Mac book upgrades--hard drive & RAM

flyingsoloflyingsolo
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
New to Macs so bear with please...

I'm considering Macbook but need/wish to keep costs down and maybe I can do this by buying smaller drive/RAM and moving up as I can afford.

Is it easy/cost effective to do own upgrades of RAM and hard drive? Is any generic hard drive OK? What constraints are there on RAM? Must RAM be 2 sticks always?

Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by flyingsolo

    Is it easy/cost effective to do own upgrades of RAM and hard drive?



    Yes.



    Check this video. It couldn't get much simpler.



    Quote:

    Is any generic hard drive OK?



    Any SATA (not PATA/IDE) drive, 9.5 mm high (not 12.5).



    Quote:

    What constraints are there on RAM?



    Per Apple's documentation, you want SO-DIMMs which are "DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) compliant and must be unbuffered, unregistered, 8-byte, nonparity, and non-ECC".



    Quote:

    Must RAM be 2 sticks always?



    No, but having two identical (in terms of capacity, speed and latency) sticks has a performance benefit.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by flyingsolo

    New to Macs so bear with please...

    I'm considering Macbook but need/wish to keep costs down and maybe I can do this by buying smaller drive/RAM and moving up as I can afford.

    Is it easy/cost effective to do own upgrades of RAM and hard drive? Is any generic hard drive OK? What constraints are there on RAM? Must RAM be 2 sticks always?

    Thanks



    First: look for threads that address something before posting one: there are at least 2 here and one in general discussion...



    SECOND: RAM and HDD upgrades are a snap in the Macbook (easier than most desktops I have worked on) I will post a video how-to in a few minutes...EDIT: See above...Chucker beat me to it,



    THIRD: As much as it pains me to say it, if you can only afford one upgrade out of the gate, get a bigger HDD...If you are going to get a new HDD, it is easier when the machine is new than when you have been using it for months.



    Fourth: NEVER buy Apple RAM...buy it from Crucial or newegg -- SAVE $$$



    FIFTH: Admins; can we get a Macboook/Macbook Pro FAQ sticky to avoid redundent threads?



    EDIT:

    Also, if you are tight budgeted, check out the referb section, the save price tag on the store page at Apple.com -- save $200, that is enough to get a 100gig HDD AND 2GB RAM.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    flyingsoloflyingsolo Posts: 6member
    Thanks for quick answer! Maybe it's common knowledge, but there's $150 savings of white v. black (with same 80GB drive) (but I agree, black seems a better esthetic and doesn't show dirt) and Apple wants $600 (Cdn.)for 2G RAM which seems pricey! I'll have to check around on 3rd party RAM prices.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    jpenningtonjpennington Posts: 476member
    Check out RAMJet.com, I but all my notebook ram from them. I believe it is 259 for 2 gigs.



    I have never had problems with ramjet.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    soontobemacsoontobemac Posts: 11member
    I noticed he was from Canada (like me) Newegg doesn't ship to us (no idea why).. I ended up getting a good deal from amazon.com

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...chant&v=glance



    Each stick is $83.25us... if you buy 2 you get a 10% if you enter EDUSAVER at the checkout... pretty much takes care of the shipping, which is nice. Haven't gotten them or installed it yet (don't even have the macbook yet, 5-7 days until it ships, arg!)
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