Macbook Harddrive issues

hey this is my first post so go easy on me. My macbook has 160GB and its full. I have 2 external 500GB hard drives that are also full. is it possible to format my laptop so that it uses an external hard drive as its primary drive. Right now it uses it original 160GB drive and i have to transfer back and forth to my external drives if i want to use any content from them. does anyone know if thats possible? if you understand what I'm trying to get at

KHighEL said:

is it possible to format my laptop so that it uses an external hard drive as its primary drive.

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It is possible to do this…but then you have to have your external HD setup as a bootable drive (needs to have the OS installed on it)…AND…the external drive will ALWAYS need to be connected to your MacBook). Which may not be a problem if you never need to move your MacBook. BUT…using an external drive (via USB port) will be slower than the internal drive)…since USB is slower.

The real solution to this situation is to upgrade your MacBooks internal drive to something larger…AND have some sort of a organization plan. Meaning…do you REALLY need to keep every megabyte/gigabyte of stuff on all three of these full drives…or can some stuff be trashed.

Also…with three drives full of stuff…are all three drives info backed up? If not…you're going to need additional hard drive space (a lot of extra HD space)…to backup the data on these three full drives. What the heck happens if one of these drives crashes…and the data is non-recoverable??

- Nick

"but then you have to have your external HD setup as a bootable drive (needs to have the OS installed on it)…AND…the external drive will ALWAYS need to be connected to your MacBook)"

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Thanks for the advice. Ill try and look into it some more. Keeping it plugged in won't be an issue cause the battery is gone on it so i keep it plugged into its power cord all the time.

do you REALLY need to keep every megabyte/gigabyte

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The files are 90% movies and 10% music. I likely won't watch all of them again but its my movie library and keeping that paired with my apple tv's in the house is important to the family and I. Its the constant "i want to watch this…okay well which hard drive is it saved on" that has gotten annoying. My first option is to buy a bigger computer but a $250 hard drive and a much cheaper option than a new $2300 iMac

KHighEL said:

My first option is to buy a bigger computer but a $250 hard drive and a much cheaper option than a new $2300 iMac

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You don't need a "bigger computer" (according to the info given)…what you need is more storage (since all three HD's you mentioned are full). For your movie library…you should have something like a 2 Terabyte external drive…this would give you loads of storage.

And no way you should be spending anywhere near $250 for one. The wife & I got a 2 TB drive about 2 years ago for $80 (good deal on sale). But even not on sale they should be less expensive now…with SSD's getting more affordable. Tiger Direct currently has a 2 TB Western Digital drive on sale for $89 (with code)…and this is only $9 off the regular price. Check at dealmac.com.

Just pop the drive into an external case (not expensive)…and you should have lots of external storage. So no way you need to spend $250.

- Nick

Same deal/place mentioned above has a 1TB drive for $51.99.

- Nick

Just pop the drive into an external case (not expensive)…and you should have lots of external storage

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And this would work like you mentioned before? it would work as the computers primary hard drive? So for instance, When i load up a movie into iTunes and it saves it right away it would use up the new drives capacity and not the internal and then at that point it could remain on iTunes.

Sorry for sounding repetitive. How it works now for me is that I try and keep 10-20GB free space on my internal hard drive. Ill get a movie, watch it, then move it onto an external and delete it off my internal hard drive. I need to delete it to maintain that 10-20GB otherwise if its gets full my laptop won't operate. But if i ever wanted to watch that movie again i need to transfer it back onto the internal drive, load it into iTunes then delete it again after watching. I just want to be able to load it into iTunes and leave it, have like a 1TB iTunes library of content and then more open space.

Thank you for your help Nick. I looked into it a little bit more and i was under the assumption that with the Mac i couldn't replace parts like you can on a tower PC. I have quickly found out that I was way wrong and ill just be changing my internal 2.5 hard drive to a much higher capacity one and then probably use my externals as a back up system

KHighEL said:

Thank you for your help Nick. I looked into it a little bit more and i was under the assumption that with the Mac i couldn't replace parts like you can on a tower PC. I have quickly found out that I was way wrong and ill just be changing my internal 2.5 hard drive to a much higher capacity one and then probably use my externals as a back up system

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You absolutely can upgrade your MacBook's internal HD…just like a Windows laptop.…just like I mentioned in an earlier post.

Just remember…compare "like vs.like". Don't compare the "parts replaceability" of an Apple laptop to a Windows desktop/tower. Compare an Apple laptop vs. a Windows laptop.

When this is done…you find that not much (parts) are replaceable inside a Windows laptop either. Whether a Windows laptop or an older Apple laptop…pretty much what is replaceable is the ram and the storage. Of course there are SOME/few Windows laptops that sometimes more can be done.

Now if we were talking a much newer Apple laptop (not a 2009 MacBook)…then your assumptions regarding Apple laptops would be more correct. Many newer model Apple laptops (last couple years)…do not have upgradeable ram…and it is much more difficult to upgrade the storage (if not impossible for some models).

Bottom line…yes you certainly can upgrade the internal storage of your MacBook!!!

If you need instructions…visit a website like:

- www.ifixit.com

Or many other DIY websites with the procedure.

- Nick

KHighEL said:

And this would work like you mentioned before? it would work as the computers primary hard drive? So for instance, When i load up a movie into iTunes and it saves it right away it would use up the new drives capacity and not the internal and then at that point it could remain on iTunes.

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As I understand it you currently move a movie to the internal drive to watch it then remove the movie when you are done to preserve space on the internal drive. Like you I keep movies around so I don't have to go looking for them when I am ready to watch them.

Here are my thoughts on the matter FWIW. I assume that you will be using iTunes to play back the content. If not let us know what program.

1. Purchase a larger external drive as others have mentioned 2 TB drives are running around $90.00. If you have a large collection and your budget can spare it get two of these drives. One will be a backup.

2 .Put your content (movies/music) on the new external drive.

3. Move the iTunes Library to the external drive

4, Periodically back up your content. I speak from experience. I'm still re-creating parts of my library after a drive failure a few weeks ago.

You will need to make sure this drive is connected to the computer before launching iTunes or it defaults back to the internal drive.