Should I upgrade the HDD in my MacBook?

[pinion]

I need the room but I could probably wait. Is there any reason for me to wait?

[Chupa Chupa]

As with any technology, HDD are only going to get bigger, faster, less expensive, and usually more reliable with time. I think its always a good idea to only buy at the point you absolutely need a bigger HD. 120GB today, 160GB tomorrow.

[pinion]

Well the thing is now... I got the money and I want want want. I heard about insanely larger drives that might be coming out and I was wondering if anyone else heard about that and knew when? If its soon I'll wait. If it's 6 months from now I'm going to buy.

[jdc]

go external?

[pinion]

I did the day I was born.

[chas_m]

[quote pinion]I need the room but I could probably wait. Is there any reason for me to wait?
My understanding from Apple is that although the hard drive in a MacBook is childishly simple to replace, it is not classified as a user-serviceable part -- meaning that if you replace your HD, you void your warranty. Please check with Apple on this, they have not been clear with us lowly reseller types on this.

Secondly, since you didn't mention it, I should point out that the HD in a MacBook is NOT an IDE drive, it's SATA. This may crimp your plans a bit.

Third, where's your source for the "insanely larger drives coming soon" thing? Not in the notebook space, I don't think. The new "perpendicular" drives may eventually give us larger sizes than we've previously seen in notebooks -- the largest currently available is 160GB if I'm not mistaken -- but those items will be expensive and rare for some time, and I seriously doubt they'll get a lot bigger. I myself plan to wait a GOOD long time before buying a "perp" drive -- I'm a tech, I want to see real-world failure rates before I invest in something.

Still, even a 120GB SATA notebook drive is about double what Apple ships as default on the MacBook, so taking the other factors into account you may want to upgrade -- when your warranty runs out.

[Gareth]

By insanely large, do you mean 200GB? Those have been announced for a while now, but not yet released. Based on past pricing of the largest capacity notebook drives, I wouldn't be surprised if they are $400 when they come out.

If the current 160GB prices look like a deal for you now (around $250), I'd go for that now and wait on the prices of 200's to drop or the next jump.

[OWC Larry]

Not only do we offer the drives on this page:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Ma...R2/Upgrade

But we have install videos too.

The MacBook is about as easy as it gets - the HD bay is accessible through the battery bay. Piece of cake.

Did I mention we give cash back for the old drive?

200GB drives will be out in 6-8 weeks... but only from Toshiba and slow 4200RPM. We are finding the WD drives to be really, surprisely, good drives given WD's relative newness to the 2.5 space - but only up to 120GB. Seagate has the better warranty and best performance comparing 5400 to 5400 and 7200 to 7200 between the brands - Hitachi is right up there with Seagate, but only the 3yr warranty but also a little less cost... and is 120GB or 160GB going to be a lot in 3 years, let a long 5 years anyway?

You do what makes sense for what you need... and don't spend it unless, as you say, you've got a need/purpose for the result.

3.5 externals a lot less if don't need the portability or at least access to them while porting them arount.

[chas_m]

VERY sage post Larry. Your experiences with brands and sizes correlates with mine.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

[quote chas_m]My understanding from Apple is that although the hard drive in a MacBook is childishly simple to replace, it is not classified as a user-serviceable part -- meaning that if you replace your HD, you void your warranty. Please check with Apple on this, they have not been clear with us lowly reseller types on this.
Note the entry regarding hard drive replacement near the bottom of Apple's D-I-Y part replacement page for MacBooks:

http://www.apple.com/support/macbook/diy/order.html

Pretty clear to me that Apple's stance is that the HD is a D-I-Y part on the MB.