If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro (not the Retina display version), you have lots of hard drive upgrade options. These are:

– 5400 RPM hard drive. Comparatively slow, but Toshiba now has one (the catchily named MQ01ABD150) that is a whopping 1.5 TB. (If you have a pre-Unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro, then you can’t use this drive, because it’s physically too tall.)

– 7200 RPM hard drive. This is the same speed as a typical desktop computer’s hard drive and what we almost always recommend over 5400 RPM drives unless space is the main concern. Hitachi’s 7K1000 model is an impressive 1 TB.

– “Hybrid” drive. These drives, such as the Seagate Momentus XT, have a small-capacity SSD component designed to make them a bit faster. They are available up to 750 GB. (This is not to be confused with the optional “Fusion Drive” for current iMacs, which sounds the same, but is fairly different. They’re also not to be confused with a hybrid car, which is entirely different.)

– Solid-state drive (SSD). These drives are much faster, and much more reliable, but cost much more (though much less than they used to). Our favorite vendor for these is Other World Computing; I put one of theirs into a 2007 black MacBook and it turned it into a surprisingly satisfying machine. (OWC also sells custom SSD modules, not available from anyone else, for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina Display, and a nifty enclosure to house the original SSD module that comes out.)

And if you really want to max out your MacBook or MacBook Pro: OWC, iFixit, and others sell a kit which lets you put a second hard drive in the place where your optical drive (your CD/DVD drive) currently is.