Upgrading the MacBook Pro’s hard drive

Posted on August 27, 2007 by Ian Betteridge

250Gb drive ordered… check.

2.5in SATA external enclosure ordered… check.

Torx set ordered… check.

Some time in the next week or two, all of the above will arrive and I’ll up upgrading the drive in the MacBook Pro from its current paltry 100Gb to 250Gb, which will mean that I can transfer all my music and video back from the Dell machine (currently running Windows Vista, as I needed iTunes support, yuck) back to the Mac. This means that the Mac can go back to being my primary media machine, and the Dell can go back to its intended purpose as my main Linux machine.

I’ll blog the process – I’m following the instructions which Macworld helpfully published a while ago – and hopefully the post will say “it all went fine” rather than “I managed to pour coffee inside the MacBook Pro and now it makes a nice ‘pfft’ sound”

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  • http://www.recedinghairline.co.uk Christopher Phin

    What eternal enclosure have you ordered? I have a 60GB and a 120GB SATA internal drive hanging from the two times I’ve upgraded my MacBook’s HD, but any time I see cases for these they’re up near the hundred pound mark. Just for the enclosure. Macally make one that’s about $40, but it’s USB only and I’d rather get a FireWire one. (iMovie doesn’t like saving DV to USB-connected HDs, apparently, and I want to do some movie stuff.)

  • http://profile.typekey.com/ianbetteridge/ Ian Betteridge

    I got a dirt cheap generic USB one from ebay – priced at under a tenner. I haven’t seen any Firewire ones at all.

  • http://husk.org/ Paul Mison

    FireWire enclosures are available, but they do cost more than USB2 ones. A quick search turned up this Icybox enclosure at Amazon – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Icybox-Compact-Firewire-Aluminium-Enclosure/dp/B000B8JMHS – for example, for £26.

    I’m tempted to upgrade my PowerBook to a bigger internal drive, but the MacBook Pro is under warranty (and AppleCare). Shame really, I could do with the space.

  • http://husk.org/ Paul Mison

    Ah, I’ve just realised what I overlooked: the need for SATA on the enclosure. There are a few in the US, but they’re $100 at least. Sheesh. Still, it’s another reason to upgrade the PowerBook rather than the MBP.

  • http://www.recedinghairline.co.uk Christopher Phin

    Yeah that seems to be the trade-off: PATA/FireWire. I would pay $100 — grudgingly — but not £90. I too got a generic USB one off eBay but it wasn’t properly bus-powered and needed to use two USB ports. As a consequence, it has languished in a drawer somewhere as punishment for not being useful enough, dammit.

  • http://www.digitalrightsmanifesto.com Michael Walsh

    Ah, I see you’ll have a machine that will go ping! Hopefully!

    Ref: http://frogstar.soylentgeek.com/wav/mp-ping.wav