Just bought 13" MBP

I just bought my first Mac, a 2011 MBP i5 2.3ghz. I just ordered 2x8gb Crucial DDR3 memory and a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hdd. Just curios if anyone has any current experience with these upgrades.

 

Well, if you are lost, there are plenty of HD YouTube videos out there that give step by step visual instructions for replacing the RAM and hard drive in a MBP. You can follow the same steps as a 2010 model since the design hasn't changed in a year (aside from the upgraded internals and additional of the Thunderbolt port).

 

I was actually just wondering if anyone had experience with this particular hardware, if they like it or not.

 

Congrats on your new 2011 Macbook Pro purchase. Sweet machine and nice upgrades you've chosen. I have crucial sticks in several of my laptops, not just my Mac. Crucial is where I always go when looking for memory.

Regarding the seagate Hybrid. I was wanting one myself. There were previous firmwares with that momentous XT hybrid though that was causing power management issues but it was not happening to all users and they've now supposedly fixed all of that with the latest firmware release (which your new drive likely will have already).

How To: Seagate Momentus XT firmware update SD24 / SD25 on MacBook Pro | io101.org

 

Thanks for the link, hopefully everything works fine. I would rather have an SSD but it's almost as much for a 500gb SSD as it was for my MBP!

 

Doesn't 512 Gig SSD cost around $500? The price is the reason that I haven't upgraded as well as the need for a special tool driver to open the HDD case.

 

OK, didn't know if you were after some help installing the new RAM/hard drive or not.

I have the i7 13" MBP and really like it. I think it is the most solid notebook I have ever purchased in terms of build quality. I really like that there is only one piece of plastic on it instead of the whole body being made up of flexible plastic. I also think the trackpad is the best out there if you use it under OS X.

I don't blame you for not wanting to plop the money down on SSD. That is why, right now, I am thinking about going the optibay route. I would buy a 128GB SSD, put that in for the primary drive, take out the optical drive (which I use about 3 times a month), put the hard drive in there, and put the optical drive in a USB enclosure. That way I don't have to spend $500 to get a high capacity SSD. I can use my 500GB hard drive for storing media content and Windows while the SSD (which will probably be around 128GB) houses OS X and all of the programs I have installed under that.

 

My trust BlackBook might be getting on its last leg, so I actually might be picking up a 13" MBP myself soon.

 

It is actually pretty easy to upgrade the hard drive and the ram on your macbook pro. Though, it would require you some tools to get the job done. You would need one of them drivers with a star looking end, to attach it to the hard drive bay. But for the ram, it is a pretty straight forward step. Get it out, pop it in and that would be it.

 

Maybe one day I might get courage to do it, but I don't think it would be on my Mac: it has pretty fast startup & shut down times right now and I think the other bottleneck I face might solve with the extra ram I am putting in. I think my target would be my lenovo, if it chugs along until that point, as its 5400 rpm drive would get a big boost with an SSD drive as well as the heating issues.

 

So what screw drivers are you guys using as in the brand? My trusted old philips screwdriver is lost after the move and the other set I got from ebay has the end worn out after a couple times. I am looking for something sturdy for long use.

 

Add a few more 100s to that price. The newer 256GB Intel/OCZ drives go for that and more. I just bought a 256GB Crucial for $352 and that was with a 15% off coupon code.

 

I just installed my Momentus XT, it has revision SD27 and it flys.

 

whats a good score for geekbench?