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Upgrading my MacBook's Internal Hard Drive

jwolf6589

jwolf6589

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 15, 2010
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I am under the 3 year warranty so I imagine the only way to do this would be to have apple do it. Presently I have a 500GB RPM drive and I was thinking about upgrading to a 1000GB drive or a SSD drive. If I moved to a SSD drive would there be a fast difference in speed? Is it expensive? When I bought my MacBook SSD's were only at a max of 250GB but I see that many Macbook's come with a 500GB SSD drive these days.

The thing that worries me the most is cost. If I upgrade the drive at the Apple store I imagine they need to take my computer and cannot do it while I wait correct? How much would a 1000GB drive be or a 1000GB SSD drive be? Thanks..
 
You can do it yourself and it doesn't void AppleCare coverage. Hard drives are considered user-replaceable by Apple.
Do not get another conventional hard drive. Get an SSD, and yes, the speed difference will be mind-bogglingly huge.

A good 500 GB SSD comes at around $150 in the US. Example from Amazon. 1 TB a little bit less than twice that.
 
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JTToft said:
You can do it yourself and it doesn't void AppleCare coverage. Hard drives are considered user-replaceable by Apple.
Do not get another conventional hard drive. Get an SSD, and yes, the speed difference will be mind-bogglingly huge.

A good 500 GB SSD comes at around $150 in the US. Example from Amazon. 1 TB a little bit less than twice that.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this information. I will look into it. Would upgrading the internal hard drive of the Macbook Mid 2012 be difficult? It seems it would be more difficult than my previous MacBook which was the Mid 2009 model.
 
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jwolf6589 said:
Thank you for this information. I will look into it. Would upgrading the internal hard drive of the Macbook Mid 2012 be difficult? It seems it would be more difficult than my previous MacBook which was the Mid 2009 model.
Click to expand...

No it's exactly the same unless you have a retina version.
 
Fishrrman said:
OP, why don't you tell us just which kind of MB you have?

If it's non-retina, you can upgrade the drive to an SSD yourself in just a few minutes.

All you need is an SSD, a Phillips #00 driver, and a TORX T-6 driver.
Along with a flat table and a cloth to lay the MB on.

Instructions can be found here:
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Laptop
Click to expand...

MacBook mid 2012 non Retina. Yes thanks for the tip.
 
Definitely get an SSD. It will be night and day. Your machine will boot in a few seconds and apps will launch in 1-2 seconds. No more beachball.
 
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jerryk said:
Definitely get an SSD. It will be night and day. Your machine will boot in a few seconds and apps will launch in 1-2 seconds. No more beachball.
Click to expand...

I think I may wait till the 1000GB drives drop in price. I have a 500GB drive and do not want to get another 500GB drive as I want more disk space. It probably won't be long until this happens.
 
jwolf6589 said:
I think I may wait till the 1000GB drives drop in price. I have a 500GB drive and do not want to get another 500GB drive as I want more disk space. It probably won't be long until this happens.
Click to expand...
- Or consider getting a 250-500 GB SSD and a 1 TB hard drive to mount in place of the optical drive, if large internal storage is a major concern. Or repurpose your existing hard drive in the optical drive.
 
JTToft said:
- Or consider getting a 250-500 GB SSD and a 1 TB hard drive to mount in place of the optical drive, if large internal storage is a major concern. Or repurpose your existing hard drive in the optical drive.
Click to expand...

I can't fit 2 hard drives in my MacBook so are you recommending a external? I have one already.
 
jwolf6589 said:
I can't fit 2 hard drives in my MacBook so are you recommending a external? I have one already.
Click to expand...
You can get a kit and remove the optical drive (most people use this so infrequently that this won't matter and a cheap enclosure turns it into an external drive for the few times you need it.) then you can put an HDD into the optical bay with a data doubler kit and an SSD of any size in the main drive bay for booting and apps, you can even set it up as a fusion drive if you like and OS X will organise it all for you for optimum speed.

This video will give you a good idea of the process and further reach will show you all you need if idiot.com also has excellent guides and the parts you may need.

 
Samuelsan2001 said:
You can get a kit and remove the optical drive (most people use this so infrequently that this won't matter and a cheap enclosure turns it into an external drive for the few times you need it.) then you can put an HDD into the optical bay with a data doubler kit and an SSD of any size in the main drive bay for booting and apps, you can even set it up as a fusion drive if you like and OS X will organise it all for you for optimum speed.

This video will give you a good idea of the process and further reach will show you all you need if idiot.com also has excellent guides and the parts you may need.

Click to expand...

I have a dozen DVD's so my optical drive will stay. However I need to get a larger drive in due time.

When do you think a 1TB SSD will sell for $150? 6 months?
 
jwolf6589 said:
When do you think a 1TB SSD will sell for $150? 6 months?
Click to expand...
- Going by the market leading 850 EVO I posted above, a 50 % drop in six months is overly optimistic, I would say.
Based on information from my market, that drive in 1 TB size has dropped by 22 % in the last six months, and by 31 % in the past year.

1,5 years as above is probably the least it'd take.
Cheaper drives will come down sooner, maybe in a year.
 
jwolf6589 said:
I have a dozen DVD's so my optical drive will stay. However I need to get a larger drive in due time.

When do you think a 1TB SSD will sell for $150? 6 months?
Click to expand...

To be honest I doubt they'll get too much cheaper than they are at the moment unless Windows machines start using them as standard across their ranges and the production costs come down due to volume.

Really?? You'd not get rid of your optical drive over a dozen DVDs that you could rip to your new 2 tb hard drive that replaced it..... That seems like shooting yourself in the foot
 
Samuelsan2001 said:
To be honest I doubt they'll get too much cheaper than they are at the moment unless Windows machines start using them as standard across their ranges and the production costs come down due to volume.

Really?? You'd not get rid of your optical drive over a dozen DVDs that you could rip to your new 2 tb hard drive that replaced it..... That seems like shooting yourself in the foot
Click to expand...

Or I could just get a 1TB RPM hard drive. Its not like I am in a huge hurry to open apps and my present hard drive works just fine, despite that I will need more disk space eventually but this upgrade does not have to happen this moment, just for future reference, perhaps within the next year.
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MacInTO said:
Get one of these for your optical drive, https://www.amazon.ca/inkint-External-Macbook-Windows-without/dp/B019GZWYSU

You can get 960GB SSDs for about $200-$250 now.
Click to expand...

I like it being internal less bulk on my desktop.
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JTToft said:
- Going by the market leading 850 EVO I posted above, a 50 % drop in six months is overly optimistic, I would say.
Based on information from my market, that drive in 1 TB size has dropped by 22 % in the last six months, and by 31 % in the past year.

1,5 years as above is probably the least it'd take.
Cheaper drives will come down sooner, maybe in a year.
Click to expand...

Good because it will probably be up to a year from know when I do the upgrade. By then the SSD's will probably drop in cost.
[doublepost=1458759636][/doublepost]Also to note I have perhaps up to 300 DVD's they would take forever to rip and more time than I have free time.
 
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