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MacBook hard drive (non ssd)

Drich290195

Drich290195

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 2, 2011
467
6
Not after a ssd or anything just something bigger than the 120gb in their at the moment. It's a early 2009 white model what type o hard drive do I need. And what's the biggest I can go up to. Also how would I restore from time machine. Just reinstall mountain lion on the new one and plugin my time machine is that it. Come to think of it if I wasn't bothered about the data could I just take the 1tb drive from the caddy it's 2.5 inch and pop that in cheers for your help
 
The 2009 MBP accepts any 2.5" S-ATA HDD with a maximum height of 12.5 mm, thus 1 TB is an option.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

the guide includes:
  • 0. Identify your MacBook or MacBook Pro
  • 1. Getting a new HDD
  • 2. Guides to replace the internal HDD with a newer one
  • 3. Transferring data from the old HDD to the new HDD
  • 4. Using the optical disk drive (ODD) slot for placing an SSD or HDD inside the MB/P (OPTIBAY)
​


As for Mountain Lion, you could use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! to clone the old HDD to the new HDD if one of the HDDs is in an external enclosure.
 
Drich290195 said:
Mines not a pro it's a MacBook is that a problem
Click to expand...

Sorry, misread that. Yes, it will be a problem, as a white non-unibody MacBook will only accept 2.5" S-ATA HDDs with a maximum height of 9.5 mm, thus the maximum capacity will be 750 GB.
The link I gave has further information and instructions if you want.
 
Sorry to sound silly how can I tell if my external drive is 9mm or 12.mm as I'm lead to believe my MacBook early 2009 can only take 9mm am I correct in thinking this. That's what I managed to understand from the precious post any help greatly appreciated.
 
Drich290195 said:
Sorry to sound silly how can I tell if my external drive is 9mm or 12.mm as I'm lead to believe my MacBook early 2009 can only take 9mm am I correct in thinking this. That's what I managed to understand from the precious post any help greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

If the external 2.5" HDD is a 1 TB HDD, it is 12.5 mm high, as currently there are no 9.5 mm 1 TB HDDs.
 
Anyone recommend a good choice of disk for it
 
Last edited:
Sorry meant good not food lol. About 500gb is enough not wanting to spend loads. A mate has a 250 gb ssd I could have doe this require an additional connector or will it plug straight in.
 
Drich290195 said:
Sorry meant good not food lol. About 500gb is enough not wanting to spend loads. A mate has a 250 gb ssd I could have doe this require an additional connector or will it plug straight in.
Click to expand...

Any 2.5" S-ATA SSD uses the same connector as a 2.5" or 3.5" S-ATA HDD, thus no extra connector is needed.

This might be a good 500 GB HDD for you.

Also consider getting a 120 GB SSD (100 USD for a S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) or S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSD, though you are limited to S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I) on your 2009 non-unibody white MacBook, but can use that SSD later in a newer Mac or other computer you might get) for your HDD bay and a 500 GB HDD for your Optibay (• 4 in the HDD replacement guide I linked to earlier, though you need to get a P-ATA Optibay adapter (eBay or www.hardwrk.com for example, plenty of threads available via forum search or MRoogle).
 
So can I use a sata 2 hard drive in mine then if it is not sata 2 will it just run slower sorry confused
 
Drich290195 said:
So can I use a sata 2 hard drive in mine then if it is not sata 2 will it just run slower sorry confused
Click to expand...

Since S-ATA is backwards compatible, you can use an S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) or S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) drive on an S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I) interface and get S-ATA 1.5 Gbps (S-ATA I) speeds.
The same applies for using an SS-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) drive via S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interface and get S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) speeds.
I do that with my 2007 iMac and 2009 MBP using S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) and S-ATA 6.0 Gbps (S-ATA III) SSDs.

A little correction though, the early 2009 MacBook has an S-ATA 3.0 Gbps (S-ATA II) interface: http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...duo-2.0-white-13-early-2009-nvidia-specs.html
 
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