Asking whether you can upgrade your MacBook hard drive is a trick question. Yes, you certainly can upgrade your hard drive. But before you start cruisin’ the Internet for a 1TB monster, though, here are two suggestions:
Oct 12, 2014 Good luck with the upgrade:-) /Martin. If you want to use the new HDD/SSD to boot from, you will need to download the OSX software and install it on the 2nd HDD/SSD you. Aug 23, 2016 When Macbook pros switch from 2.5inch drives to msata and m.2 solutions they did. (You can't stick just any msata or m.2 SSD in them) The 2011 uses the 2.5 inch drive, you can use any kind 2.5inch drive with them. Dec 12, 2018 How to upgrade your MacBook Pro with an SSD, step by step guide from making. Backup to reinstalling macOS and transferring all files to new SSD harddrive.
And, all in all, Apple’s pretty generous when configuring drive storage for its base systems — current models run with anywhere from a 64GB solid-state drive to a 1TB magnetic hard drive.
Most folks simply don’t need more than 128GB or 500GB of drive space. You’re likely to find that you still have plenty of elbowroom on your drive unless you’re heavily into
If you’re short on drive space, clean up your existing drive by deleting all the crud you don’t need, such as game and application demos, duplicate or work copies of images and documents, archived files you downloaded from the Internet, and the contents of your Trash.
Consider external hard drive options for your MacBook![]()
If you do need additional hard drive space, consider using an external drive! Use a high-speed Thunderbolt, FireWire, or USB port to connect a second hard drive the quick and easy way.
Most of today’s external peripherals don’t even require the driver software that Mac old-timers remember with such hatred. You simply plug in a FireWire, Thunderbolt, or USB device, and it works. You can move your external drive between different Macs with a minimum of fuss and bother. A typical external USB 3.0 hard drive that holds 1TB will cost less than $100.
An external hard drive can do anything that your internal hard drive can do. You can boot from it, for example, or install a different version of OS X. External optical drives work just the same as internal models; Apple sells an external USB SuperDrive optical drive for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Retina for about $80.
Apple’s Time Capsule unit is an external hard drive with a difference: It stores the huge Time Machine backup files created by the Macs running Mountain Lion on your network, and it uses a wireless connection to transfer data!
Here’s one problem with external drives: Data typically transfers more slowly over a USB or FireWire connection than via an internal drive. That’s why most Mac owners use their external drives for storing lesser-used documents and applications or for Time Machine backups. Their favorite applications and often-used documents are housed on the faster internal drive.
USB 2.0/3.0
The USB standard is popular because it’s just as common in the PC world as in the Mac world. Your laptop carries at least two USB 3.0 ports on the sides of the case, and older MacBook models that can run Mountain Lion will have at least one USB 2.0 port. Hardware manufacturers can make one USB device that works on both types of computers.
Naturally, USB 3.0 offers faster data transfer speeds than the older USB 2.0 standard, so if your MacBook model sports USB 3.0 ports, you should buy only USB 3.0 external hard drives, CD/DVD recorders, or flash drives.
FireWire 800
The faster FireWire 800 port has now replaced the older FireWire 400 port (also called IEEE 1394) on today’s MacBook Pro models. However, with an adapter, you can use your FireWire 800 port for connecting older FireWire 400 external devices to your MacBook.
Thunderbolt
A Thunderbolt external drive offers much better performance than either a FireWire 800 or a USB 3.0 drive, and today’s shiny Thunderbolt drives are getting cheaper every day. All current MacBook models proudly sport a Thunderbolt port on the side.
How to connect an external drive to your MacBook
With FireWire, Thunderbolt, or USB, you can install an external hard drive without opening your laptop’s case. With your MacBook turned on, follow these steps:
After the drive is formatted and partitioned, it immediately appears on the desktop. Shazam!
Gotta have an internal hard drive
If you decide that you must upgrade your existing internal drive — or if your internal drive fails and needs to be replaced — you should always take your MacBook to an authorized Apple service center and allow the techs there to sell you a drive and make the swap. Here are four darned good reasons why:
Upgrade Ssd Macbook Pro 2015
53 25 likes 316,447 views Last modified Aug 12, 2014 10:38 AM
(Note: while some portions of this user tip can be used when installing a new hard drive in your MacBook Pro, it is intended only for those upgrading to a SSD.)
There are, with most MacBook Pros (exclusive of the Retina display models) only two modifications that you can make without voiding your Apple warranty or AppleCare extended warranty – upgrading the RAM and upgrading the drive in the hard drive bay. If you’ve already upgraded your RAM and simply want more speed, you may want to consider upgrading your old hard drive with a SSD (Solid State Drive). Many people come to the MacBook Pro forum asking about SSD upgrades, so this user tip is applicable to those, primarily, who have already made the decision to upgrade. Note that I only recommend using a SSD in 2009 and later MacBook Pros with a 3.0Gbps to 6.0Gbps interface speed – and I recommend buying a 6.0Gbps SSD regardless of the fact that models with a SATA II interface won’t be able to use the full-negotiated speed of 6.0Gbps. Why? Because you may want to upgrade your Mac sometime in the future… although you'd likely be upgrading to a Retina model these days. But you may still want to use the SSD in an enclosure or in another machine.
Before you buy…
Before you purchase a SSD, there are a few questions that you need to ask:
What capacity do you need?
It’s just my opinion, but the bigger the better. Now you may want to install a 120-128GB SSD and simply use it as a boot device and as a place to store your most frequently used applications. This is certainly the least expensive approach. But most people will want to store much more than that on an internal drive save, perhaps, for large iTunes libraries and large photo/movie libraries. There are numerous advantages to a larger drive, however. If you do photo or video editing, the SSD makes a super-fast scratch/working drive for individual projects. You can always store your hefty data on an external drive, of course, but for working projects I recommend using your fast internal SSD. Currently, SSDs come in basically three usable sizes: 120-128GB, 240-256GB and 480-512GB. But Crucial is now shipping a 960GB M500 drive that sells for under $600. So decide, first, how much storage you can actually utilize before making any buying decisions. And Samsung now has a 1 Terabyte EVO drive - priced at about $800+ but which can be found for under $650. https://laeporde.hatenablog.com/entry/2020/10/13/060837. Decisions, decisions! See here for an excellent review of the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB drive. Crucial also has two high-capacity SSDs - the older 960GB M500 and the recently released 1 Terabyte M550, which sports faster speeds than the M500 series but is still available at a reasonable price. I would recommend any of these three drives, now, for those wanting the higher capacity. See a review of the M550 series here.
Which drive should I buy?
Unfortunately, there are no Consumer Reports articles out for SSDs on MacBook Pros. There is, however, a very good “information and buyers guide” website - Sean’s SSD Buyer’s Guide and Information Thread. It’s chock-full of information about how SSDs work, what technology individual manufacturers employ, and includes not only a ‘buyer’s guide’ but an almost endless thread containing users experiences. Beware, though, as it is primarily geared towards Windows users. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from reading much of the information there. One thing that I always look for in an SSD, too, is the “Mac-friendliness” of the drive – e.g., can the firmware be upgraded using a Mac or must it be upgraded on a Windows machine? Unfortunately, the majority of SSDs fall in the latter category. That, alone, may not be a showstopper for you in determining which brand of SSD to purchase, but it should at least give you pause.
Getting everything in place…
Before you begin your MacBook Pro surgery, here is a checklist of things you should have on hand:
Start the process…
There are two ways to go about getting the data from your old drive to your SSD. The first is to install the SSD into your enclosure and make your clone before installing the SSD. The second is simply to install the SSD into your hard drive bay and your old hard drive into your enclosure and boot from the enclosure. No one way is better than the other. We’ll examine both ways here:
Install the SSD into your USB enclosure and plug it up. Use Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities folder) to format the SSD, erasing it and formatting as “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” with a single GUID partition. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard drive to the SSD. If you are running Lion or Mountain Lion, choose the option to copy the Recovery Partition to the SSD. After the clone is complete, restart your computer whilst holding down the option key and select the SSD as the boot drive. You’ll know in a few seconds if your clone was successful.
Alternately, you can just go ahead and install your SSD into your MacBook Pro (endless number of DIY videos online – see OWC’s Installation Videos - http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/) and put your hard drive into the USB enclosure and boot from it. Then just boot from the enclosed drive and use Disk Utility to format the SSD and clone the contents of your hard drive onto your SSD as noted above.
Either method should work just fine. Be sure to visit the OWC video installation page, or the numerous videos on YouTube, about installing the drive into your MacBook Pro.
You’re almost finished…
Imac Pro Ssd Upgrade
Now that you have your cloned SSD in your hard drive bay, you should be able to hold down the option key and boot from the SSD. The first thing you’ll want to do is to go to System Preferences>Startup Disk and select your new SSD as your startup drive.
I would also recommend using Trim Enabler to enable TRIM on your new SSD. Not sure what TRIM does? See this Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM. Note that with every .1 upgrade to OS X you will have to enable TRIM once again. I just make it a habit when I update my system. Some may ask of TRIM is necessary these days since most SSDs use proprietary garbage collection. I can only say that I still enable TRIM just in case.. and Apple's SSDs utilize TRIM as well.
Up and running…
You should be up and running now, enjoying the many benefits of a SSD – particularly speed. You shouldn’t have any problems if you’ve followed these instructions.
The only problem that some people have run into, in my experience, has been with a faulty SATA cable (affecting 2009 models more than any other). If you’re having problems such a ‘beachballing,’ slow speeds, etc., look at replacing your SATA cable first – it’s the most likely culprit. You’ll also want to make certain that you stay up to date with SSD firmware updates – these cannot only eliminate ‘bugs’ in the firmware, but may also make your SSD operate more efficiently.
Retina model? Best fashion apps for macs.
The newest MacBook Pros, of course - the Retina models - already come with a SSD installed. Until recently, though, you really couldn't upgrade your flash storage. Now, on certain models, you can upgrade the flash storage (although you'll void your warranty if you crack the case, so buyer beware). Both Other World Computing and Transcend produce flash storage modules so that you can upgrade your storage to up to 1 terabyte. Note that both the OWC and the Transcend modules will only work with 'older' Retina models or MacBook Pro Airs - not the newer models that have a PCIe interface. Still, having these options available is more than you could have hoped for previously. Will there ever be PCIe based flash storage available? Only time will tell. Not much else to say about Retina models.
Final note…
I do not recommend placing your SSD into the optical bay of your MacBook Pro – your start-up drive is meant to be in the hard drive bay and that’s where you want to install your SSD. Installing another SSD or a hard drive into your optical bay is beyond the scope of this user tip. And also note that this tip covers only one method – my preferred method – for getting your data to your SSD.
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