Wed
Mar 26
7:39pm
The MacBook: sell or upgrade?
My MacBook is a May 06 model and came with 60gb of HDD space. Six months ago I started to run out of storage space so I bought a 320gb external USB hard drive. My photos are on it (15gb) and I also use it for backing up DVDs (50gb), my files (<1gb), and all my music (16gb), but to be honest the external drive a bit of a hassle. I'd much rather that my photos were on the MacBook so that I can have a single iPhoto library, plus using the external drive requires me to be in my office wired up to it ... which sort of defeats the purpose of having a laptop. Also despite my photos being on the external drive I have only 7gb remaining on the MacBook. Hmmm.
For $200 or so I can replace my 60gb internal hard drive with a 250gb one. I'd eBay the external HDD for around $100, so $100 changeover seems like a good move.
But another alternative is to sell the MacBook and the external hard drive (for around $1,000) and put the cash towards a new one with a bigger hard drive. For $950 outlay (which I can salary sacrifice) I can pick up the middle MacBook with a 250gb HDD, a faster processor, OS X Leopard, 2gb of RAM and a superdrive. Currently I have a slower processor, OS X Tiger, 1.25gb RAM and no superdrive.
But I can get by without a superdrive, and although more RAM is always nice I can get by without that too. The faster processor would certainly be lovely, but would I notice the difference? Maybe, but probably not. Leopard has some cool features over Tiger, but Tiger does everything I need it to.
And in today's belt-tightening environment I guess I need to spend less and make the most of what I have.
I think I've answered my own question. Prepare to be pimped, MacBook!
* Update: this afternoon I bought a 1gb stick of RAM ($59) and a 160gb Seagate Momentus HD ($129) from Landmark Computer Systems on LaTrobe St, Melbourne. Haven't fitted the HD yet … that’s job #1 tomorrow!
** Update 2: Just read that only two years ago that Seagate drive was high end and cost $599. Amazing.