Buying a new computer in a down economy might not make sense but there are plenty of ways to upgrade and get more horsepower out of your existing machine. The most obvious upgrade is to add more memory. The next is to upgrade to a larger, higher RPM drive with faster read/write times.
As many Mac laptop users know, Apple doesn’t offer post-sale hard disk upgrades. The hard disk you specify at the time of purchase is the hard drive Apple expects you to live with for life, short of buying a new laptop. This said, there are plenty of third party Mac hardware sites that offer compatible laptop drives and Do-It-Yourself upgrade kits.
Out of disk space, frustrated with the slow read/write times of my existing 5400RPM drive, and with assurances from reading multiple guides that hard disk replacement was a breeze, I decided to give it a go. (Note: upgrading internal Apple laptop components will void your Apple warranty and Applecare agreements.) Here is the process.
1. Locate a replacement guide for your machine.
iFixit.com has a number of great laptop and iPod DIY articles. I used this one specific to my MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo. (Thanks to fiveinchpixie on Twitter for the iFixit.com resource.)
2. Find a replacement drive.
For the hard drive, I used the Mac hardware finder at Other World Computing and found this compatible Hitachi Travelstar 320GB 7200RPM drive for $89.99 after mail-in rebate. Sweet!
3. Make sure you have the correct tools.
Based on the iFixit.com guide, the only required tool I didn’t have was a T6 Trox screwdriver. I ended up ordering this Newer Technology tool kit which has the T6 Trox and also comes with two nylon pry tools (a.k.a. “spudgers”). Another bonus is that all of the tools have magnetic tool tips which made holding on to the tiny laptop screws a breeze.
4. Backup the drive you are replacing.
There are a number of options here depending how you wish to populate the new hard drive.
Some hard disk upgrade kits from Other World Computing come with USB enclosures and software which allow you to copy over the contents of the existing drive before making the switch. Note: this is probably the simplest solution if you do not consider yourself very tech savvy or do not have an existing backup strategy.
A second option is Time Machine. In this case, replace the drive, boot from the OS X install CD, format the new drive (can provide instructions if anyone needs them), then restore from your last Time Machine backup.
The method I used was to copy my existing drive using SuperDuper to an external Firewire 800 drive which is bootable, installed the new drive, then booted from the external drive. I used Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) to format the new hard disk, then used SuperDuper to copy the data back over.
5. Replace the drive and restore from your backup.
Follow the iFixit.com guide for your machine, format and copy your data over. The hardware replacement was super easy and took me about 20 minutes total. It then took about 2 hours to let SuperDuper copy the data back to the new drive.
That’s it! Enjoy your upgraded laptop.
I now have roughly three times the amount of disk space I had before and the 7200RPM drive is lightening fast compared to the old 5400RPM OEM Apple drive. It’s like having a new computer! Not bad for a $89.99 investment.
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Brian:
Alas, I was the first neophyte guinea pig to try out your foolproof “do-it-yourself” HD upgrade, based on your specific/exhaustive documentation.
I followed your instructions carefully. Lo and behold… everything worked precisely as it should have. 🙂
The physical HD replacement was a cinch and only took the prescribed 20 minutes that you said it would take.
When it came to data recovery, I restored my HD using ‘Time Machine’ — and it worked flawlessly. When it came to the actual time involved, it probably took 3.5 hours to move over the 120MB of data. Not a huge commitment, considering I did it overnight. 🙂
The bottom line — the upgrade from 120 GB –> 320 is a huge difference… and to get it at cut-rate prices by ‘doing it myself’ — is huge. Apple would of charged 4-8x what I paid if had them roll this out.
Thanks for your help. I feel like I have a new MacBook as well…
– Greg
Yey, Greg! Glad it worked for you. You’re also the first to use the Time Machine method of restoring data. Good to know that both Time Machine and SuperDuper! are reliable for data transfer. It seems there is little need for buying the USB enclosure mentioned in the post — more savings for us do-it-yourself types.
Hi I am still using the intel core duo 2.16GHz macbook pro and with a 100GB hard disk. Do you know if i can also upgrade to a 200 or even 250GB hard drive?
Hi Benson,
Yes, there should be upgrade options for your machine. Check the upgrade center at Other World Computing.
Brian
Thanks Brian, the site is really helpful. I intend to upgrade to a 500GB 5400rpm drive. Do you think there is any problem? I once talked to the Applecare people about such upgrades and they say potential problems could be damage to the logic boards and processors…
@Benson
It’s at your own risk but don’t let Apple tech scare you. Follow the guides on Other World Computing and iFixIt.com and you should be fine. Good luck!
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thank you for your very helpful info on this site. I’ve just upgraded my HD from 80GB 5400RPMToshiba to 320G7200RPM Hitachi in my MacBook Pro 1.83.
It took me a bit longer than 20 mins because I had a problem to take off the upper case. However I managed.
I’ve used Time Machine to entire restore and it works perfect.
For the first time Hitachi was invisible, and I couldn’t install Leopard, I have upgrade version. However when I connected my old HD with an old system still on it via USB, it was possible to install Leopard on the new HD and than to restore entire system. Maybe it’s a longer way but I didn’t know how to do it quicker. The main thing is, all my files are on the right places and all my apps ( Toontrack, Native Instruments…..) work just exactly like before restore.
Once again
Thank you
Best Regards
Yarek
Hi Yarek,
Is your MBP an Intel Core Duo, the first generation of MacBook Pro?
Hi,
Yes it is.
Does it explain anything?
Well,
As I hold a 2.16 intel core duo 100GB and am intending to upgrade to 500GB, I just need to have more assurance that the intel core duo machines can handle such a big hdd upgrade. So it is good to know that you did your hdd upgrade smoothly.
I’ve been thinking which is more worth it: to upgrade my hdd or get a new MBP…
Benson
Wow,
500GB is a lot. In comprehension to my MBP, my friend’s MacBook 13″ white with 4G RAM and 2.4 IC2DUO seems to be faster when we both do the same or similar in Logic Studio 8. He has 250 GB HD 5400RPM.
Sometimes I think his MB is much faster.
This is what I know if it’s helpful for you.
Main thing is for me , that now my MBP works faster with audio and sampler instruments, and in general with my music production. This is very noticeable difference for me.
Yarek
Yarek,
Glad it worked for you! So far, we’re 3 for 3 on successful DIY MacBook Pro hard drive upgrades!
Brian 🙂
Is it ok to upgrade from a 5400 rpm to a 7200 rpm HD? I’ve read the extra heat produced can be too much.
funny i only get to receive dave’s post but not Yarek and Brian’s in january.
anyway, just to update you all, i decided on a more conservative upgrade and have successfully upgraded my hdd to a 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm soon after my latest post. worked well, got all my system reloaded and running again. it definitely feels much smoother in working. i can’t tell if its because of the new hdd but certainly working with a newly formatted unclogged hdd speeds up the system. so i’m quite glad and happy about my mbp now.
thanks for all the input and advice.
@Dave
7200 RPM drives have been a standard option on MacBook Pro’s for years so heat should not be an issue.
@Benson
Glad it worked out for you. We’re now 4 for 4 on successful DIY MacBook Pro hard drive upgrades. 🙂
Hi Dave,
I have the first gen MacBook Pro upgraded by myself ( with amazing help from Brian’s web help) from 5400 to 7200RPM and my mac works fine with no problems. There is no extra heat.
I hope it will help you with any decision,
Ya
Brian,
BTW Thank you for this web. It is great that I could find so many important infos.
I was looking to upgrade my MacBook Pro that I bought in June 2007. Kept it stock, you know Fujitsu 120GB/5400 RPM HDD and 2GB 667MHz RAM. I wanted something new but really didn’t want to pay for it. Plus I grew tired of having to deal with no space on my 120 Gigger. So I found your article and decided to go for it. I first maxed out the ram. I purchased 4GB of 667 MHz/CL 4 Corsair RAM for about $90 with $50 Corsair rebate this month. Sold my 2GB for $40 to coworker. So I paid $10 for the RAM upgrade 🙂 I then was looking at how many were upgrading to the 250 GB HDD and maybe one person here upgraded to 320GB. Well, I took it a step further and I used your guide and upgraded to Seagates 500 GB/7200 RPM Momentus drive. I bought it from Dell(Yes, Dell was the only one that had it, Newegg was out of stock). The operation took less than 15 minutes from start to finish. I have confirmed that it works, in fact i’m typing this post on my MacBook Pro with the 500 Gigger installed! I must say, that I haven’t noticed much difference other than less “thinking” when the Mac is doing intense processes. I also have 359 GB free space instead of less than 3 GB. Thanks for the guide. It really helped. I am no longer affraid to crack open my MacBook.
Oh yeah, I can provide a screenshot of the new specs if anyone needs evidence that 500 GB Seagates are handled.
Hi Carey,
Thanks for sharing your upgrade experience. Cool that you successfully installed a 500 GB Seagate drive! We’re now 5 for 5 on successful DIY MacBook Pro upgrades. 🙂
[…] install instructions worked great. I was referred to that page from this page, which I believe I found in a google […]
Thanks mate, brilliant article and advice.
I printed out the ifixit pdf, bought the tools required and finally purchased a Seagate Momentus 2.5″ 500GB 7200rpm 16MB Cache hard drive.
I have just completed the install and everything is perfect. I used Superduper to make a bootable clone of my internal HD and then transferred that back onto the new 500GB drive.
The new drive is noticably faster with better boot times and program startup times. I detect no greater vibration from the increased rpm and if anything is quiter than my original 150GB Hitachi drive.
Thanks a bunch, very happy with the result and saved a lot of coin doing it myself! 🙂
Glad it worked for you, Chris! Based on the comments, we’re 6 for 6 on successful DIY hard drive upgrades. 🙂
I will be doing this tomorrow, and am currently running a Time Machine backup of the entire hard drive to a LaCie RAID1 1TB drive. One data point, though. I called AppleCare and asked them, point blank, if I replaced the hard drive would it invalidate AppleCare. They said if you take it to a certified Apple technician then it does NOT void the warranty. They are concerned with hacks replacing hardware, doing it wrong, then sending the machine back to Apple to “fix” their screw ups. For me, having an Apple Store do the repair for $50 is worth more than invalidating the AppleCare warranty.
I’m getting a WesternDigital 7200rpm, 320GB drive from MacMall.
Thanks! This article was a big help, just installed a new 500 gig 7200 by seagate. I bought the same “Newer Technology tool kit”.
I used Carbon Copy Cloner instead of Super Duper just to be different I guess and it worked perfectly. I tested my backup before I replaced the drive by restarting while holding the option key to boot directly from my external firewire Lacie drive.
I also heard that you should “deactivate” your Adobe CS2 from the help menu before upgrading so I did that too, and simply activated it again after the upgrade and it worked fine.
It took over 2 hours to clone my old drive to the external one.
It took about 20 or 30 to perform the upgrade.
I let the files copy back overnight.
Hi Clayton,
Glad the upgrade worked for you! That’s 8 for 8 successful DIY HD upgrades (including the trackback comment).
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for posting this article…I am starting to look in to this. Was wondering if you had tips on RAM replacement while I open my baby up? I currently have 2GB.
@ Clayton:
Just curious about the deactivating process. Why was that necessary…I am running CS3.
Finally, what did people do with their extra drive? Get an enclosure and use as an external?
Thanks so much!
-cw
Hi Chris,
Sorry for the slow reply. Greg H (in comment thread) and I both used http://www.datamemorysystems.com to upgrade our MacBook Pro memory. Works great and MDS prices are generally pretty competitive.
As for the old HD, I’ve kept it in its original state just in case AppleCare has an issue with the replacement drive. Definitely let us know how your upgrades go!
Before this tutorial, I was a virgin. I’ve never opened this beauty up before. Everything went without a hitch. I now want to know what else I can do to this machine.
Thank you!
a monkey
Dear Mr. McNitt:
I’m pretty sure you’ve made my life better (just ordered today), but do note that there is another $44 to purchase enclosure and tools, which seem non-optional. Total: $139, inc. shipping. Beats buying a new Mac.
Wish me luck in installation.
Thank you again for this thorough how-to.
Best,
Good luck, David! Let us know how the upgrade goes. 🙂
I’m having trouble restoring the os on the mac book pro laptop, I insert the restore disc 1 I get to where it as me to select the drive but I can’t see the 500 gig drive, any suggestions.
Brian – Champion!
MBP 4.1, bought as Tiger and a 200Gb Hitachi, now a Seagate 500Gb 7200.4 Snow machine.
I had never contemplating cracking my MBP, until I got sick of having less that 5Gb free space and the constant shuffle of what to keep on drive and what to keep external. Your tute worked a dream, as did the iFixit instructions.
Seeing as I didn’t have a spare external which could hold 195Gb, I tried an experiment which appears to have worked. I bought the drive, and an enclosure for £7. I plugged the drive into the ‘power/data’ end of the enclosure, then used Disk Utility to format it to HFS+, then Super Duper to clone my original HDD onto it, make it bootable and restart from it. After shut down, I then cracked the computer and installed the clone, rebooted and Hey Presto! 290Gb free space. No apparent need to copy to external then copy back – did it in one step.
And now I have a 200Gb external for the price of a £7 enclosure, and heaps of free space. Though with the 500 gigger its time to lash out on a big Lacie to keep up my backups I think…
Instructions were great – AND the product kit from OWC is fantastic.
Great upgrade – thanks for the info.
If you just wanted to do a clean install, you could just put the new drive in, and put the old drive in an enclosure, so that you could get your files off of it, right?
“A second option is Time Machine. In this case, replace the drive, boot from the OS X install CD, format the new drive (can provide instructions if anyone needs them), then restore from your last Time Machine backup.”
I would appreciate this info as I am about to change my hard drive
I just did this and my machine is so much faster. For $85 I bought a repair kit from OWC: 1 7200rpm 320gb HD from OWC, tools, and a USB enclosure. I use my old 120GB as a backup external disk.
One word of warning: DO NOT just drag the contents of your old HD to the new one and expect your computer to boot from that when you install the new HD. I did that (oops) and it wouldn’t boot. I had to boot from the old HD, attached by USB cable to the computer, then use Disk Utility’s restore feature to copy the old system and data to my new HD.
With that caveat, your advice worked great.
Brian and anybody else who upgraded from 5400rpm to 7200rpm- Did any of you experienced any difference in how long the Battery holds?,
in noise?, in heat?
I am intending to upgrade my MBP 2,1(model 2006) 17″ 160 GB and the person at OWC told me it might get hot and the battery won’t last as long. he suggested to stay at 5400.
Is that true, from your experience.
Thank you very much.
Hi Oded,
I, and I believe most people here, upgraded to a 7200 RPM drive. 7200 RPM has been a stock option on MBP’s for a long time now so no worries there. I don’t notice much difference in noise or battery life. (Also, if a 5400 RPM drive takes longer to access files..that also takes more batter life and slows your work down…so I have never bought fully into the diminished battery life argument.) I’d say go for the 7200 drive.
Used your install instructions to replace my 2006 era original HD with a Seagate 500 GB HD. One small variation was to copy everything onto the new drive, then install it. It took a little longer than I budgeted, but your instructions really helped. The guides at OWC helped, too. Now I’ve got room for putting pictures, podcasts, and music back on my MacBook Pro. Thanks for your help.
Hi…
I Have 13″, 2.4GHz, 2G RAM MacBook (Late 2008 Edition, Unibody)Which works fine but I do lots of recording and music, so I want nothing but the best…I was wondering if I could upgrade to 320GB 2.5″ Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 7200RPM SATA 9.5mm…with no issues, like heat and/or battery life shortage…Please help would be extermely appreciated…Thanks in advance.
and oh yeah sorry I forgot…also 4G of RAM if possible…
thanks again
Hi
Great info here. Just wanted to know if I can upgrade my Macbook which has the following specifications:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
1. Can I increase the internal hard disk capacity to about 300/ 500 GB at 7200 RPM on the above machine?
2. Can I increase the RAM to 4 GB or would this only support 2 GB?
3. Is it better to use an external Firewire 400 Hard disk instead of upgrading the internal hard disk?
4. Can I upgrade from Tiger OS X 10.4.11 to Snow Leopard using only the cheaper upgrade of Snow Leopard instead of the Box Set (which seems to make me unnecessarily buy iLife 09 and iWork 09)?
I know next to nothing about computers and use my Macbook for recording music, so would be glad of any advice you all can give me.
Cheers
Sane
Early 2008 Macbook Pro Penryn. 200GB 2.4Ghz. I used Carbon Copy Cloner and I copied the Macintosh HD to my new 320GB 7200RPM Drive. I installed the drive and cut on my MBP and all I got was a black screen and a loud beep!!! sound that sound like the machine was going to blow. Helpppppp!!! What Did I do wrong? I took it out, replaced the 200GB that originally came with, it worked fine.. so I am going to take the advice to restart by holding the option key to see if it will boot up from the external drive.
Wish me luck.
…..well, to start which is what I should have done before I started was tell you that I bought a WD 320GB 7200RPM to replace the 200GB drive in my MBP. I erased it and copied over the Macintosh HD to the 320GB drive and installed it which gave me a beeping sound 2 secs apart.
Well, I just tried restarting holding option and got the hazzard sign telling me that It couldn’t start up the drive. what should I do? Should I reformat and try again?
Hi All,
Wow, this post has become very popular. Apologies up front for not being able to respond to everyone quickly. If you have posted a successful upgrade here, it would be GREAT if you could share your expertise and answer some of the new questions. Thanks!!
Some general questions have been asked about will “X” hard drive and memory with “Y” configuration. For this, I recommend using the Upgrade Center at Other World Computing. You don’t have to buy from OWC but the wizard should give you an idea of what will work with your particular computer.
@Meledeus The method that worked for me was to first format the new drive using /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, then use SuperDuper (free) to make a bootable clone. See step 4 for links. Maybe give this a shot? Others may wish to chime in here too…
Thanks… I cloned the drive and got the beeping (when i replaced it in the MBP)as I stated but I put the original drive back in and booted up holding the option key and chose the external drive to load from. It took a while before it actually completed the load. I had to hold the option key until i saw the OS screen pop up with my sign on name but even at that point, it took a while when I tried loading a program.
Not sure if it is because it’s like the first time loading or what.
Another note, I kept hearing a tick sound coming from the external drive so I am not sure what that is about. Any help is appreciated.
Just to confirm another success! I did as Bernhard mentioned, purchased a new HD (Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM) with an enclosure. Used SuperDuper! to create a clone onto the new HD then implated the new drive to find everything boots perfectly (eventually, see below).
One note, after installing the new drive I didn’t screw any screws in, just plugged the ribbon cables back in, plugged the power in and booted up to test, no idea if this is a good idea but nothing broke.
BE PATIENT on the first boot, I wasn’t. I got a blank white screen for about 1 minute, panicked, shutdown, put in the old drive, checked that things worked, swapped new drive back in, booted and scratched my head for what must have been long enough for the apple logo to finally come on and everything to go smoothly. A quick google search finds that when you use SuperDuper! to clone, it leaves out some stuff, including Apple’s cache and indexing, will take a while for re-indexing to happen.
I’ve read reports that anything above 320GB on a Macbook Pro risks heating problems, especially 7200RPM. Most of these reports seem to come from people speaking with Apple Support. I’m yet to find anyone who had heating issues with a 500GB drive, I would love to know if anyone did. I will try to remember to report back in a few months to confirm no issues.
Another tip, if you don’t have a “spudger” around (not often doing computer replacements, I didn’t) I got some fishing line, looped it under the ribbon stuck on top of the hard drive, and slowly ran it along.
After reading your instruction and all the successful hd installations, I decided to gave it a try. I have a first generation MBP 15″ core duo 2.16 2gb ram (max). There was nothing wrong with my MBP but my hd was getting too crowded. I constantly have to figure out what to erase or backup. So I did a google search and came upon your blog. I did exactly as you described and now I have a Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm 500gb hard installed. Runs a bit faster and I have extra 380g of storage. Although the Seagate said 500gb, I only get 465gb but I not complaining. Thanks again!