MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade - seeking advice

I want to upgrade my 320 GB hard drive to something bigger - 750GB? Preferable WD. 7200 RPM, for Final Cut Pro, Motion, etc. Or maybe SSD? My MacBook Pro has SATA II, 3GB.
I have upgraded hard drives before in my Mac Pro but I notice on my MacBook Pro it has 2 additional partitions with system back-up stuff which looks important. Any advice on the best way to go about this. I could use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my existing 320 GB drive onto the new drive mounted in a USB or FW800 drive dock. But then I would just be copying all the disorder onto my new drive.
Could I install Lion onto the new drive, mounted externally (FW800), and then use migration assistant to move all my apps over?
I really dread the thought of completely starting over with a clean install. It would take forever with all the apps I have.
Also please note: I'm on a rural satellite internet connection with a 65 MB/hour download limit so it isn't practical to simply re-download everything.
I have been thinking about this for a while so some additional input would be greatly appreciated.

People have been having some trouble with this drive. You might want to look at this discussion on the 640 WD:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2250690&start=0&tstart=0
Don't know if WD has resolved the issue yet or not--might be good to check with them before purchasing.
Good luck!

Similar Messages

2011 Macbook Pro Hard Drive Upgrade?

Hi. I am looking at upgrading my 2011 Macbook Pro hard drive. I want to get a 7200 RPM hard drive. I have been looking on Newegg and doing some research, and from what I can tell, the 2011 Macbook Pro uses a 3.0GB/s interface. If I were to buy a hard drive that has a different interface, like a 6.0GB/s interface, would it be compatible? Does anyone know the sizing for an MBP hard drive?
Also, it doesn't matter who the manufactorer is right?
And finally, does anyone have any recommendations?

But in my Honest opinion I don't think you'll really notice the difference between the 5400 and 7200 rpm unless your rendering large video files or transfering large amounts of data to an external or USB drive. But again you'll be limited on the speed of the external connections that your transferring too... If you really want to notice a difference, get the SSD with a Sata 3 or 6.0GBs connection speed. But the difference between a 5400 and 7200 rpm drive for normal tasks is almost negligable, you probably won't even notice the difference, but if you get the SSD you'll definately notice a difference in boot time, transfer speed, video rendering speed, copying speed of large files, etc...

Macbook pro hard drive upgrade - will it work on my spec?

Hi People
Basically looking for advise, as i know the basics, but heard there could be issues with the drive i want and macbook Pro's, so looking for advice whether the drive will work or not.
Now i know that i need the hard drives without the shock protection built in, for example i need the seagate AS range and not the ASG Range.
however iv heard issues with this drive in some mbp's spinning up and down, will this happen on my Macbook pro?? The drive i'm wanting is the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640gb Sata drive - WD6400BEVT
the spec of my machine is 2.5ghz penryn Non unibody, 4gb ram, 15.4" mbp
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.27f2
the drive i'm wanting is the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640gb Sata drive - WD6400BEVT
specs of drive are - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=683
Performance Specifications
Rotational Speed 5,400 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size 8 MB
Average Latency 5.50 ms (nominal)
Seek Times
Read Seek Time 12.0 ms
Track-To-Track Seek Time 2.0 ms (average)
Transfer Rates
Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max)
Physical Specifications
Formatted Capacity 640,135 MB
Capacity 640 GB
Interface SATA 3 Gb/s
User Sectors Per Drive 1,250,263,728
Physical Dimensions
English
Height 0.374 Inches
Length 3.94 Inches
Width 2.75 Inches
Weight 0.26 Pounds
Metric
Height 9.5 mm
Length 100.2 mm
Width 69.85 mm
Weight 0.117 kg
Environmental Specifications
Acoustics
Idle Mode 24 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 0 26 dBA (average)
Temperature (English)
Operating 32° F to 140° F
Non-operating -40° F to 149° F
Temperature (Metric)
Operating -0° C to 60° C
Non-operating -40° C to 65° C
Humidity
Operating 8% to 95% Non-condensing
Non-operating 5-95% RH non-condensing
Altitude (English)
Operating -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet
Non-operating -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet
Altitude (Metric)
Operating -305M to 3,050M
Non-operating -305M to 12,200M
Vibration
Operating 0.00459 g²/Hz (10 to 500 Hz)
Non-operating 0.05102 g²/Hz (10 to 500 Hz)
Electrical Specifications
Current Requirements
5 VDC
Read/Write 500 mA
Idle 400 mA
Standby 50 mA
Sleep 20 mA
Power Dissipation
Read/Write 2.50 Watts
Idle 0.85 Watts
Standby 0.25 Watts
Sleep 0.10 Watts

People have been having some trouble with this drive. You might want to look at this discussion on the 640 WD:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2250690&start=0&tstart=0
Don't know if WD has resolved the issue yet or not--might be good to check with them before purchasing.
Good luck!

Macbook Pro Hard Drive Upgrade

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro. It has a 256gb internal hard drive. I just ordered a new hard drive off amazon that is compatible and has 1TB of memory since I need more space.
I am running Mavericks so my question is once I install the new hard drive how do I format it and get Mavericks back onto it, and then use time machine to get my files back onto it?
Also, I no longer have my install discs since it is over 4 years old so that will not work.
Thank you!

Place the HDD in an enclosure and connect it to your MBP.
Open Disk Utility>Erase and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Then open Disk Utility>Restore:
Select the internal HDD as the Source and the new external HDD as the Destination. Click on Restore button.
When done, start the MBP with the OPTION key down.
Select the external HDD. If it boots the MBP, then do the physical swap.
Ciao.

My macbook pro hard drive died. I only have a windows hard drive and an old powerbook G4 which of course you can't use to create a boot disk for my macbook. How can I solve this?

I can't get app store on my old power book to download OS X, My macbook pro hard drive died and all I have is a windows hard drive, still has windows os on it, a 500 Gb USB drive and this power book. How can I get my macbook back up without spending money? Thanks

And what happens if the OPs Mac is of a newer version that came with a version of Snow Leopard above the 10.6.3 version that is on that Retail, meant for Upgrade, disc? Like if it came with 10.6.4/.5/.6/.7? That disc you linked to would not work.
He needs to contact Apple and get a replacement set of Original System Reinstall Discs. That is the only way he can be assured it will work and he would also get the iLife apps which he wouldn't buying that DVD disc you linked to.
dwb wrote:
The Snow Leopard DVD is $20 from Apple. You'll just have to wait a few days. BTW this is a full installer that works with any model computer that can run SL. Apple used to ship recovery/installation disks that were tied to specific computer models so that a 15" MBP installer disk coudn't be used on a 13" MBP computer. So you need either full installer or the recovery disks for your specific model.
And BTW, I have a 2009 13" MBP w/8GB RAM that is running Mavericks. With a 5400 RPM drive I used to experience a bit of beach balling (think hour glassing) but an SSD has given it new life. It feels now slower than the newest MBPs - it obviously benchmarks considerably slower but in everyday use it doesn't feel like a 4 1/2 year old computer at all.

Can I Replace my Early 2009 Mac Mini Hard Drive with my Early 2011 Macbook Pro Hard Drive?

I am replacing my 2011 Macbook Pro Hard Drive with a Solid State Drive. Instead of keeping the hard drive on an external enclosure I was wondering if I can use it to upgrade my Mac Mini's 160GB hard Drive with the one Im taking out of the MBP. And if so, is there any special formatting I would need to do?

It should work fine. No special formatting required. It actuality, I suspect that if you connect the HD, the Mini will boot into the OSX that was on the MacBook.
When you replace the HD in the Mini just be careful with the antennas and their wires and connections I accidentally disconnected the wifi antenna on mine when I replaced the HD.

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

I believe my macbook pro hard drive is bad. I erased the drive and reinstalled the OS and the macbook still runs really slow. I dont know if the hard drive is the issue.

Did you try an SMC reset too? It's easily done and none of those resets to the best of my knowledge hurt anything. When I was fooling with my system, which at one point was a home made Fusion setup, I needed to reset the SMC sometimes to get the drives recognized. Reading the documentation the sudden motion sensor is drive related but that seems to be about it.
Some more specifics may be needed about the drive itself, the model number of your unit, and the OS version you're running.
At present, the problem seems sort of odd to me. FWIW cable problems can be quite intermittent. I used Scannerz to find some of the problems on my original system that I later converted to a new HD and SSD combo. It can find lots of problems if you learn how to use it right (HD problems, logic board system faults, and cable problems) but you need to get a system at least partially up and running to use it, and it doesn't sound to me like your there right now (in other words, don't go out and buy it because at this point I don't know how it could help you)
Another word of advice would be to not go out and start throwing parts at a problem unless you have a good idea what the source of the problem is. If you have a logic board problem, new drives and new cables won't make it go away, you'll just be wasting your money. Logic board problems, cable problems, and drive problems can all have very similar end user symptoms. The article that I linked above named "Hard Drive Problems" has a section on general symptoms of problems and if you read the article it becomes clear there's a lot of overlap associated with different types of problems.
I assume that your unit isn't under warranty. If, by chance it is I wouldn't even fool with it and I'd take it to Apple and let them deal with the problem. You also might want to check with whatever Apple sources you have available to test your system, like an Apple store, and see how much they'll charge (if anything) to evaluate the system.
I certainly hope this helps.

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extrem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptops hard drive??

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extreme (2 TB drive plugged into the USB port). I see the drive on my laptop and I can add and delete files no problem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptop's hard drive? I don't have enough space to do that.

How did you move the music to the external drive? What exactly is on the drive? The entire iTunes folder or only music? If it is the entire iTunes folder you can do the option+start suggestion earlier. If you copied only music and did so by dragging it there then you need to delete it again and consolidate/organize it there instead so iTunes tracks the move. iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507

My MacBook Pro hard drive crashed a little while ago and has been replaced. Is it possible to take tunes from iPod Classic and transfer all of them back to iTunes on computer?

My MacBook Pro hard drive crashed a little while ago and has been replaced. Is it possible to take tunes from iPod Classic and transfer all of them back to iTunes on computer? Is this just for purchased tunes or can I do it for ones that have been burned from CD's as well? Thanks for any help!

[Zevoneer's detailed instructions on getting music off an iPod|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9053179]
[Wired's How To: Get Your Music Off of Your iPod|http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Get_Your_Music_Off_of_Your_iPod]
[http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/5-ways-to-copy-music-off-your-ipod-window s-mac-os-x/]
[Topic: Get music off iPhone|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11512841]
[Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305465]

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance. A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters". Your images must be managed. You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them. But someone has to manage them. If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge. If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters. If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.) There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world: (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Hard drives are cheap. Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

New 15" Macbook Pro hard drive failure

It is common for a 15" Macbook Pro hard drive to crash after 3 months? How does Apple Support generally fix? Genuis bar seemed overwhelmed by holiday crowds and recommended an $8k 3rd party vendor.

"Any disk can fail at any time."
Over a large sample, the drives used are extremely reliable. You did not have a large sample, you had ONE drive.
Now you are much smarter than you were before this disaster. Apple will not pay for your data recovery. You (and everyone) need a backup solution.
Apple provides an excelent backup solution called Time Machine, that can do hourly backups to an external drive without disturbing your current work. Buy yourself an external drive at least twice as large as the built-in. Turn on Time machine, make sure it is working, plug it in at least daily, and then don't worry about it any more.

My macbook pro hard drive went bad and i bought a new one and installed it. Now i have the old corrupted hard drive in my hand and i am looking to recover my files from it, any suggestions please? too bad i never backed them up.

My macbook pro hard drive went bad and i bought a new one and installed it. Now i have the old corrupted hard drive in my hand and i am looking to recover my files from it, any suggestions please? too bad i never backed them up.

After you have installed the OSX on the new HDD in your MBP, install the old HDD in an enclosure and connect it to your MBP via USB. Then try to drag and drop your data to the new HDD.
If this proves unsuccessful, you may look for data recovery software on the Internet. There will be free trails to see if it will work or not. If the trial suggests that it will work, then you will have to purchase the software.
The last resort is a professional data recovery service that will offer NO guarantees and charge a lot of money.
As you now can appreciate, backups eliminate such predicaments.
Ciao.

My MacBook Pro Hard Drive recently gave me the gray folder with the question mark of death. Even as

My MacBook Pro Hard Drive recently gave me the gray folder with the question mark of death. Even as a Mac Newbie/Novice, I successfully installed a new hard drive and the OS (10.6.8) software from my installation discs. I have, however, lost the ability to play video using the spacebar and I have no idea on the steps necessary to correct this seemingly simple technical blip. .Here's my system overview:Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2 Processor Name: Intel Core i5 Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz Number Of Processors: 1 Total Number Of Cores: 2 L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 3 MB Memory: 4 GB Processor Interconnect Speed: 4.8 GT/s.
I am using the Premiere Pro CS5 NLE (with the 5.0.4 updates), and I have tried to reinstall the software (which is actually the Production Premium package) several times, but I still cannot use the spacebar (or any method) to play any of my imported videos.
PLEASE HELP in any way you can!
Prior to having to replace my hard drive, my software was working just fine. No problems at all. But now, it seems that I can't get it to play whatever type of file I import.
Again, I am a newbie to the Mac, so any and all correctional/repair assistance needs to be expalined as if I were a child : )
I would hate to try to revert to considering the sophmoric Final Cut Pro X editing software package, but I've got to do something to be able to get back to my editing activities.
zionhall
[email protected]

Jorge242 wrote:
@FatMac the internet recovery doesnt work. It goes into recovery mode and then when i try to reinstall it cant find a disk to install it to. So what would be a good choice to take now?
Recovery Mode presents you with, among other things, Disk Utility. When you open that, if the internal shows up at all, first try to "Repair DIsk." If that doesn't work but if the "Media" line is present, try to format and partition it with a GUID partition table (understand that you will be erasing the contents of your internal). Then try to reinstall the OS. If that doesn't work, and since your Retina MBP didn't come with a DVD drive or DVDs, you'll need to try a hardware test using these instructions from Apple (short version: shut down, press the power button and hold down the "D" key). If none of those things work, let's hope you either have AppleCare or your warranty has some life left because the SSD in your rMBP is proprietary and expensive. You'll need to bring it to an Apple Genius for evaluation.

My Macbook Pro hard drive got locked. How can I unlock it?

My Macbook Pro hard drive got locked. I have replaced the drive with a new drive. I put the old drive in an external case. How can I unlock the old drive to get my pictures off and put on the new drive. I can see the drive but I cannot get to the iPhoto files because it is locked. Is there an easy fix?

How did the drive get locked? That doesn't JUST happen for no reason. The only way to unlock it is to put it back in to the Mac it came out of and UN-LOCK it.

Early 2008 MacBook Pro hard drive was killed; how to sync stuff

My early 2008 MacBook Pro hard drive was reimaged (not by me) and they lost everything on there, and have now put in a new hard drive, saying nothing was salvageable on the original HD. I have an iPhone, iPod, iPad. When i get the MBP back, how will I be able to get those devices synced so that everything I've bought/have goes back onto the HD?
The original HD was being reimaged because my work requires use of Windows, and I was using Windows via Boot Camp. Windows got a terrible rogue virus (from my clicking on a link), which shut everything down on that side. Work tech folks said they needed to reimage the Windows part of the drive, but said in the process, the reimaging took everything, Mac stuff included. That's why I'm in this situation. They are going to put in a new hard drive, but it is a blank slate.
Long story short: last time I backed up was 2 years ago, and it wasn't using Time Machine, but an external hard drive. That was also before I got my current iPhone, the iPad and made some additions to iTunes. (For those who say shame on me, for not doing a backup sooner, you're right: But we have gone through 3 moves in 18 months, so it has been kinda nuts.)
I expect the MBP to get sent back to me in the next day. I have no idea how to put these pieces back together. I'm not even sure about data recovery, but am most concerned about iTunes/iPhone/iPod/iPad.
Thanks for your help!

suzannemacuser wrote:
Long story short: last time I backed up was 2 years ago, and it wasn't using Time Machine, but an external hard drive. That was also before I got my current iPhone, the iPad and made some additions to iTunes.
Two years ago??? Shame on you!!!
I found this the other day. It's old but still applies. This should be more than enough to help you get back on track. See the comments by Zevoneer
https://discussions.apple.com/message/7217190#7217190
You will have to check on each of these. Some of the links are outdated but there is more than enough to get you started. See this article about transferring purchases. The link is in the other thread as well.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848?viewlocale=en_US
Backup! Backup! Backup!
Message was edited by: Demo

MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade - seeking advice

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