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General Talk: Dual booting XP on a MacBook

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    Hi,

    I'm planning on getting a new MacBook (the 2.4GHz one) for university in the fall.

    The school gives out a free copy of Windows XP or Vista to students if they want it, so I figured I might as well dual boot XP on my MacBook (mostly for Paint.NET).

    Anyway, is the standard 160GB hard drive enough space for both OSs, or should I upgrade to the 250GB one? More specifically, how much hard drive space does dual booting XP eat up?
    • CommentAuthorconartistdesigns
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008 edited by conartistdesigns on the 22nd April 2008 at 22:21:42 EDT
     
    i wouldn't worry about hdd space... its the ram that'll kill ya. macbooks max at 2g pros 4. max it out. but do it yourself and save a 100 dollars.
    and btw i think XP is only a gig or two compared to Macs 10 or 15gig. it should be no probem. Please correct me if im wrong. I love MACS!!!!
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      CommentAuthorJeremyD
    • CommentTimeApr 22nd 2008
     
    if you're just going to use it for small stuff, I'd just use 30gb or so of the 160. that's more than enough.
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      CommentAuthorOutsider
    • CommentTimeApr 23rd 2008
     
    MacBooks can take up to 4GB of RAM. Buy good RAM though.

    A full MacOS install is 9GB mainly because it come with every print driver under the sun. You can shave off 2GB if you clear out the ones you don't need. I'm not quite sure if that also includes iMovie and iDVD, 2 applications that have large templates that take up a lot of space. Anyway, disk space is cheap, but the 160 should be more than enough. :)
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      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2008
     
    it is more like $250 dolar difference between apple and the local computer shop, and that isn't counting the cost of the 2GB you already have in the macbook.
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    so... If I buy directly from Apple, it's cheaper? Or is it the other way around? It's selling for $1349.99 CAD at the major retailers.
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      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeApr 24th 2008
     
    If you buy 4GB of RAM from apple, they vastly overcharge. NEVER by upgraded RAM if it is cheaper in the stores. In terms of buying Apple stuff from one place or the other, it won't make too much difference. To answer your original question, Sam, you won't need the larger disk, although you will probably want a USB-key to back up your data on.
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      CommentAuthorJeremyD
    • CommentTimeApr 25th 2008
     
    doesn't newegg sell mac RAM pretty cheap?
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    Posted By: gnomeit is more like $250 dolar difference
    Oh, you were talking about the price of the RAM... yeah, that's definitely a DIY job.

    Posted By: OutsiderBuy good RAM though.

    crucial.com is saying around $105 for a 2 x 2GB kit.

    at newegg, there's a kit going for $117 that has a CAS Latency of 4 (versus 5 for all the other ones i've seen). Is this important? I looked up CAS Latency on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure I understand what it is.
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      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeApr 25th 2008 edited by gnome on the 27th April 2008 at 09:49:20 EDT
     
    Lower is better.
    Here is a series of articles about memory, which may be worth the read, depending on how much you care.
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    thanks gnome. that's a much more succinct and understandable answer than what i'd been looking at :p

    i skimmed the articles.... but i don't think i want to go that in-depth.
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      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeApr 27th 2008
     
    Sam: for buy two sticks of RAM for a single laptop, reading all three is a bit overkill.

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