I finally Pulled the Trigger!!!!

Picked up a 15 inch Macbook pro!!!! I'm so excited, so far the Mac OS Lion is making Windows 7 seem like MS Dos, just the way the software is in sync with the hardware is making me very glad I finally did it. I wanted to get the higher 15 inch model but the Best Buy i got it in was sold out, so considering I was initially going to buy a 13 inch model, I figured it's not the end of the world especially since I'm not gonna use out for gaming. I'd like to ask you experts a couple of questions

1) Can I buy a better HDD? I have a 500gb slow 5400rpm in it right now, is it possible to get a 750 faster HD and install it?

and

2) Can anyone link me to a good tutorial that shows you the basics you need to know when coming from Windows box ( which I was a whiz in ) to a Mac ( which I'll admit even though I have an iPhone and an iPad I'm not to proficient in Mac OS )

Thank you guys, APPLE FTW!!!!!!

 

1. it uses standard 2.5" 9mm SATA 2 or 3 drives... put any hard drive or SSD you want in there.

2. Apple - Support - Mac 101 and Apple - Support - Switch 101

 

If you want a better HDD you should definitely put SSD - just like doh123 said - and use it as your source for processes.

 

Yes, SSD will add a noticeable amount of difference. I really don't think the speed differences between 5400RPM and 7200RPM are really noticeable. There are benchmark differences between the two but I would question anyone saying that they can really notice a difference in day-to-day activities. I upgraded the hard drive in my MBP to a 7200RPM model initially (although the hard drive was free from someone else who picked up a notebook with it in there and upgraded to SSD), I didn't see a large enough difference to justify a decrease in battery life (which was a lot more noticeable).

Adding an SSD drive will drastically cut down boot times (it takes my MBP ~6 seconds to cold boot), programs will load in 1-2 seconds, etc. You aren't going to find that large of a decrease in going with a 7200RPM hard drive.

 

Thanks for the reply guys, problem is I need at leas 500GB HD space and I've noticed that those are still pretty pricey. Also, I can't have the regular HD and SSD and the optical disk , somethings gotta give correct?

 

Yes. In order to have an SSD and HDD in a MBP, you would have to replace the optical drive.

 

Honestly, just consider replacing it with a 750GB 7,200 RPM which is the largest and fastest HDD out there currently I believe.

 

Since you are requiring 500GB of storage, I would just leave things as-is. Feel free to look the benchmarks and real world tests up but the differences between 5400RPM and 7200RPM HDDs aren't drastic at all and I would even say that they aren't worth the price of buying a new HDD.

Optibay solutions, which would allow you to install an SSD and move the HDD over to the optical bay, would still give you access to the optical drive. It wouldn't be built into your system but the kits I have observed all come with a USB 2.0 enclosure. So you wouldn't necessarily be losing the optical drive, you would just have to plug it into the system before use. Depending on when and how often you use the optical drive, it may or may not be a pain. I have been wanting to go the optibay route for a long time now since I use my optical drive about once every 2 weeks but I also want to throw in a 1TB HDD instead of the 500GB model I have from my MBP. All the costs are adding up to something that I just don't want to spend at the moment.

 

Kornchild is right, the newer 5400rpm drives are not much slower than the 7200 any more.

Personally I would not have anything but a full blown SSD Every one of my computer runs SSD (except my mini but it's running just fine with the stock 320GB 5400RPM). But if you must have the space in your laptop, check out the Seagate XT hybrid drive. I was at Best Buy checking out a Sony SA. It had the 500GB hybrid drive in it. It booted up surprisingly quickly, especially considering it was loading up all the stock Sony bloat PLUS the Best Buy demo stuff during boot. Before I saw this drive in action I had no interest in it, but I must might put one in my Mac Mini when the price drops.

I believe the 750GB version of this drive will be released shortly. It has 8GB of flash instead of the 4GB from the 500GB version.

 

Thanks for the advice guys, since I'm not too great as far as taking electronics apart and putting things in neatly, are there places ( I live in NYC ) where I can just walk in with the bought components ( a HDD and Ram for ex ) and pay them to install it for me? I reckon the Apple store techs wouldn't do that for me unless I was buying the parts from Apple directly.

 

In all honesty, there is absolutely no need for you to have anyone install components in your MBP. I am sure there are several mom and pop shops that can install those in your MBP but that would be $50-$100 wasted. All you need to do is order an electronics screwdriver kit (I found mine for $18 on Amazon) and call it a day. There are plenty of YouTube videos (many in HD) that will help you upgrade the components in your MBP.

The hardest part is taking off the bottom panel. After that, it is all relatively easy to slap in some new RAM and upgrade the HDD.

My only complaint about hybrid drives is that they still come with a very small amount of flash/NAND/SSD storage and they use it more like having a large cache. I would really like to see a hybrid hard drive with 32GB of SSD and 500-750GB of HDD storage while also allowing the user to directly access the SSD. That way the OS can be installed on the SSD for faster boot rates while programs and media will go onto the HDD portion. I really like the idea of hybrid drives and they currently are improvements over standard HDDs but I don't feel like they warrant their higher prices especially when boot times are still much lower than SSDs.

 

While I agree with you 110% wholeheartedly, to many people taking anything apart (even with video instructions) might make them nervous and uncomfortable and some people just aren't savvy in the field of taking electronics apart. To some people upgrading ram on their own is like doing an entire engine rehaul on a MAC truck. Sorry for the usual car analogy.

 

Upgrading Ram would be no problem to me, it's the HDD part that makes me a little nervous.

 

You could always look at a hybrid drive.

 

It's easy, I promise. Watch a YouTube video once for some instruction, then again while you follow along. Use quality screwdrivers (not those cheap dollar store precision kits) - I always recommend Husky 6-in-1 screwdrivers. They're gray with red caps. I bought one in Torx and one Philips, and have never had a problem, they work great. I paid like $5 each for them at Home Depot.

Take your time and you'll be fine.

 

Installing a new hard drive requires about 4 extra steps over what installing new RAM has. Apple considers both the hard drive and RAM to be user replaceable, that is how easy things are. You do have to be careful with the hard drive connector but, so long as you are paying attention to what you are doing, everything will be fine.

Look at the YouTube videos first. It took me about 3 minutes to upgrade the RAM in my MBP and 5 minutes for the SSD installation at a different time.

 

I understand how some maybe nervous about taking things apart, especially a very expensive new laptop. Some are more adept with taking things apart, but replacing the hard drive in a Macbook Pro really is very easy and only takes a few minutes - if you can use a screw driver then you can do it. The more time consuming part is reloading the OS and software.

The only real danger of damaging something is poking the exposed circuit board with your metal screw driver, which common sense would tell you not to do Short of doing this with your eyes closed or a cat jumping on it in the middle of the process, I can't think of how it can happen. Just lock your room and turn off your phone for the 10 minutes that this takes if you decide to DIY.

 

I think you meant to respond to me. I was the one saying that people might feel nervous taking things apart. Kornchild was actually giving sound advice about replacing the hard drive.
What I was saying is you have to understand that it's not necessarily about how "easy" something is, it's really about the little things, at least on some of the posts I've read in the past.
Even the most astute person in tech have run into not being able to get the screws back in place as they were in the factory. Screws get stripped and such. For some reason the bottom plate doesn't end up as flush as it was from the factory...etc.
These are real-life situations and yes, that can be traumatic for someone who just spend a king's ransom on their new computer. So while I'm not necessarily discounting anyone's recommendations here, you have to be conscious of others comfort levels regardless how easy something is.

Now while I think Best Buy charging the customer $30 US just to install one piece of software (example, someone buying MS Office and is not comfortable installing it) is nothing short of highway robbery, but it's understandable since some people would just prefer not to deal with anything other than running the computer.

 

just go to this website and research how to replace the hard drive. it will show you the tools you will need as well as links directly to buy them as well as pictures of the entire process of a hard drive replacement. then you can see for yourself if you think its possible for you to do. you will see every step and know if its to hard for you.

Mac Repair - iFixit

 

How much would best buy charge for installing a HDD? I thought I had heard that that some stores were installing it for free if you bought the drive from them, though it could easily be some promotion.


PS I have 120 gb ssd, so would I need a cloning program to move the programs to the new drive like you have the OS and the recovery on the apple drives? I wouldn't think that you could just plug in the time machine and install from the backup on a bare drive unless I am wrong.

 

I am not sure how much Best Buy's Geek Squad program would charge for that. Given their abnormally high prices for simple services (such as installing software, installing an anti-virus program, reformatting the computer's hard drive and re-installing Windows, etc.), I imagine it would not be an inexpensive experience even if the hard drive were purchased at Best Buy.

Time Machine is capable of completely backing up a Mac's hard drive and letting you go from there. So you would set Time Machine up, plug in a USB (or FireWire 800) hard drive that has enough storage capacity to handle everything on the Mac's internal hard drive (so, if the Mac's HDD says it has 50GB occupied, the USB HDD would need at least 50GB of free space in order for this to work), and let Time Machine make the backup. Then all you would need to do is take the HDD out, put the SSD in, boot from either a Lion installation DVD or a Lion thumb drive (you should be able to make both), and tell it to restore from a Time Machine backup.

It will be as if you never did anything and the Mac will pick right back up where you left off. No need for a cloning program and enclosure for the SSD or anything else like that. The only part that might be troublesome is the creation of a Lion DVD/thumb drive. There are instructions online though I think most center around people upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion and not someone who purchased a system with Lion already on it.

 

Lion purchased through the app store is easy as pie to create a DVD or USB stick. On Macs that came from the factory with Lion, it is a MAJOR PITA in trying to create an installation media. I spent hours ('cause I had to redownload it multiple times, don't ask ) trying to create one for my newly purchased 2011 Mac Mini. I imagine I would be going through the same thing if I wanted to reload my Air.

It'd be much easier to just clone your existing OS over if you're simply swapping hard drive on any Macs that came from the factory with Lion.

PS I was able to capture and burn the .dmg downloaded from Apple on the 2011 Mini, but the installation always errors out when trying to start the actual OS installation. The only thing I'm able to do is clone that partition onto a USB drive and start the Lion installation from that USB drive.

 

The Lion download from the MAS does not work with the latest Macs that came with Lion pre-installed. Drivers are different, not sure what else is but the Lion download is for Snow Leopard or Pre-Lion Macs.

 

Yes which is what made it a major PITA. On the 2011 Mini, the only way I could download Lion is through the recovery console. TWICE the installation started itself when it finished downloading, thus erasing the .dmg I was trying to create an installation media out of. Even after I captured and burned that .dmg it does not work properly. The only thing that worked was clone that partition onto a USB hard drive partition and start the Lion installation from there.

Apple might have made it easy for the non-tinkerers to reload Lion but made it a total PITA for the tinkerers. They should have included the media like last year's Air, but I guess that would have cost them an extra $2