Upgrade questions - Ram and HD

Question

Considering adding some ram and a new HD to my MacBook.
It's a late 2008 Unibody, 2.4 GHz.
I currently have 4GB of Ram and a 250GB HD, which I believe spins at 5400 rpm (how do I check that?).
My understanding is that this machine can take 6GB of ram. I'm assuming I can just buy one 4GB stick and replace the 2GB stick with it, correct? If so, where should I buy it from and what should I be looking for? Also, what performance increase can I expect - specifically in Photoshop CS5 and LR3?
Will getting a faster spinning drive increase performance as well (for PS and LR)? If so, what should I be looking for there?
Thanks for any/all help.

Answer 1

To find out about your hard drive open System Profiler to find the make and model of the drive then go to the manufacturer's site to find specifications for the particular model.
Adding more RAM will not make the computer perform faster. It simply allows you to run more applications concurrently or provides more RAM to running applications. If you are now running out of RAM then adding more will help. If you aren't running out of RAM, then adding more simply lets you run more applications concurrently. To add more RAM to reach the 6 GB limit you will need one 4 GB module and one 2 GB module. Look in the user manual for information on the specific type of RAM you need. Most likely PC-5300 667 MHz SDRAM 200-pin, but check your manual. Sources of RAM I recommend are Data Mem and OWC.
Getting a faster and/or larger hard drive will improve the performance of data access and may improve boot time. An excellent replacement would be a Seagate X500 which is a 7200 RPM Hybrid drive having 500 GBs of storage plus 4 GBs of SSD memory to improve the drive's performance. It's not as fast as a normal SSD, but it's faster than a standard drive. Cost is around $160.00 on the street. OWC sells a nice bundle of drive, enclosure, tools, and software. You can replace the existing drive then put the old drive in the enclosure so you can boot the computer then partition and format the new drive and clone your old drive to the new one.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive.
Source means the external startup drive.