Biggest and Fastest HD supported; Max ram

[WillJS]

I am thinking about changing the HD and adding RAM into my Macbook.. (2.0GHz, C2D, 80GB HD, 1GB RAM). My questions are: 1) What is the biggest and fastest HD available for the MB (w/o being a battery hog). 2) What the maximum amount of RAM supported by the MB (can someone link me to it?)

Here's my plan for changing/upgrading these parts.. is it workable?

Take out the MB's original HD, and put in the new one. (Before this, having the OS X Disc 1 in the drive). Boot off the disc, and install OS X onto the new HD. (the HD now should have OS X successfully installed) Buy an enclosure for the old HD, and plug it in FW400/USB2.0 and just mainly transfer music files onto the new HD. (will it recognize it? basically just plug-in-transfer)

After this, proceed to ram (Pretty confident in doing).

So, again.. will that plan work?

1) Can you link me to (good quality) RAM for the MB
2) The biggest and fastest HD supported (w/o being a battery hog [doesn't have to be the most expensive one either )


Thanks guys.. hopefully this made sense to you.

 

[synth3tik]

I would suggest OWC (macsales.com) for you parts. They have a full range of HDs and RAM for the MB. I think you can go up to 160 or 200G. They have some really good deals. I just upgraded the HD in my powerbook. I bought a 120G drive and a bus powered enclosure. What I did was take the original drive out and placed it in the enclosure, then I took the new drive placed it in the computer, and booted from the external drive ( being the only drive with an OS the computer will boot from this automatically) I then formatted the new drive as "Pwerbook HD2". then using Super Duper I did a copy of the original drive to the new one. No reinstall needed.

 

[synth3tik]

Oh, you can also check out iFixit.com. Their prices on parts are a little high, but they have a full section of instructions for upgrading you computer. Really helpful when trying to figure out what to pull apart to get to your HD.

 

[phidauex]

Some comments about ram...

For ram, the 'safest' thing to do is to get two 1gb sticks of Crucial ram. They work every time, and are totally supported.

Cheaper thing to do is to use gSkill ram from Newegg. Its cheaper, and works for everyone who tries it, but they don't have as long of a mac history.

But if you are feeling frisky, Macbooks will actually address up to 3gb of ram. Use one 2gb DDR667 SO-DIMM in one slot, and a 1gb in the other. Its not cheap, and you loose the dual channel benefit, but it does work, if you are seriously ram hungry.

peace,
sam

 

[polevault139]

Are you sure that the MB will address 3GB of RAM? I always thought that only the MBP could recognize 3GB of RAM. Well in any event I dont think that the cost of the 2GB stick of RAM justifies the usage it will be put under, so even if you could get the MB you recognize 3GB of RAM it wouldnt be worth it.

 

[nazmac21]

Are you sure that the MB will address 3GB of RAM? I always thought that only the MBP could recognize 3GB of RAM. Well in any event I dont think that the cost of the 2GB stick of RAM justifies the usage it will be put under, so even if you could get the MB you recognize 3GB of RAM it wouldnt be worth it.

MacBook can handle 3GB of RAM but Apple just doesn't want to say it on their site.

 

[phidauex]

Yup, it will do 3gb, as nazmac says. But you are also right, the 2gb chips are mad expensive right now, so its probably not worth it unless you REALLY needed to.

But in a year, i bet we'll see a lot of people putting 3gb in their macbooks.

peace,
sam