Upgrade Hard Drive in Macbook Pro

Have a 17" Macbook Pro with a 500 GB drive. Only have 1.3 GB available. Running vmware (Windows XP service pack 2) and Leopard.
Is there a slot to add a second hard drive internally? Or can we replace with a 1 TB or larger drive?

The built-in optical drive can be replaced with a special caddy that holds a second internal hard drive:
http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/
The Apple-specified maximum height for an internal hard drive in a MBP is 9.5mm, and the only currently available 2.5" hard drive larger than 500GB is a Western Digital 750GB drive that is 12.5mm high. WD has announced, but not released, a 12.5mm high 1TB drive.
There is one vendor who offers to install the 750GB WD drive in any unibody MBP regardless of the height limitation, without saying whether any modification of the computer or the drive is required:
http://www.9to5mac.com/750GB-MAcBook-Hard-drive-12-5mm
http://www.myservice.com/harddrives.html
If the drive can be installed without any modification, there's no reason you couldn't do the job yourself and save a bundle of money.

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    1.  Is a hybrid solid state drive going to need some kind of special formatting after I put it into the macbook so that I can put the operating system on it?
    The boot drive, regardless of what it is, needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).  This is standard with OS X.
    2.  Is a "normal" platter hard drive more reliable than a hybrid solid state drive?
    There are arguments pro and con.  Bottom line, SSD's and hybrid drives are still quite expensive per GB than standard hard drives.  If you have the bucks and are a speed demon, go ahead.   I have better use for my money.   Standard hard drives are mechanical and may wear out over time.  But even though SSDs are not mechancial, they can still go bad and ultimately they even have a limit to their write capacity.  The jury is still out on this debate.
    3.  Is there any additional driver or special software that I have to install for a hybrid solid state drive?
    No
    4.  Currently there is no personal data stored on the computer.  Can I just put the new hard drive in, and then insert the snow leopard install cd?
    You can physically put the hard drive in but probably not install Snow Leopard on this MBP.
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    5.  If I install snow leopard, can I just go to the App store and get the free upgrade to Mavericks?
    Not via Snow Leopard on this MBP.  See my response to #4.
    6.  If I want to do the "Data Doubler" option in the future and add a normal Solid State drive into my computer, will it have trouble interacting with the 1 tb hybrid solid state drive?
    No.  They are completely independent of each other; they are just independent storage units (drives) and their RAM does not interact.

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    Hi everybody!
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    Seagate Momentus ---> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/YST9500420AS/
    Western Digital Scorpio Black ---> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/YWD5000BEKT/
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    2. Load frequently used apps: Also great, but I load everything I need and keep it in another desktop while not in use. Again, necessary?
    3. Better performance?: Now, that's grrreat! If that is true, then the 8GB RAM + 4GB NAND will make my Mac noticeably faster, right? Then I'll go for it.
    The thing is, with non-hybrid drives I've read that all you have to do is install the OS, copy you stuff and you're good to go. On the other hand, I've read a lot of bad things about this hybrid XT drive, stuff like it's unstable, you have to install a Firmware (how do you do that before installing the drive?), and even some guy using a jumper wire (what is that) to limit the drive's speed from 3Gb/s to 1,5Gb/s!!! (how the **** do I do that? is it really necessary?) And also good things as well, that the booting time is a LOT faster and also it's very fast at loading apps.
    Well, I hope you can help me!
    Thank you for reading
    Cheers.
    Walter
    MacBook Pro 5,5 (13,3") Mid 2009; 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor; 4GB (2x2GB) RAM; Factory 250GB 54000RPM HD; OS X Lion 1.7.2
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    Did you ever get this solved? I am having a very similar problem. I haven't tried replacing the hard drive yet. When I boot into the Recovery HD, disk utility works fine and says the HD is fine.

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