So I decided tonight that I needed more HDD space as the stock 160GB in my 13" MBP was filling up fast. I just couldn't resist the urge to upgrade it right away... Then I saw my Maxtor Portable 320GB External USB drive. So I said to myself, "You need to be opened up Maxtor". So I did, then I took a couple of precision screwdrivers and murdered the poor old maxtor. It isn't exactly old but I want it's space! Disregarding the fact that opening it up voided the warranty... Here are a few pics: The "Murdered" Maxtor shown below while it is being cloned Apple's so-called embedded battery All done! With Apple's 160GB HDD inside the Maxtor! Before doing all the surgery I ran a disk benchmark (XBench) with the stock 160GB. It scored 41.01. The stock HDD is actually a Hitachi 5400rpm 2.5" SATA HDD. After putting in the new HDD from the Maxtor Portable, I gave it a Benchmark too. It scored 47.19. It's a Seagate 5400rpm Momentus 2.5" SATA HDD. Although the score of the replacement HDD is only marginally faster than the stock HDD, the higher score gave me a feeling of fulfillment. The "torx" mounting screws gave me a problem. Using a long-nosed plier, I managed to get it loose. Now happy with the 320GB Hard Drive...
Okay, this might sound like a really stupid question, but I've never done anything like this (though I'm planning to when I get my MBP), so pardon my ignorance. :redface: When you change the HDD, do you have to install OS X and your applications again once it's in, or is there a better, more techie way to have everything that was in your old HDD "magically" appear on the new HDD? :slanted:
@irisgodd3ss If you're simply replacing (with emphasis on replacing) the hard drive of the MacBook, you can Clone your current HDD. This means that you don't have to re-install anything. Everything will "magically" appear on the new HDD as if nothing happened. Except of course the fact that you have more free space... This is only possible because there are NO hardware changes. But if you are going to transfer your HDD to another Mac, this method will not work. Time Machine or Migration Assistant will help you out in this situation. Meaning, you have to re-install Leopard then run your desired restoration method. Aside from documents, itunes libraries, and relevant personal files, the latter method may not copy everything.
@irisgodd3ss: More or less you take the new drive and place it in a SATA HDD Enclosure (miggytanya used the Maxtor Enclosure), connect it to the MBP, and run a Cloner Program (I use Carbon Copy Cloner) and copy the internal drive onto the new drive. Depending on how much needs to be copied, this'll take time. Once done, swap the drives. And done. @miggytanya: Have you noticed that startup takes a longer time or no? If it is longer, go to System Prefs>> Startup Disk>> Select the new onboard HDD, then restart. The startup time should be bak to normal. @all: The MBP warranty isn't voided if you replace the HDD provided that all went well with the upgrade. However, the Maxtor drive warranty is voided as miggytanya said.
@rafaelc378 The first boot took awhile. Subsequent ones are normal. What's funny is I don't see my hard drive listed as a start up disk on the system preferences pane specified. Is that normal?
It just shows a "Network Startup" disk icon with a grey question mark logo over it. I've tried rebooting several times and I find the boot time to be normal. Not seeing my disk listed has bothered me a little though...
i replaced my mbp13's hitachi drive even before i first turned it one when i got it. i did so coz it's always been a habit for me to re-system a brand new mac with a new install of OSX to make sure the unnecessary programs and drivers won't be installed and save myself a lot of GB.
My maxtor basic external drive has a seagate on it. and its support drivers is in the seagate website.
They say the optical drive is SATA as well so with how easy you were able to take it apart, I think I'd like to try it when I get my Unibody and replace the dvd drive with another hard drive. I can't seem to see the airport card, did you see one during your teardown?
Can you put any hard disk in a macbook/pro as an upgrade or does it have to follow certain brands or specifications?
^as long as the hdd is 2.5" SATA you're good to go. though i did read somewhere that the mounting holes of WD drives are a bit off compared to others. not sure of this though since haven't had the chance to use WD 2.5" drives.
Thanks suavegabe. I am know considering miggytanya's experiment. Since, i have the same Maxtor portable. Brilliant! Why i didn't think of that? hmmm.
BTW, i'm not sure if this was the right/advisable thing to do but this actually worked for me: i had my 320gb originally in a macbook white. when i bought my MBP, i naturally wanted to transfer that 320gb drive to it so i did the whole time machine back-up thing. after time machine was finished, i installed the 320gb to the MBP, started up it up with leopard disk in hand, and lo and behold, OSX booted with all my stuff in it! everything was working fine so i didn't bother to reinstall anything! is this actually normal for macs coz this obviously won't work with a PC?
not that i intend to do any operations on my macbook in the near future but i was wondering if it'd be as simple to replace the stock hdd with a SSD drive? they both connect to the sata port, and are roughly the same size right? i'm only asking since, aside from ram, SSD's are the only other speed upgrade i can think of
@Suave gotta love macs @check i think it is as easy as a regular hdd. Still too pricey for me though When the right time comes and more storage choices. I will buy one of these.
Guys can i pre-install osx and other apps first on the target hdd(320g). Before, i actually remove the stock (120g hdd) from my macbook? If yes, can someone teach me how it is done?
