Finally got around to upping the Hard Drive Capacity in my MacBook Pro. Swapped out the 160GB HD with a Western Digital 320GB (5400 RPM) HD (about $140 from Newegg). Thought I'd share the process, in case anyone else is thinking about it. It really isn't that hard, even though the pictures on the net look daunting.

Googled and found several guides. Mine actually came apart with a few less screw removals than included in the guides, and it took less than half an hour to swap out the drives.

Here's a pic of the "open" book:



The hard drive is in front on the left (as you look at the picture). It's a 2.5" SATA drive ... very cute


Before I removed the internal HD, I had backed it up to a 320 GB Western Digital External Passport Drive (~ $140). I used Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable copy. It took about 3 hours last night to complete this part.

After I had the new drive in, I then did a "reverse-Clone," using the external drive to clone the new internal Hard Drive. All went well ... this part took less time, about 2 hours to write 120GB.

While I was at it, I upped my memory to 4 GB, getting 2 x 2GB of Corsair RAM from Newegg for about $120 (the $80 RAM kits probably work just as well).

So, now my trusty MacBook Pro has double the storage space, and is a bit snappier with it's extra RAM.

I'm very tempted to upgrade my PowerBook again. 100 gigs is just sooooooo small.

Of course, I wouldn't have a problem if it weren't for the 50 gigs of music on the drive.

Nice write up Shazza.

I used Carbon Copy on my Mac Pro when I changed the HD's out. I just cloned from the one thagt came with it to a new one yamked the two drives removed the original and it booted right up on the new drive without any issues.

I am curious what the reverse clone is for?

Probably doing similar myself, though I am going with the Samsung drive instead of WD. I would like to also upgrade to Leopard at the same time, so I might be buying the HD, Leopard Server and a family pack of clients, all at the same time this summer. Add on to that costs for a mac mini to run server, memory upgrades, etc. and it means it will be a bit yet.

Seablade

Oops ... could have made that clearer. I wanted to have some redundancy, so figured it didn't hurt to make a bootable clone to the external drive. Then when I "reverse"-cloned that back to the new drive, I now have a complete back-up. On the off chance anything goes wrong with the new drive, I'm still protected (plus I figured this was safer than taking a chance that I would mess something up during the removal process - unlikely, but always possible when I have a screwdriver in my hand). The old drive that I took out of the MacBook Pro will be going into my older MacBook, and I'll wipe it clean and do an upgrade to Leopard at that time.

This is a great write up Shazza. I'll add it to the Notebook Guides section.

is there a real need for carbon copy? I've always used the Migration Assistant.

Guess it just depends on your preferences and what you're used to. I started using carbon copy years ago with my first G4 PowerBook, and it's never let me down yet. The newest version is also incredibly easy to use.

nice

Does'nt doing this sorta thing void your Warrenty?

I'd hate to take it for repairs & have them tell me so.

Well it is questionable, however, keeping in mind I am not a lawyer...

I am fairly certain there was a recent court case where someone had to sue to get a warranty honored. It was something like he replaced a video card and the network card went out, or some other situation unrelated. The ruling was that if the work you did has no bearing on the rest of it, then the rest of it should still be covered by warranty.

Aside from that, there are no seals on the MBP that say warranty void if removed or tampered with.

And yes I have gotten warranty work on my MBP after replacing the HD. The HD I replaced myself, but the keyboard went out before that anyways. After I got the HD replaced, finished up some projects to where I could live without the computer for a couple of days, I took it in for the keyboard and trackpad work, which I had no problem with. If it had not been warranty, the work wasn't the hard part, it was the keyboard and trackpad costs to dang much.

So this is no official answer, just my experience.

Seablade

:P ..., I saw a comment on this thread and popped in to see a spammer.

Just reporting back that I've had great reliability and performance with my hard drive upgrade. The extra GBs have really come in handy.

Excited to see what October 14th brings wrt new MacBook Pros.

Dealt with.