Expanding the Hard Drive or Backing up Ext. HD?

[ficklefilm]

I have the 13" 250gb MBP late 2010. This hard drive is way too small for me as I have more than 70gb of music alone, and then all my videos, movies, hi-res photos etc on top of that. My music collection is always growing and I have 160gb iPod classic, so I am looking to expand my hard drive.

Is it possible to replace the internal HD without voiding the warranty? Can apple do an upgrade like that? I can't find anything on the website. I have a warranty until summer 2013 so I definitely don't want to void my warranty.

If it's not possible to do that, maybe I could achieve more HD space by using an external hard drive to store my music on. It would need to be a portable hard drive. And then I would worry about losing all of my music should that hard drive fail. Will I need to buy ANOTHER hard drive to back up that one? I currently have an Ext. hard drive I use to back up with Time Machine. Could I back up both the external hard drive and my MBP internal drive on that one disk?

I have more questions about using a tv as a display for mbp, but I'll take that to another thread.

Thanks guys!

 

[Mersailios]

The hard disk in your MacBook Pro is classified as a user serviceable part, meaning that you can upgrade your hard disk without voiding your AppleCare warranty. Keep in mind that if you damage the computer while performing the upgrade that it would not be covered and you'd have to pay for any repairs.

Your MacBook Pro can use any Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drive as long as it's size is 2.5 inches. Some popular notebook hard disks include Western Digital's Scorpio series and Seagate's Momentus series. The instructions on how to upgrade your MacBook Pro's hard disk can be found in the user guide that came with your computer, or from http://support.apple.com/.

In terms of having Apple perform the upgrade for you, I believe that you'd have to take the computer to an Apple Authorized Service Provider (I don't think the Genius Bar handles third-party upgrade installation, but I might be wrong).

An internal hard disk upgrade would be the easiest solution in the long run if you're concerned about having to create back ups of your data, because if you move your iTunes library to an external disk you'd then need to make copies of that disk to another disk and that would just be a hassle in my opinion.

 

[ficklefilm]

So I'm looking at 1 tb drive as they are not too costly ($120 or so) but I have found different things online while looking for opinions about this.. some people say that 5400 rpm is too slow for a 1tb drive (which is the best they have on the market right now as there are no 7200 internal 1tb drives). My current 250gb drive is 5400 rpm and although the speeds have not been up to par lately (I think it's because I only have 20-30gb of free space on this lately) when I had less stuff on it, it was sufficient. So should I worry about upgrading to a 1tb drive as far as speed goes? Also will it affect my battery life or not? I have found so many conflicting responses.

And then the other question I have is will I need to also upgrade my external HDD for backups? It is 1tb. If my internal HD is upgraded to 1tb what size should my backups one be??

 

[davidlv]

So I'm looking at 1 tb drive as they are not too costly ($120 or so) but I have found different things online while looking for opinions about this.. some people say that 5400 rpm is too slow for a 1tb drive (which is the best they have on the market right now as there are no 7200 internal 1tb drives). My current 250gb drive is 5400 rpm and although the speeds have not been up to par lately (I think it's because I only have 20-30gb of free space on this lately) when I had less stuff on it, it was sufficient. So should I worry about upgrading to a 1tb drive as far as speed goes? Also will it affect my battery life or not? I have found so many conflicting responses.
And then the other question I have is will I need to also upgrade my external HDD for backups? It is 1tb. If my internal HD is upgraded to 1tb what size should my backups one be??

The speed of a HD can be measured by benchmarks, but in actual use, speed is actually a matter of "user perception", some people have no issues with the speed of a 5,400 rpm drive and some won't settle for less than a 7,200 rpm drive. Of course, SSDs are in another league entirely. If your concerned about speed, get the WD Scorpio Black, Hitachi or Seagate Momentus at 7,200 rpm, all come in 750GB models. I have a 500 GB drive, with lots of movies and music, and it is still only 1/2 full, so 750GB should be enough.
If you are using your external drive as a "file copy" destination, then 1GB should be OK, but if you are using Time Machine, it seems a little too small, your disk may fill up quickly. HD prices are going up quickly these days so you should hurry before they go up even more.