Recommendation for a New Hard Drive for a Macbook

I currently have a late summer 08 white Macbook running L4 through Fusion/Windows XP. I am thinking of Installing Snow Leopard and L4Mac, but would like to install a new hard drive first. My current hard drive is running out of space at 160 gb. Has anyone installed a new hard drive in their Macbook? Is it difficult to do? Also, would this be a good hard drive?

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$10 off with Promo Code EMCYSZW35, ends 5/24
$84.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3864855&SID=

Any recommendations would be helpful and appreciated. Thanks!

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Comments

Ben

I've done it, it's quite easy. You can get an external enclosure for your old one, or get a trade-in with OWC.com, which caters to Macs.

Mark McDaniel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131300#Comment_131300

WD Scorpio Blue has a 1 TB for $200 even though it is 12mm high....it ifits./...make sure you partition the drive through Mac Utilities and then format.....Time Machine works great as welll.

si_cochran

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131308#Comment_131308

WD Scorpio Blue has a 1 TB for $200 even though it is 12mm high....it ifits./...make sure you partition the drive through Mac Utilities and then format.....Time Machine works great as welll.

Thank you for the reply. Do they make this drive with 7200 rpm? I could only locate one with 5200 rpm. Do you find WD to be superior to Seagate?

Mike S.

I would strongly recommend OWC's drives (at least the same models they have). Certain drives have a tendency to run hotter then others and can cause crashes or worse over time. OWC does the integration testing work and knows what works and what doesn't work (as well).

si_cochran

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/131300#Comment_131300

You can get an external enclosure for your old one

Good idea! Thank you very much.

si_cochran

I currently have a late summer 08 white Macbook running L4 through Fusion/Windows XP. I am thinking of Installing Snow Leopard and L4Mac, but would like to install a new hard drive first. My current hard drive is running out of space at 160 gb. Has anyone installed a new hard drive in their Macbook? Is it difficult to do? Also, would this be a good hard drive?

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$10 off with Promo Code EMCYSZW35, ends 5/24
$84.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3864855&SID=

I decided to purchase the above hard drive, and wanted to update everyone on the performance benefits. The 7200 RPM drive and Snow Leopard have notably increased performance all around. Fusion/Windows XP is much snappier, and I have found the Mac Alpha to have good performance. Yes, the Mac Alpha is not quite at Windows L4 yet, but I am pleased with what I have seen so far. Currently, I am not even using Windows L4. I will keep my Windows L4 around for awhile, but at this point I am planning on using the Mac Alpha for the majority of my Logos use. I recommend the above drive and Snow Leopard if you have not already upgraded. The $100 cost to upgrade both have well been worth the speed, functionality, and extra hard drive space. Also, it was easy install the hard drive and OS. I used time machine to restore my settings, files, and software. The only install I had to do was for the Mac Alpha. I love the way that the Mac just works.

Dewayne Davis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134274#Comment_134274

I love the way that the Mac just works.

Yes, it is really awesome how it just works. I have pulled the same hard drive out and put it in several different machines without reinstalling. It just works every time. Just don't forget to deactivate machine on iTunes though. I learned the hard way that every time you move the drive to a new machine it has to reactivate iTunes. You are limited to five machines and can reset only once a year. Between my office, laptop, wife and daughter's computer, I use four. Last year I was unable to activate them all for several months because I didn't know to deactivate before moving machines. I am really thankful that Logos 4 does not do this.

Tyler Glodjo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134288#Comment_134288

Si Cochran, I'm using a late Spring 2008 white macbook and I ran into the same problem you did with small hard drive space. I got a 320GB drive because I read somewhere that the 2008 macbook models couldn't read a hard drive beyond that point. I hope that proves wrong for you. One other thing that I did was upgrade the memory. My macbook only had 1GB of RAM, and using OWC for research and Amazon for purchasing, I upgraded to 4GB of RAM and my computer is running like a brand new macbook pro! Logos4Mac sped up drastically with the memory boost. Hope this helps.

si_cochran

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134288#Comment_134288

I love the way that the Mac just works.

Yes, it is really awesome how it just works. I have pulled the same hard drive out and put it in several different machines without reinstalling. It just works every time. Just don't forget to deactivate machine on iTunes though. I learned the hard way that every time you move the drive to a new machine it has to reactivate iTunes. You are limited to five machines and can reset only once a year. Between my office, laptop, wife and daughter's computer, I use four. Last year I was unable to activate them all for several months because I didn't know to deactivate before moving machines. I am really thankful that Logos 4 does not do this.

Thank you for the iTunes tip! I will keep that in mind next time.

si_cochran

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134299#Comment_134299

Si Cochran, I'm using a late Spring 2008 white macbook and I ran into the same problem you did with small hard drive space. I got a 320GB drive because I read somewhere that the 2008 macbook models couldn't read a hard drive beyond that point. I hope that proves wrong for you. One other thing that I did was upgrade the memory. My macbook only had 1GB of RAM, and using OWC for research and Amazon for purchasing, I upgraded to 4GB of RAM and my computer is running like a brand new macbook pro! Logos4Mac sped up drastically with the memory boost. Hope this helps.

I also have 4 GB of RAM, which makes my Macbook run nicely too. [:D] What do you mean by saying, "that the 2008 macbook models couldn't read a hard drive beyond [320 GB]" ? My HD info says that I am at 499.76 GB capacity with 358.07 GB available. Does this mean I am in the clear, or do I only have 178.25 GB of actual space left? If I read OWC correctly, the 500 GB Seagate drive works well in Macbooks. Thanks.

Tyler Glodjo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134344#Comment_134344

I'm sorry I can't remember where I read it. I was doing my research a couple of months ago when I upgraded. Sounds like you should be in the clear, though. If OWC doesn't have any red flags about it, I'm sure 500 GB it perfectly fine. Sorry to give you a little scare [:S]

Nathan Monk

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/134344#Comment_134344

Just thought I would add my experiences in. I just upgarded a 2006 MBP 2.16 5400 standard 120Gb drive to a Kingston 128Gb SSD. Space was not the major issue as I have a iMac with 1Tb and a time capsule 1Tb. The MBP is used for study so the drive is not even half full. Speed is great and Logos runs very well.

Blessings All