hard drive upgrade on 2007 MacBook

Question

hard drive upgrade on 2007 MacBook

My wife has a 2007 MacBook - and she's more or less outgrown the hard drive.

If we wanted to get her a newer and bigger hard drive, can someone tell me which drives would work with this machine? How do I look for replacement / upgrade drives? What specs do I look for?

(I've seen ads for those new and expensive SSD drives - would those make any kind of difference?)

WF

MacPro; 2 x 3 MHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon; 16 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.1), World's Largest iTunes library (too big too count!)

Posted on Nov 16, 2010 8:51 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,753 points

Nov 16, 2010 9:06 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

Any 2.5" notebook SATA drive will work. Look for drives at OWC. Benchmarks and reviews may be found at Bare Feats, Storage Review, and Tom's Hardware Review.

SSD drives are very expensive in sizes over 80 GBs. If speed is more important than capacity then you may consider the SSDs. If capacity is more important consider the Seagate XT500 hybrid that provides improved speed by using a small SSD as part of the drive. I have two of them and am quite pleased with their performance.

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Answer 2

Nov 16, 2010 9:38 AM in response to Kappy

thanks for the response.

When you say "any" drive will work, does that mean any capacity? Is there any capacity ceiling? I see that there are 320 GB notebook SATA 2.5" drives... are those okay?

thanks again!

w

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,753 points

Nov 16, 2010 9:51 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

Yes, it means any notebook sized SATA drive will work. The current ceiling is 1 TB. 320 GB drives are fine.

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Answer 4

Nov 16, 2010 10:09 AM in response to WillFriedwald2

You can get a 500gb 2.5" sata hard drive on eBay for under $60 http://computers.shop.ebay.com/Hard-Drives-/158830/i.html?LHBIN=1&_nkw=500gb2.5%22+sata+harddrive&_trkparms=65%253A1%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1&rt=nc&_dmd=1&_sticky=1&_trksi d=p3286.c0.m14&_sop=15&sc=1 or a 320gb 2.5" sata hard drive for around $40 http://computers.shop.ebay.com/i.html?nkw=320gb2.5%22+sata+hard+drive&_sacat=158830&LH_BIN=1&_sop=15&_dmd=1&_odkw=500gb+2.5%22+ sata+harddrive&_osacat=158830&trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

Apple has a PDF file with instructions for replacing a hard drive. You'll need a #0 phillips screwdriver for the "L" bracket and a Torx 6 driver for the caddy screws.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/MacBook13inch_HardDriveDIY.pdf

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,753 points

Nov 16, 2010 10:24 AM in response to frederic1943

These are used, not new drives. I would clearly stay away from them as you have no idea in what condition they are nor do you have any warranty if it fails.

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Answer 6

First Magus

Level 7

21,278 points

Nov 16, 2010 4:04 PM in response to WillFriedwald2

One thing to be sure of is the height of the drive. There are some 2.5 inch drives that are 12.5 mm in height. The MacBook accepts 9.5 mm drives. I agree with Kappy a new drive is the best way to go.

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Answer 7

Dec 10, 2010 1:34 PM in response to WillFriedwald2

I have a related question, how do you load the operating system onto this new drive? The manual that is attached above says to use the system disk that came with your computer. What if you don't have them? I also have upgraded to OS X 10.5.8 since purchasing the computer. I have that disk but not the original disc....

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Answer 8

Dec 11, 2010 5:24 PM in response to JDUBYA123

My suggestion is for you to buy an new internal drive and an external drive(if you don't already have one). Then before replacing the internal hard drive;

1. use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your drive to the external hard drive(be sure your external drive is formatted so it is bootable, GUID Partition Table).

2. replace the internal hard drive with the new one

3. Boot from the external hard drive and use disk utility to format the drive(again, be sure you format it so it's bootable)

4. clone your external hard drive back over to the new internal

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