Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Upgraded to 320GB HDD in My MacBook Pro

August 15, 2008 by Greg Ferro · 3 Comments 

I just upgraded the disk drive in my Mac Book to 320 GB (from 160Gb) and it could not have been easier.
I can’t believe how simple this was using Mac OS X. No restore or data migration, just a simple backup and then install the drive. Boot and back in business……
Here are my tips on how to do this yourself:

Hard Disk Drive

Buy an external hard disk drive ( http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=377), although I wish I had bought unit that was 7200RPM and thus gave me a performance boost. ( I will do that when I get the 500GB drive in a few months).

SASA Drive Cradle or Adapter

Buy an external SATA to USB hard disk cradle – something like a Scythe Kama Connect 2 USB2.0 IDE and SATA External Adapter, but this unbranded SATA Cradle is my personal choice – http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Enclosures-and-Cases/sc884/p640popup1531.aspx?x=y. It takes both 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives of any height.

Buy SuperDuper

SuperDuper is a backup utility from Shirt Pocket Software. The best thing is that it makes the external hard disk EXACT BOOTABLE COPY of your hard disk drive. So you can perform a backup to the new drive, then simply install it into your MacBook. No restore, or any other action needed.

The cost is about GBP£16 / USD$30 from http://shirtpocket.com

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I use Super Duper as my backup software for everyday use as well, so this is not a one use software. It is an incremental image update utility and a useful tool to supplement what Time Machine does not do.

Consult the iFixit web site, buy tools and spudger

The iFixit has a number of guides on how to disassemble your Mac according to model and what you are trying to do. Here is the guide to replacing the Hard Disk Drive in a 17″ Core Duo MacBook Pro

The iFixit guide will also list the tools that you need and can sell them to you in a kit, or you can buy them on ebay with a bit of looking around.

Working tips

I printed out the iFixit guide and then sticky taped it to the table. As a I removed the screws I placed onto the picture on that page (so I knew which screw was which).

Conclusion

After performing the physical installation I simply turned on my MacBook. Unlike Windows, I did not have to do a restore or data migration.

I don’t know why I waited so long. …….

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Product Picture

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Comments

3 Responses to “Upgraded to 320GB HDD in My MacBook Pro”
  1. Great article Greg, should help convince Arden to make the switch!

    I might have to use this technique when I upgrade my Macbook Air. Usually I take the opportunity of an upgrade to reinstall everything from scratch and start fresh but haven’t found it necessary since moving to OS X.

  2. Will that backup utility let me take my current macbook image to a new mackbook pro? If so, I’m sold! Nice article.

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  1. [...] – 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1680 x 1050 glossy display –320GB SATA at 5400 rpm (installed my own HDD) – 4GB RAM (upgraded a year [...]



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