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Upgrading a MacBook: What should come first?

3finger

3finger

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 12, 2007
3
0
Los Angeles
I own a white, 2 GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook and want to upgrade it to prepare for the release of Leopard, among other reasons. My plan is to upgrade to a 160 GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM. My question is, in my case where both expense and insecurities about my technical abilities are factors, which part of the upgrade should I prioritize first - the hard drive or the RAM?
 
3finger said:
I own a white, 2 GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook and want to upgrade it to prepare for the release of Leopard, among other reasons. My plan is to upgrade to a 160 GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM. My question is, in my case where both expense and insecurities about my technical abilities are factors, which part of the upgrade should I prioritize first - the hard drive or the RAM?
Click to expand...

It depends. Are you in danger of filling up the existing hard drive any time soon? If so, then go for the hard drive. If not, then go for the RAM. No sense in upgrading the hard drive soon if you only ever expect to have less than 80 GB of stuff.
 
ehurtley said:
It depends. Are you in danger of filling up the existing hard drive any time soon? If so, then go for the hard drive. If not, then go for the RAM. No sense in upgrading the hard drive soon if you only ever expect to have less than 80 GB of stuff.
Click to expand...


For what it's worth, I have an 80 GB of which only about 20 GB is freed up at this moment. That taken space includes a iTunes library of about 10 GB.
 
most definetely the RAM first. And i suggest an external HD for your media.
 
I went for the RAM first right after I got my Macbook because I didn't need the hard drive space at the time and I did want faster performance and fewer spinning beach balls. Seems like the same line of thinking would work for you as well.

Upgrading both the RAM and the HD is really quite straightforward. Just be sure you have the right size phillips screw driver because fit is essential to not stripping out the screw head. The little screws are secured with a little loc-tite (at least mine were), so it take a bit to get them to break free.

When it comes time to get started, http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook/86/ has tutorials with photos on how to do the upgrades.
 
How much RAM do you ahve right now? I just upgraded from 1gb to 3gb on my MBP and honestly, I didn't feel that much of a difference. It's slight, but in most tasks 1gb held up pretty well.

I did notice a big change when I purchased an external hdd. My HD only had about 10gb left (out of 160gb) and I was constantly burning DVD's to alleviate some hd space. My hard drive considerably slowed once I had such little room, too.

So for me, I say external hd then RAM. Externals are much more convenient.
 
Thanks for the advice, everybody. It seems that the consensus is for me to get more RAM first. However, when the time comes for the hard drive, I was going to get a new internal and then convert the old internal into an external via enclosure. The reason I lean toward internal is simply convenience - i already have several externals, and it can be a hassle to lug around even a small external when you have a laptop.

I'm also considering replacing many of my smaller externals with a larger external (500 GB or so) that would be connected to a new Apple Extreme Base Station so that both computers could use it wirelessly. But that's another story ...
 
It's dead dead easy installing a new internal drive in a MB - if you're nervous, watch one of the Youtube videos of it being done and let your worst fears vanish....
 
If you are preparing for Leopard and are not in any risk of filling up your curreint internal hard drive, get an external drive so that you can use it with Time Machine as well as for storage. Plug it into an Airport Extreme base if you've got one and you'll be ready for that aspect of 10.5
 
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