New Mac User: Macbook Aluminum

So I finally made the switch to Mac OS. I am slowly getting use to the os and I really enjoy using the iLife software. I calibrated the screen using a setting from another thread and the screen looks good to me. The build quality is excellent and much better than the vaio z590 (returned).

I bought a stock 2.4ghz macbook aluminum and I want to upgrade the hard drive and ram. Is there a way to make a complete disc image and transfer it to the new hard drive or do I need to start from scratch after putting in the new hard drive? I am torn between a 500gb WD scorpio blue (5400rpm) and a 320gb WD black (7200rpm). I am worried about heat, battery life/power consumption, and noise vs performance.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

You can use the Restore functionality in OSX's Disk Utility to backup and restore your drive. Alternatively, there are free utilities like SuperDuper that can do it for you. Either way, you have to format the new disk first.

I'm using a Seagate 7200.3 250GB drive with G-shock protection. No noise, vibration or heat issues here.

 

There's also carbon copy cloner, that will copy your drive, and make a bootable version of it onto an external drive.

 

Congrats GoSensGo! And I think the Senators are pretty good too .

As always, my suggestion for all switchers:

www.apple.com/support/switch101
www.apple.com/support/mac101

 

Go with the 500GB 5400RPM. It might be faster than the 320GB 7200RPM (depending on how many platters it uses) because of platter density. The 500GB will also spin slower so it won't vibrate as much.

 

Go with the 320GB if money is any concern. It's much cheaper and offers a little better performance.

 

If you have an external drive, the easiest is to do a time machine backup. Then restore from time machine onto the new drive.

 

How do you find the screen compared to your returned z?

 

Does time machine restore all files including pictures, movies, games, settings, not just os and applications? Does the external hard drive have to be formatted for mac os only or can it have windows files?

I'm still torn between the two WD hard drives but I'm leaning more towards the 500gb scorpio blue for its larger capacity, and theoretically lower power consumption and noise.

Is there a way in mac os to show how much ram you are using? I'm use to windows, especially Vista using lots of ram so I'm wondering if 2gb is enough.

 

I like the high resolution screen on the z (1600x900). The color is better on the z and the view angles (especially horizontal) are much better on the z.

Though after calibrating the macbook screen the colors are much better than stock calibration. I don't edit photos or movies professionally so I'm not as concern as some people for perfect color reproduction (though I don't see professionals using a 13 inch screen to do their work).

In terms of the build quality of the screen, the macbook is much better than the z. The z screen was flimsy (as well as the hinge) and made creaking sounds. I was not comfortable placing my z into my briefcase as I'd fear that it would break. Not a comforting feeling for a business user. I had a few major problems with my z including the dvd drive, the battery, and the express card cover. In the end, the screen was not enough to compensate for the poor build quality and the horrific customer service (as well as the extra $800 for my configuration).

The matte screen in the z was nice as you do not see much reflections compared to the macbook. i was worried about the reflections when viewing the macbook in the store, but its not bad at home or in the office as you don't have 2000 watt light bulbs hanging on your ceiling .

 

If you havn't changed time machines setting, it should backup everything on the harddrive. I excluded some folders, just because they have large files in them, that change often, so I didn't want less days on my backup, because of those files.

But yea, after I did a time machine restore, it worked perfectly fine, except ofcourse I didn't have the files in those folders, though I did back them up before.

As for the whole ram discussion. There was a thread (probably still on the front page of the apple forums) talking about ram usage. Check that one out, but essentially, don't worry about the numbers if it looks like its using too much. Though to check it, open Activity Monitor, and it will show you.

And yea, I'm leaning towards the 500GB WD too. 400GB for OSX, and the remaing 60~ for windows sounds like a good idea to me. I could actually have games on the hdd, and not on external drives ;p

 

320GB 7200rpm is still faster than 500GB/5400rpm.

500GB/5400rpm will be safer for noise and vibration though.

 

Will any ddr3 1066 sodimm work in the macbook aluminum? I saw OCZ 1066 4gb sodimm kit on sale for $160 Cad at a computer store close to my place. Is OCZ ok, or do I need to put Kingston (which is more expensive at $210).

I have decided to go with the 500gb wd scorpio blue 5400rpm. Any complaints about this particular hard drive that I should know of? This drive should fit in this notebook right? I'm just afraid of buying the ram and hard drive and it doesn't fit or work.

After spending a week with the macbook and mac osx, I find that I really like it. The touchpad is so intuitive and the os and programs are excellent. The battery life is excellent as I normally achieve around 5hrs while surfing, checking emails, and doing office work (screen at 40% brightness, wifi on, BT off, 1 bar for backlit keyboard). Initially, I thought of also running windows via bootcamp but so far I haven't found a significant reason to do so.

One thing that I noticed is that there aren't as many games as windows. I enjoy playing RTS and so far I loaded age of empires 3, warcraft 3, rise of nations. I couldn't get starcraft to install as it gave me an error message about not working with this os. Is there a software program that allows you to see the frames per second for mac os (an equivalent to FRAPS for windows)?

Any insight and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!