How big (GB) of a hard drive can my late 2009 MacBook handle?

I'm looking to upgrade my internal hard drive in my late 2009 MacBook and I want to know what is the highest GB that can be supported?

I have a late 2009 MacBook White with 4GB Ram and running on Lion.
I just installed a 750 GB Seagate Momentus XT with 8 GB SSD hybrid drive. It was no trouble and works fast and perfect!
Just make a new partition on the new disk, clone your current HD to the new disk (I used Carbon Copy Clone) and then replace. Simple as that!
It just makes a bit more noise and battery life is shortened because of the specs of the Seagate HD.
I hope this was helpfull.

Similar Messages

How big should my external hard drive be for me to use Time Machine?

i am a student and dont have a significant amount of files and that on my computer so how big shuld my external hard drive be?
I will be using a normal external hard drive so will i be getting the full and the important features out of time machine if i do this?

There are two questions you should ask yourself:
1. How long will it take me to fill up my internal HDD?
2. How far back chronologically do I realistically expect to have go to retrieve data?
I submit that in the vast majority of cases, a HDD of the same size as you have in your MBP will be ample. If things change, adjustments can be made well in advance. Its the very rare user that will generate multi GBs of data and file changes every session.
As an example, I have a 750GB HDD in my MBP and a 750 HDD dedicated to Time Machine. The oldest backup goes back 7 months. At the rate that I update Time Machine, I expect the Disk to be filled and start deleting old data in about 3 months. For me, that is more than sufficient.
There is another aspect of backup strategy you should consider. I would highly reccomend that you have a second external drive to store your most important files that may be duplicates of those in Time Machine. All HDD will fail. You just never know when that will happen. If your Time machine disk expires, this way you are not left in a calamitious situation.
Though some of my views may be in the minority, the final decision is always yours.
Ciao.

I am looking to back up my MAC, and I need to know how big of an external hard drive I need

I am looking to back up my MAC, and I need to know how big of an external hard drive I need. How do I determine this?

Well, they recommend at least 2 - 3 times the size of your hard drive if you are using Time Machine because that keeps making backups until it runs out of space (and then deletes the oldest to make room for the newest).
However, if you prefer to have a bootable clone as a backup, you need about the same size as your hard drive since it is a perfect copy of your system (unless you want to partition and keep an older clone separately).
So, check to see how large your hard drive is and go from there.

I replaced my hard drive on my late 2006 Macbook Pro. I tried to do a reinstall of Tiger 10.4.5 from my start up disk. I get an error that states "can't install on this computer." HELP

I replaced my hard drive on my late 2006 Macbook Pro. I used the disk utility and erased the drive and formatted it to OSX Journaled . When I tried to install the OS from the start up disks I got the error "Can't install on this computer. I have verified the drive.
I have used Super Duper to copy my old drive to my new drive. But I wanted to do a fresh install. How do I go about this?

Did you do the Super Duper clone before you tried to reinstall the OS? If so, the original install disc is likely earlier than 10.4.11, and that may be why you are getting the message.
When trying to reinstall the OS, did you select the "Archive and Install" option? If not, you might try that. Here's a link that might help:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1103.html
Good luck!

HT1635 How do I know which Hard Drive to get for my MacBook 2006? The old Hard Drive is a Toshiba (MK8034GSX) S/N Z6APT2XUT 9H5 EC. A?

How do I know which Hard Drive to get for my MacBook 2006? The old Hard Drive is a Toshiba (MK8034GSX) S/N Z6APT2XUT 9H5 EC. A?

I've put a 250gb 7200rpm drive in an Early 2006 with no problems.
For a new hard drive try Newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Dr ives&Order=PRICE
Or OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/
Here are instructions on replacing the hard drive in a MacBook with a removable battery. http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=45088
To transfer your current hard drive I like the free application Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes a bootable copy of everything on your hard drive http://www.bombich.com/index.html You'll need a cheap SATA external hard drive case. Put the new drive in the case then format and partition the new drive and clone your old drive to the new one. Check that it's set up right by booting up from the external drive. Then replace your old hard drive with the new one and put your old one in the external case.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/HDE-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B001AAVA08/ref=pd_bxgy_pc _text_b
If you don’t have the tools to open up the MacBook OWC has a set for $5
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TOOLKITMHD/

Samsung hard drive problems with mid 2009 Macbook Pro

Arghh, this is driving me mad.
I'd like to know if anyone has installed a Samsung HM641JI SATA II hard drive into a mid 2009 Macbook Pro (mine is a 2.8Ghz) and, if so, how they managed it. The drive is 640GB. These are the steps I've taken:
1. Swap out the stock drive for the Samsung
2. Boot from a USB drive which contains a mirror of my system
3. When the system identified the new disk, I formatted it with 2 partitions (GUID table, HFS journaled)
4. Reboot
5. System is very slow. Boots from USB but can't use keyboard to login
6. Switch off and try again
7. Remove Samsung drive
8. Reboot from USB (works perfectly)
9. Downgrade firmware to 1.6
10. Replace samsung drive and try again
11. System boots from USB
12. Verify that drive is running at 1.5Ghz
13. Disk utility and system profiler both crash
14. Disk unmounts by itself and other random weirdness
15. Remove Samsung drive
I've read endless reports about the firmware in this model of Macbook Pro and its issues with SATA II but struggling to find anything current and specific. Two questions:
a. Is there anythign I can do to get this drive to play nicely?
b. What drive should I get if the answer to a is no?
As a bit of background.. my system began playing up last week with lots of spinning beach balls resulting in forced switch offs. Booting from a mirror on a USB drive works perfectly so I concluded that the drive was on its way out. A drive test utility confirmed this. I'm now wondering if it really was the drive or the cable or the logic board.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers
//A

I'm coming around to the idea that this might be a problem with the SATA cable rather than the drive.
I currently have the stock drive (Hitachi) back in the macbook. It mounted for a while and was then ejected when I tried writing data to it. System profiler reports that "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices."
I was able to mount the same drive in a USB enclosure this afternoon without any problems. Right now, I seem to be having issues with both the Samsung drive and the Hitachi drive - I wasn't suspicious of thr latter because I thought it was failing.
I found one or two accounts of other people having similar problems that were resolved with a new sata cable.
How does a cable fail? Could this be my problem?
Cheers
//A

How many hard drives can an HP Elite m9250f handle

I am planning on upgrading my Elite m9250f to 4 SATA HDs. 0-2 are taken, so for 3-5 are those ports truly open? Also, will the factory power supply be enough?
Thanks,
Docktur T.

Hi,
These specs say that there is a 300W PSU..
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01374062&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en...
It may cause troubles with more than 3 hard drives. I would suggest to pick a 450W PSU and a reliable one like Corsair..
Dv6-7000 /Full HD/Core i5-3360M/GF 650M/Corsair 8GB/Intel 7260AC/Samsung Pro 256GB
Testing - HP 15-p000
HP Touchpad provided by HP
Currently on Debian Wheeze
*Please, help other users with the same issue by marking your solved topics as "Accept as Solution"*

Can I use a sata3 hard drive with a late 2009 imac

Looks liker the hard drive in my five year old iMac is about to go belly up. Was getting hardware errors, very slow startup and Carbon Copy Cloner reported bad blocks during the backup. I want to buy a new HD at a local store and have the Apple store install it. Will they do that and can I use a SATA 3 drive with my older iMac?

YEs you can use a SATA III drive but the Apple Store will not install it for you. Find an AASP and see if they'll install a drive for you.

Can I take the hard drive from a late 2008 MacBook Pro and put it in an Early 2011 MacBook Pro?

I just got a new 15" MBP and I want to give my older one to my son. The "older" one is an Early 2011. My son has the Late 2008 model. My brother will take the 2008 MBP once I've moved all my son's stuff to the 2011. Here's the question. My son has a 750GB hard drive on the 2008. He has partitions on it for Boot Camp and for his games. The 2011 only has a 500GB hard drive. Rather than erasing the 2011, restoring it from Time Capsule, then setting up Boot Camp and the other partitions all over again, or even using Winclone or something like that, can I just swap the hard drives? It would certainly faster and easier. I just wonder if there is a technical reason why I shouldn't do that.

You could always give it a shot - the only problem that you might run into is that the the early 2011 might not boot when the hard drive is swapped from the 2008 hard drive. Some versions of OS X are simply not compatible between different models.
But it's worth a try...
Clinton

Hard Drive Capacity for Late 2011 Macbook Pro

I am interested in purchasing a Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM 2.5-Inch Mobile Hard Drive for my MacBook Pro. I've never looked inside one of these things and I'm not sure if I can do it or not. How much space does it have for a hard drive...can I add another one? Is RAM another addition that will increase performance? I'm looking to optimize my Macbook Pro for professional use of Logic Pro and ProTools in the future. I know audio, but I'm just learning the intricacies of computer hardware. I'm being very cautious that I understand everything I do because I don't want to screw anything up. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
** My Mac contains 2 memory slots, each of which accepts a 1333 MHz DDR3 memory module.
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)
Serial-ATA:
Vendor: Intel
Product: 6 Series Chipset
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported
TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF:
Capacity: 750.16 GB (750,156,374,016 bytes)
Model: TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF
Revision: GQ006B
Serial Number: XXXXXXXX
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 5400
Medium Type: Rotational
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
disk0s1:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s1
Content: EFI
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 749.3 GB (749,296,615,424 bytes)
Available: 432.26 GB (432,257,613,824 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point:
Content: Apple_HFS
Recovery HD:
Capacity: 650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
BSD Name: disk0s3
Content: Apple_Boot
*** Not sure if this is relevant, but since I founded this question in audio I figured I'd add it.
Intel High Definition Audio:
Audio ID: 29
Headphone:
Connection: Combination Output
Speaker:
Connection: Internal
Line Input:
Connection: Combination Input
Internal Microphone:
Connection: Internal
S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio Input:
Connection: Combination Input
S/PDIF Optical Digital Audio Output:
Connection: Combination Output
External Microphone / iPhone Headset:
Connection: Combination Output
HDMI / DisplayPort Output:
Connection: Display

Why does the hard drive keep crashing on 2009 MacBook Pro?

We are now on the third hard drive, the second in 5 months. The problem started after I dropped book on it, but no repairmen have suggested that has anything to do with it.

drop your books on it and you can crash your armature heads in the HD, ....HD are fragile.
I assume the first one died of age.....second from the book drop.......and the third?
endlightend
Hard drives don't fail often, but they do occasionally
They fail, and often, and new ones fail a LOT more than older ones (sounds silly, but logical)
Hard Drive Warning (all makes and models)
Ironically but logical, new hard drives are far more fragile than one that has been working for several months or a couple years. So beware in your thinking that a new hard drive translates into “extremely reliable”!
Hard drives suffer from high rates of what has been termed "infant mortality". Essentially this means new drives are highly prone to failing in the first few months of usage. This is because of very minor manufacturing defects or HD platter balancing, or head and armature geometry being less than perfect; and this is not immediately obvious and can quickly manifest itself once the drive is put to work.
Hard drives that survive the first few months of use without failing are likely to remain healthy for a number of years.
Generally HD are highly prone to death or corruption for a few months, then work fine for a few years, then spike in mortality starting at 3-4 years and certainly should be considered end-of-life at 5-7+ years.
The implication of this is that you should not trust a new hard drive completely (really never completely!) until it has been working perfectly for several months.
Given the second law of thermodynamics, any and all current mfg. HD will, under perfect storage conditions tend themselves to depolarization and a point will be reached, even if the HD mechanism is perfect, that the ferromagnetic read/write surface of the platter inside the HD will entropy to the point of no return for data extraction. HD life varies, but barring mechanical failure, 3-8 years typically.

Installing new hard drive in a late 2008 MacBook

After installing the new hard drive will I be able to boot with "command r" or will I have to boot from a CD?
It's currently running Mavericks. Original OS was Leopard.
The current 160GB hard drive is running fine, it's just full.
There is a Time Machine backup to restore from.

Did you start you MacBook while holding down the option key while the disk was inserted? Did the Snow Leopard DVD show up? If it did, select it to start to the disk and:
After selecting a language, goto the menu at the top and select Utility/Disk Utility.
Next, there should be an icon for the new drive on the left hand side. Click it.
The tabs across the top of the window on the right side should say +First Aid, Erase, Partition, Raid Restore+. Click the Erase Tab. On the format line click the drop-down and select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). Now click Erase at the bottom.
Click the Partition Tab. In the top box, give your drive a name (Macintosh HD or whatever). Click the drop-down under Volume Scheme and select 1. Click the Options button to open a window where you'll select GUID Partition Table. Now click Apply.
When this is complete, your disk has been prepared for OS X.

How big of an External Hard drive should I get?

I have a macbook pro, and I'm looking for an external HDD to back my system up to. Now, lets say that I have a 250 GB HDD in my Macbook, should I get a 250GB HDD external drive to back up to? Or will that fill up too quickly?
I guess my real question is, does Time Machine compound backups on top of eachother? If my 250GB drive is filled to 100 GB Capacity, will my 250GB external drive be full before three backups? Or does TimeMachine severely compress the backups?
Thanks!
Psych

Time machine doesn't do compression, but it does only save changes.
This means that your first backup will consume the same amount of space as your source data.
Then each subsequent backup copies the files that have changed since the last backup. Some applications may support backing up specific parts of files, otherwise TM will copy the entire file even if just one bit changes.
Therefore the amount of disk space you need depends on:
1) how much data you're backing up (bear in mind that most people don't TM their entire drive, just their personal data)
2) What percentage of those files change on an hourly/daily basis
3) How large those files are.
So if, for example, you work mainly with text documents and you have 50GB of data in 50,000 files (average of 1MB per file) and you change 100 files per day your backup will consume 50GB to start, and grow by 100MB per day. Under this model a 250GB TM drive will have about 200GB of space for incremental backups (250GB - 50GB initial copy), which is enough for about 2,000 days, or several years worth of changes.
On the other hand if you work with large video or graphics files, and have 50GB of data in 50 files and you change 3 files per day you'll still start with 50GB of backups but your backups will grow at 3GB per day. That way your 250GB drive will fill in about 2 months.
Only you can determine your data pattern to predict your needs. Personally I use a TM drive that's about 2x my internal drive. I have almost a year's worth of backups and it is still less than 1/4 full.

Is there a hard drive limit to mid-2009 MacBook Pro?

I currently have a 160GB HDD. I know the white MacBooks don't.

The limit is what you can buy. Right now that's 1 TB for a notebook SATA drive that will fit into your computer model.

Will a Seragate 500 GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive work in my 2009 Macbook Pro?

?

Yes, get a Toshiba (made by Hitachi) or Hitachi 1TB HD, a 1TB drive is only about $70 now even in retail. you CANNOT INSTALL a 1.5 TB drive, because thickness is 12.5mm thick
A macbook CANNOT accept anything thicker than a 9.5mm HD. (=1TB max)
7mm = 500GB max
9.5mm = 500GB or 1TB
12.5mm = 1.5TB
15.2mm = 2TB

How big (GB) of a hard drive can my late 2009 MacBook handle?

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