Ready to take the plunge

bjfjohn644bjfjohn644
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I have wanted to make the switch for about 6 months now. I made the mistake of being impatient and not waiting for the Macbook to release so I bought a dell laptop. I have regretted that ever since. The dell is not a bad pc but I want a Mac. My wife immediately made the dell "hers". I can't get any time on it now so I can now do what I wanted to do in the first place---buy the Mac I wanted. I am going to purchase a Macbook. I will be getting the white 2.0 ghz. What advice I need is about the hd size. I don't do much except download music and surf and email but I wanted to know if I started loading it with pics how fast would the 60g stock hd fill up. Should I get the 80g or what? By the way I am going to get the upgrade to 1gig of RAM. Another question I have is if I need more space should I just invest in an external hd. I have heard it doesn't make much sense to have a large hd on your laptop. Any help you could give this Mac Noob would be great.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    krnk123krnk123 Posts: 11member
    80 is better, but i think 60 is enough if you just download some music and put some pictures in
  • Reply 2 of 12
    bjfjohn644bjfjohn644 Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by krnk123


    80 is better, but i think 60 is enough if you just download some music and put some pictures in



    I just don't want to spend the dough if there isn't a need. Thanks for your help, though.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I'd go for the bigger HD + an external drive in anticipation of Leopard (for Time Machine, dontcha know).
  • Reply 4 of 12
    bjfjohn644bjfjohn644 Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich


    I'd go for the bigger HD + an external drive in anticipation of Leopard (for Time Machine, dontcha know).



    Yeah, I have had some questions about how time machine will work ever since I saw the WWDC keynote. They showed what it can do but not how it does it.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    It backs up your files to another drive automatically, if you so desire. Might be good to use if you have a lot of critical files and you don't bother with backups.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    bjfjohn644bjfjohn644 Posts: 9member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich


    It backs up your files to another drive automatically, if you so desire. Might be good to use if you have a lot of critical files and you don't bother with backups.



    So it backs up everything automatically. Can you tell it what to backup and when?
  • Reply 7 of 12
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Yeah, you can say "back up only these" or "everything but this" and also whether it's a weekly deal or in real-time.
  • Reply 8 of 12
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Normal backup systems examine all your files and compare the results to the last time they did that so they can archive changed files. Time Machine is better however because it plugs in to the same hooks used by Spotlight so that anytime a file is saved it is automatically flagged to be archived. This means that when its time to make a backup, the list of changed files is instantaneously available and just the changes can be backed up. Perhaps once a week, perhaps once a day, perhaps in realtime after the file is saved.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    garfield_3199garfield_3199 Posts: 8member
    I'm a recent switcher and a mac newbie. I just got the 2.0Ghz white macbook 2 weeks ago and upgraded it to 1 gB RAM. However, i plan to further upgrade to a 160GB internal HD ang to a 2gB RAM. I then plan to use my present onboard 60GB HD as an external drive.



    Is this a good move??? Thanks!
  • Reply 10 of 12
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Sounds like a great move, you'll just have to find a good little enclosure for your 60GB drive (you'll need an enclosure to adapt the SATA plug into a USB or Firewire cable you can plug into your computer, there's no way of plugging in an external drive otherwise)
  • Reply 11 of 12
    garfield_3199garfield_3199 Posts: 8member
    Thanks for your approval!

    Yes, i also ordered an SATA enclosure which has both USB and firewire connectivity.

    Thanks again.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich


    I'd go for the bigger HD + an external drive in anticipation of Leopard (for Time Machine, dontcha know).





    I'd advise against paying the extra for a larger drive. The drives in these MacBooks are so easy to upgrade that you'd be much better off buying the machine with the 60 GB then upgrading the internal yourself and putting the old drive in an external case.



    I personally have multiple extrenal drives for different purposes and I plan to do what I advised above with my own MacBook. A 2.5" external drive goes into my backpack more easily than a 3.5" and will make for backups on the road. I then have a 3.5" external drive at home for full backups and a bunch of other data I don't need all the time.
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