I have an old iPod Photo 20Gb I bought off Ebay for £22 which was broken and I fixed it. I have a PSP which I use for protable video and portable internet (even though the internet isn't as good as on the touch - edit: The internet is USELESS compared to on the Touch ) so I have decided against it.

"But I thought this thread was about upgrading your Macbook Pro?" I hear you cry.

Ok.

Here's what I want to do. I want to upgrade my existing 1.5Gb RAM to 2Gb RAM which is easy enough. I'll just get that off crucial.co.uk. It is only £25 or so for a 1Gb stick!! I upgraded the standard 512Mb RAM with a 1Gb stick when I bought the MBP in April last year and it cost me over £100 !! but anyway.

My main questions are these...

I want to upgrade the hard drive to either 160Gb or 250Gb and am thinking of going for 5400RPM as I think a 7200RPM variant would use the battery power more when mobile and also generate more heat (and is more expensive)

But which model, size and speed would YOU suggest? Has anyone upgraded theirs? and if so, what brand hard drive did you go for? was the OSX installation as simple as booting the Installation DVD, using the Disk utility, wiping the new hard drive, and then installing OSX from scratch?

Also, I tried to take the top off my MBP before just to 'have a look' but I could not for the life of me lift the top off, it seemed to still be attached somewhere and I couldn't figure it out, so before I warped the lid, I put it back together.

Was I missing some screws? I think I got them all, but I recentyl looked on iFixit and I think i may have not removed some hidden screws near the RAM compartment. Anyone had a similar experience when taking their MBP appart?

If and when I do go to do all this, I am going to see if the little fans need cleaning in there and do it nicely just so everything is done in one go.

So, any advice or similar stories from people who have done these things would be ace. But most of all I would really appreciate reccomendations on the BRAND and SPEED of hard drive to buy. Keep in mind I am in th UK and I also use www.ebuyer.co.uk a lot to buy my parts, so if you are stateside and can look on there and post a link to s pecific hard drive, that would be awsome.

Cheers chaps (and chapettes) I really appreciate the advice in advance you guys may give.

Mel

melmation said:

I want to upgrade the hard drive to either 160Gb or 250Gb and am thinking of going for 5400RPM as I think a 7200RPM variant would use the battery power more when mobile and also generate more heat (and is more expensive)

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In my experience with other laptops, the 7200rpm drives don't add significantly to heat generation or degrade battery life in any noticeable way. If you want a 7200rpm drive, don't let that hold you back.

But which model, size and speed would YOU suggest? Has anyone upgraded theirs? and if so, what brand hard drive did you go for?

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I upgraded from the factory 80GB Seagate to a 120GB Seagate. I bought the Seagate drive because they have a 5 year warranty. Laptop drives are notoriously unreliable, so in my opinion, it's best to go with the one with the best warranty. In my experience, Seagate drives perform well, are very quiet and reliable.

was the OSX installation as simple as booting the Installation DVD, using the Disk utility, wiping the new hard drive, and then installing OSX from scratch?

Click to expand...

I simply cloned the old drive to the new drive using an external adapter. A lot of people just buy an external case for their old drive and then use that for the cloning operation. Software-wise, I used SuperDuper.

Also, I tried to take the top off my MBP before just to 'have a look' but I could not for the life of me lift the top off, it seemed to still be attached somewhere and I couldn't figure it out, so before I warped the lid, I put it back together.

Was I missing some screws? I think I got them all, but I recentyl looked on iFixit and I think i may have not removed some hidden screws near the RAM compartment. Anyone had a similar experience when taking their MBP appart?

Click to expand...

iFixIt's instructions are what I used. They worked quite well, but if you've never taken a laptop apart before, I would recommend that you not start with an Apple product. They tend to be designed to very tight tolerances and are not the easiest to disassemble.

If and when I do go to do all this, I am going to see if the little fans need cleaning in there and do it nicely just so everything is done in one go.

Click to expand...

Not a bad idea

So, any advice or similar stories from people who have done these things would be ace. But most of all I would really appreciate reccomendations on the BRAND and SPEED of hard drive to buy. Keep in mind I am in th UK and I also use www.ebuyer.co.uk a lot to buy my parts, so if you are stateside and can look on there and post a link to s pecific hard drive, that would be awsome.

Click to expand...

I would go with a Seagate drive, as I said. Steer clear of Fujitsu, Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba as those are the brands I see most commonly fail in my line of work.

CWA's experience with the 7.2k drives mirrors my own. Under normal circumstances they will *NOT* have any significant impact on battery life or on heat.

Right from Seagate's data sheets on the Momentus 5400.3 and Momentus 7200.2 drives:

5400.3:
Startup Current 5v (MAX): 1.0a-5.0 watts
Seek: 2.0 watts
Read/Write: 1.9/1.8 Watts
Idle/Standby: 0.8/0.2 Watts

7200.2:
Startup Current 5v (MAX): 1.1a-5.5 watts
Seek: 2.3 Watts
Read/Write: 2.1/2.1 Watts
Idle/Standby: 0.8/0.2 Watts

Most of the time, especially if you have a decent amount of RAM (1GB minimum, the 2GB you're upgrading to will be more than sufficient), the hard drive is going to sit at idle. OSX will even shut the drive off sometimes to extend the lifespan of the drive and save a bit of power; when it does that, the drive goes into standby mode. in either mode, the 7.2k drive and the 5.4k drive use exactly the same amount of power, on average.

Even in the worst case scenario (excluding startup current, because that's just what it takes to get the drive spinning and has little relevance), the 7.2k drive averages just 0.3w more than the 5.4k drive. You will see functionally no difference at all in battery life OR heat.

Bottom line then, as far as whether you should get a 7.2k drive goes, is which is more important to you... speed, or capacity? If the answer is speed, get a 7.2k drive; it will make a noticeable difference. If you need more than 200GB, you have no choice but to get a 5400rpm drive (there are still 4.2k drives out there; don't waste your money on one).

As far as brands go... Seagate is good, WD is good, Hitachi has never given me any problems (at least since they took over from IBM...). Toshiba drives are utter trash, don't bother with them. Other brands I have no experience with. Personally, I'd stick with Seagate in this case because they have a much longer warranty than their competition (5yrs vs. 3 or 1).

If I were you, I'd go with a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 200GB drive, which is not listed on ebuyer. They actually have a very limited selection of drives... you might have to look elsewhere because they don't list anything larger a 160GB 5.4k or a 100GB 7.2k (at least from Seagate).

Hard drive info

Wow.

Thank you so much for this brilliant information! It is exactly what I was wanting to hear. I had looked at Seagate drives on Ebuyer and wondered if they were reliable or not, but I now think I am 100% convinced of getting a Seagate 7200 drive. Which capacity, I don't know, but anything bigger than 100Gb will be good for me.

I do a lot of video work and generally work from an external drive in Final Cut Pro to save the onboard laptop drive. But lately, with the projects I have been doing, a lot of my work is performed on the laptop to save having to unplug and bring my external Seagate everywhere.

I just thought last night, with a bit of luck, The New OSX might be out by the end of November so I was thinking of getting it too and installing it on my fresh hard drive along with the new ram and then it would hopefully be like having a new computer again (maybe).

This has certainly helped. If I do wait and get the new OSX, I just want to understand one thing. installing it. Is this how it should go?...

1) With the new hard drive installed, put in the OSX 10.5 installation disk and hold down (D, C?) to initiate the on disk software.

2) Choose disk utility from the software on the DVD

3) Use disk utility to format the new drive (on this point, which type of format would you reccomend for a fresh OS installation?)

5) Reboot the laptop and follow the onscreen instructions for installing OSX 10.5

I just wondered because I haven't done that before. I know you can do it but just wondered if this is the right sequence of events I should follow.

Cheers again for your brilliant info. A faster drive would suit me more, and if heat and power consumption is neglegable, I think I'll gor for the fastest.

Mel

Leopard, the next version of OS X will definitely be out in October. I don't think Apple would miss another release date.

Yes, your sequence sounds correct (hold down C or Option). The format would be "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)". The rest should be pretty self-explanatory.

ROCK ON!!

Great news. I am very excited now.

I have my list wrote down and prices found...

£125 - Seagate Momentus 7200.2 200Gb SATA 300 16MB 7200RPM 2.5" Hard drive.

£30 - 1Gb Crucial Ram (taking me up to the 2Gb limit)

£90 - or there abouts for Mac os 10.5

£245 Total including VAT, all tax deductable. (about $450)

I cannot wait. The sad thing is I don't want to upset the Apple cart (no pun intended) before I have finished all my projects so may have to wait at the earliest till the end of October.

YIPEEEE!

Thanks guys, great advice and all of it taken on board. If it all comes to plan I will start a thread and show pictures if I can of the whole process and write how much of a boost there seems to be in the machine after the transplants.

Take it easy,

Mel