TechCast Reviews

28th September 2008

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Not content with the measly 100GB hard drive inside my 2GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro dating back to 2006, I bravely decided to crack open the enclosure to install a hefty 500GB hard drive, ripped from an external portable drive.

Whilst this is not recommended for in-warranty owners, the MacBook Pro, unlike the MacBook, does not have a user-serviceable hard drive so taking on this task will undoubtedly void your warranty.

Following the instructions from the excellent ‘do it yourself’ site, iFixit.com, I was able to open up the enclosure to remove the 100GB drive and replace it with a generously sized 500GB drive.

You can find the full detailed instructions from the iFixit.com web-site as well as recommendations on the drives that will fit. This is especially important if you’ve yet to buy your drive yet, because the MacBook Pro innards are packed quite tightly.

First things first – backup, backup and backup. Back it all up!

Before you start to do anything at all, I strongly recommend that you backup your data to an external drive. Here’s a few ways you should go about doing this:

1. If you’re running OS X Leopard, then use Time Machine to back your entire system up to an external storage device or straight to the new drive that you’re going to be installing (you will need a 2.5-inch enclosure)
2. Manually backup the files you want to keep to another drive
3. Use an imaging tool to create a backup image of your drive for restoring later

Have the right tools for the job

The next step is to make sure you have the right tools for the job. Do not try and make do with what you’ve got, because you can end up threading the screws, making them very difficult/next to impossible to remove.

1. Philips #00 screwdriver – available from most DIY stores
2. Torx T6 screwdriver – these may be harder to find or expensive from retailers. It might be better to go online for this one. I found one for just £2 including shipping from eBay…you don’t need to spend anymore than that. I did find some online stores selling these at an eye-gouging £10!
3. Tray/cup – I used a little wooden dish for storing all the screws that I removed from the unit. The first thing you will notice is that the screws from any Apple product are incredibly tiny, so if you lose one then it’s unlikely you’ll ever find it again. Use some kind of container to hold all of the screws away from where you’re working to avoid losing any
4. Plastic spludger (optional) – used to remove some of the insides that are stuck down with glue. I got away without having one by very carefully pulling these parts away

Pick the right drive

As I mentioned before, the hard drive you pick is important because you don’t want to end up with a drive too big that it won’t fit. Unfortunately not all 2.5-inch drives are of the exact same dimensions and the millimetre difference can be a deal-breaker for you. The 500GB drive I went with has a height of 12.5mm, which is just a fraction too big to fit in to the enclosure, so I’m left with a slight gap in the case – it’s not pretty but since my Mac isn’t new and has suffered a few bumps already, the bump in storage was worth it. Ideally, you want a 2.5-inch drive that has a maximum height of 10mm so that it fits right and you’re able to put the enclosure back together again.

The spin speed of the drive can affect performance as well. Newer drives do seem to have better performance. The 500GB drive I installed has a 4200RPM spin but was actually faster than the 5400RPM drive from Apple (according to Xbench benchmark scores). Most 2.5-inch drives spin at either 5400RPM or 7200RPM. Having a faster spin speed will give you better performance but the trade-off is an increase in power consumption.

A good sized cache will also affect performance. Go for 8MB as a guideline minimum, 16MB if you can budget the extra cash for it.

Installing the drive

If you’ve followed the steps above, then your installation should go smoothly. Failing to follow any of the above steps could result in something disastrous happening to your Mac from damaged enclosures to loss of data, so before you skip any steps, ask yourself whether it’s really worth it?

From here on, you can follow the steps provided by iFixit.com. They have an excellent set of instructions accompanied with detailed photographs of the entire process from start to finish.

iFixit.com MacBook Pro 15-inch hard drive replacement instructions – http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-Duo/Hard-Drive/85/7/Page-1

Getting your data back on to the drive

Once you’ve completed the installation, your next step is to format the new drive so that it’s ready for installing your copy of OS X. Switch your Mac on and insert the installation disk and hold C key so that it boots from the disk. After a few minutes, you’ll eventually arrive at the installation screen with the Finder bar at the top. Go to Utilities > Disk Utility. This loads the same copy of disk utility that you would normally find on OS X and is incredibly handy for installing or restoring your drive.

Once disk utility has loaded, pick your hard drive from the selection bar on the left and go to the Partition tab. From this screen you can choose to format your drive as a single partition or have multiple partitions. There are benefits to having multiple partitions, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide. If you intend on installing Windows at a later date, you do not need to create a second partition for this right now as Boot Camp assistant will do this for you. After you’ve decided how you want your drives to be setup, give your drive a name and select the format from the drop-down box and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then hit Apply. After a few minutes your drive will be formatted and ready for installing OS X on to it. Close Disk Utility and proceed with the installation wizard to install a fresh copy of OS X or to restore from a Time Machine backup.