New Macbook

The basic white Macbook that I purchased new for $1000 in 2007 before heading to Costa Rica the first time - - - just keeps on going with all the abuse I give it. It has been a work horse in my extensive travels and my professional portrait, wedding and commercial work. For months on end many times, it has staying turned on for 24 hours a day.

The last few months in Nicaragua, the internal hard drive was struggling and making lots of noise in the severe heat. I was positive that it would die at any time, and that was unsettling. I have always been dissatisfied as a result of having to swap out files and limit the number and size of files that I could keep on the small hard drive. As well the battery started bulged and has reduced capacity of sometimes a bit over half an hour run time.

So I was determined that I needed an up to date replacement, and could justify getting a new one. Instead though, I decided to replace the failing small 80GB hard drive with a larger 750GB hard drive that ran at a faster 7200RPM, than the built-in Apple hard drive. As for the bulging battery that could be replaced for a fair hunk of change from Apple - - - I found many "replacement" batteries on eBay.

With the upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard (so that I could better handle Olympus HD video) last fall - - - it runs better than ever. Cost for everything? $110. Time to copy the almost full 80GB hard drive over to the 750GB with Super Duper? a couple of hours unattended. Install the 750GB HD? 3 minutes tops. Put the battery in? 5 seconds. Well worth the effort.

I must admit I thought you had splurged for a new Macbook Pro. I know that whenever I buy one, two things happen. first it's not as fast as I'd hoped, partly because noes software depends more and more on fast graphics cards and secondly the new model comes out 1 month later. It always happens!

You've done well babying your older macbook pro. What version do you have?

Asher

You've done well babying your older macbook pro. What version do you have?

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It's not a Macbook Pro - - - just the basic bottom of the line white Macbook with a 2ghz Core 2 Duo processor.

I am not a gamer where powerful processing and graphics for number crunching is required. This Macbook effortlessly runs my staple programs Lightroom 4.4 as well as Photoshop 6. I have recorded many multi-track recordings and small video projects. When I want to have a larger higher resolution view, I am able to work at 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display.

In fact my next Apple machine for portability, so that I have a work station for the 8 to 9 months that I am in Nicaragua and then to set up for the months I'm at home in Canada - - - will be the Mac Mini. It as well has the processing power to handle all I can throw at it. Knowing that is where I would be heading in choices, is a reason that I decided to keep my old Macbook going.

It's true that I'm kind of babying the old Macbook by updating it to a larger hard drive and continuing to use it - - - - but I am amazed at the abuse these things take, because I certainly don't baby it when working. It's tortured by having to run in extreme cold and heat - and being exposed to knocks and vibration as I walk around with it in an unpadded shoulder pouch, as well as sand and dirt and grime. I'm not a Mac fanatic, but certainly appreciate many of their thoughtful and sturdy design concepts.

Sounds great Robert. Macs are tough, but all hardware has its limits. Just be sure to back up your Hard Disc regularly. Daily if you work intensely!

Alain Briot said:

Sounds great Robert. Macs are tough, but all hardware has its limits. Just be sure to back up your Hard Disc regularly. Daily if you work intensely!

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Thanks Alain

After losing a C drive with all contents quite a few years ago (I did have backups), I quickly learned to separate my working files from my program files - - - and so other than maybe some songs, bookmarks and other non-critical files, always store my work files on external drives. The computer drive is "operating system and programs only".

For storage of my files at home, I have triplicate external hard drives of all my work, as well as a 4TB NAS setup so that I can access all files on it from all computers through the home Network.

The main reason that I value this new internal hard drive for my Macbook, has to do with there being enough space so that I can run Parallels and Windows for the few programs that I own and regularly use in my Office Workstation, that are Windows only.

As well, when I am wanting to work on a video or audio project - by copying the files that I want to work with, to the Macbook hard drive - it runs much faster than reading or writing to/from the external drive. When the project is done and for backing up along the way, I can transfer them to the externals.

Lastly, I take my Macbook to wedding jobs where I would just as soon not bother having to take an external hard drive to back the job up while there. With only 15 or 20GB free on my stock 80GB hard drive, and with generally more space than that required for a job - it just didn't work.

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It is actually amazing how small and inexpensive the portable drives currently are. I was going to take down my Hard Drive Dock with three 2BG 3 1/2 inch drives containing all of my portrait wedding and commercial work back to 2002, as well as my travel and art files that may be required for print sales. Then this past week, I discovered the incredibly small Western Digital My Passport hard drives. I could get them in 2GB size for 129.00 here in Canada.

http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Portable-External-Storage-WDBY8L0020BBK-NESN/dp/B005HMKKH4

So I will be transferring all of those files to a few 2BG portables instead and cutting down on the bulk. I have had no issues with my original 128GB portable from 2007 and the current 500GB portable I have been using since 2011. They just are too small for my current needs.

Hi Robert,

Glad to know you have a carefully thought out back up plan. It's unfortunate that most of us learn to do that after a hard disc failure. I've been there too!

I do recommend backing up your entire hard drive, not just the work files, because if you have a hard disc failure reinstalling your software and resetting your preferences can be extremely time consuming.

Alain

Alain Briot said:

Hi Robert,

Glad to know you have a carefully thought out back up plan. It's unfortunate that most of us learn to do that after a hard disc failure. I've been there too!

I do recommend backing up your entire hard drive, not just the work files, because if you have a hard disc failure reinstalling your software and resetting your preferences can be extremely time consuming.

Alain

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Valuable reminders Alain.


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