Mac book upgrades--hard drive & RAM
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
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
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.
Is any generic hard drive OK?
Any SATA (not PATA/IDE) drive, 9.5 mm high (not 12.5).
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".
Must RAM be 2 sticks always?
No, but having two identical (in terms of capacity, speed and latency) sticks has a performance benefit.
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.
I have never had problems with ramjet.
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!)