Upgrade RAM and HD on late 2007 MBP

The 2.2GHz Santa Rosa models like yours can actually handle 6 Gig of RAM, Robert, though Apple only endorses 4Gig . This is actually based on the largest size RAM cards available when it was released, rather than any technical limitation. The memory controller can handle 6 Gig. (see http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/Pro/Core2/ for some options)

The "highest" drive your computer can fit is 9.5mm as you suspect. The later unibodies (2009) can handle a higher drive, but even then it may not be wise to use one because of possible temperature issues when depriving them of a bit of space!

I'd be looking at a 7200rpm drive with 16MB cache like this one for your needs.

(I don't have any connection with OWC where the examples come from . I use their examples because I know that quite a few people here regard them highly as reputable suppliers in the US and they carry a good range of Mac stuff. It is hard to really tell what any dealer is like from the other side of the globe, but OWC, seem to fit the bill according to my American friends, genuinely know Mac stuff and stock the same items that I like from my favourite dealers here in Australia! I'm sure there are other good ones, too, though)

Cheers

Rod

I think you'll find that even 4 Gig gives you a big lift for that sort of stuff, Robert.

On the other hand 4 gig cards have come down a long way in price from where they were even a couple of months ago.

You can buy a single 4Gig card for about $140US these days (compared to many hundred$$ last year!) Sure, 2x2 Gigs will cost you only about $90, but if you decide to upgrade further you'll have to throw one of them away. With a 4 gig card you can also keep one of your existing 1 gig cards in its slots, giving you 5 gig in all. So you basically get an extra gig of RAM, and a bit of "future proofing" ,for around and extra $50 if you go the 1x4Gig card route. Certainly looks far more tempting than when I last upgraded my own MBP to 4 Gig!

It is one of those toss ups that probably depends more on the state of your wallet than anything critical in use of your computer, but 5 Gig will give you a bit more room to move than 4, if you don't want to head straight to 6.

(PS, I tried to edit the previous post to answer another of your questions, but got shut out by the editing time limit. I was going to add:

You won't have any trouble using any current 2.5" HD in terms of the OS or hardware ability to address it. HFS(+) can address up to 8 exabytes (8x10 to the 18th power bytes) of data on a volume and 4,294,967,295 files, so no worries there for a while! (After that you'll have to partition 😉 )

The limits that applied to the old "PATA / IDE drive controllers" don't apply to SATA controllers, so you will have no worries there.

Snow leopard is able to address ridiculously large amounts of absolutely everything, too.

The only "real world" limit you have at present is based on the physical size of the drive which you wish to use.

For a 7200rpm drive that essentially means 500 GB at present)

Cheers

Rod

Robert Stone wrote:
I hope you are enjoying summer there - we just got another few inches of snow here and very much are looking forward to spring.

Thanks again
-Bob

Been pretty warm here over the last few days, Robert, but at least it has been a bit damper than last year. I live out on the north east edge of Melbourne where the bushfires hit a year ago last Saturday. My office is in St Andrews, where 12 (most of whom I knew to chat to at the post office) of the 173 people who were killed in them died , and Hurstbridge itself was probably saved by a wind change that would have been too late if it had come five minutes later. The fire missed my office by about 1000yards, and my home by about 2.5 miles.

I love autumn and spring right now. Not sure if I'm as fond of summer as I once was! Mind you, if I'd had a winter like the one that the Northern Hemisphere seems to have experienced this year, I reckon I could very quickly come to love them again!

That's the trouble with this danged weather stuff these days, always seems to be one extreme or the other!

Hope all goes well with your upgrade and spring gets there before you can blink an eye!

Cheers

Rod