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Danny14

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2011
2
0
I want to upgrade my current 2010 macbook pro 13" hard drive to a 1TB one. I was going to buy this hard drive: Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 3 Gb/s 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive - WD10TPVT , but i wanted to make sure it would work first. I will be getting a free copy of the new mac OS "Lion" in july 2011 for my imac and i figured i would install it on my macbook pro's new 1TB hard drive as well when i got it.

so my questions are:

1.would this hard drive (listed above) fit in a 13" macbook pro because i heard of size problems? and if not which one would? and is western digital hard drives the best around for mac?

2.would the new OS "lion" work on my macbook pro without backing up any data from my current OS (snow leopard)?

3.would i later be able to partition the new 1TB hdd? one half lion and the other ubuntu?

4.should i get a 7200 rpm hdd instead of 5200?

5.whats the maximum upgrade of ram for the 13" macbook pro? links please.

6. and is there anything else i should upgrade on the macbook pro while i'm at it or to make it compatible for the rest of the aforementioned upgrades?

thanks! :)
 
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
1. Yes.
2. Yes, but a backup is always nice. You could clone Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard onto the old HDD in an USB enclosure via CarbonCopyCloner just before you update, thus you could always revert to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard if Lion is too buggy or something else happens.
3. Yes, via Boot Camp Assistant.
4. Not necessarily.
5. 8GB.
6. RAM and HDD are the only upgradeable parts in a MacBook Pro.

 

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
I want to upgrade my current 2010 macbook pro 13" hard drive to a 1TB one. I was going to buy this hard drive: Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 3 Gb/s 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive - WD10TPVT , but i wanted to make sure it would work first. I will be getting a free copy of the new mac OS "Lion" in july 2011 for my imac and i figured i would install it on my macbook pro's new 1TB hard drive as well when i got it.

so my questions are:

1.would this hard drive (listed above) fit in a 13" macbook pro because i heard of size problems? and if not which one would? and is western digital hard drives the best around for mac?

2.would the new OS "lion" work on my macbook pro without backing up any data from my current OS (snow leopard)?

3.would i later be able to partition the new 1TB hdd? one half lion and the other ubuntu?

4.should i get a 7200 rpm hdd instead of 5200?

5.whats the maximum upgrade of ram for the 13" macbook pro? links please.

6. and is there anything else i should upgrade on the macbook pro while i'm at it or to make it compatible for the rest of the aforementioned upgrades?

thanks! :)
1. If it is under 9.5mm in height, it will fit. I believe only the 17" can accomodate the taller 12.5mm drives.

2. A back up is always a good idea regardless, all hard drives will eventually fail, and data recovery on a failed drive is expensive, save yourself the trouble and buy a cheap external hard drive and enclosure, and back up. With that said, with Lion being a delta upgrade, you shouldn't have to backup to install.

3. I don't see why not. You can run bootcamp assistant or use disk utility to do it.

4. 7200rpm is slightly faster, but may generate a bit more heat, noise and vibration. It all depends on you.

5. The 2010 will take up to 8Gb of RAM.

6. Since you are obviously wanting more space, there is no point in recommending you a SSD. That would be the only real upgrade you could get aside from RAM, since everything is soldered to the logic board in there.
 

awer25

macrumors 65816
Apr 30, 2011
1,100
327
I want to upgrade my current 2010 macbook pro 13" hard drive to a 1TB one. I was going to buy this hard drive: Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 3 Gb/s 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive - WD10TPVT , but i wanted to make sure it would work first. I will be getting a free copy of the new mac OS "Lion" in july 2011 for my imac and i figured i would install it on my macbook pro's new 1TB hard drive as well when i got it.

so my questions are:

1.would this hard drive (listed above) fit in a 13" macbook pro because i heard of size problems? and if not which one would? and is western digital hard drives the best around for mac?

2.would the new OS "lion" work on my macbook pro without backing up any data from my current OS (snow leopard)?

3.would i later be able to partition the new 1TB hdd? one half lion and the other ubuntu?

4.should i get a 7200 rpm hdd instead of 5200?

5.whats the maximum upgrade of ram for the 13" macbook pro? links please.

6. and is there anything else i should upgrade on the macbook pro while i'm at it or to make it compatible for the rest of the aforementioned upgrades?

thanks! :)

1. Yes, it'll fit fine.
2. Yes, but backing up is always recommended.
3. Yes.
4. See comment below.
5. I think 8GB but I don't know for sure.
6. Consider the SSD+Optibay drive if you have the money and could manage with an external DVD burner - it's by far the biggest upgrade you can do in terms of performance.

So, to my comment about #4... I had this exact drive in my previous HP Envy and it was really slow. I didn't benchmark it, but the computer felt slower than the original 320GB 5400RPM drive ever did. Also, as someone who's worked on computers for many years and owned or installed probably over a hundred hard drives, this WD one is the only one I've ever had which worked initially, then failed within the first month.

What I'd recommend is the new 2-platter 9.5mm Samsung 1TB drive which is supposed to be released during the first month of July. A few European members have posted benchmarks (it's been released there already) and it's VERY fast - a good 30-50% faster than the 750GB Apple drive. For reference, the WD drive has three 333GB platters instead of the Samsung's two 500GB platters.
 

Danny14

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2011
2
0
thanks for the fast replys! awer25, can you please tell me more about this samsung 1tb hdd? is there an exact date for this july when it comes out? will it be very expensive? and is it 7200 rpm?

also is this good ram for the macbook pro? Kingston Apple 8GB Kit (2x4GB Modules) 1066MHz DDR3 SODIMM iMac and Macbook Memory (KTA-MB1066K2/8G)
 

awer25

macrumors 65816
Apr 30, 2011
1,100
327
thanks for the fast replys! awer25, can you please tell me more about this samsung 1tb hdd? is there an exact date for this july when it comes out? will it be very expensive? and is it 7200 rpm?

Here's the Newegg link - just sign up for Auto Notify. It shows it as $89 whenever it's released.

I think I got the July date from a few eBay sellers that were selling pre-orders. First week of July was what they had as the release date. It can't be too long in any case since it's been available for a few weeks already in Europe.
 

Philflow

macrumors 65816
May 7, 2008
1,276
3
+1 for the Samsung 1TB 2 platter drive (Spinpoint M8). Faster than the WD three platter drive and uses less power.

Also consider Hitachi 7K750 750GB which should be coming soon. First benchmarks show it's fast. It's 7200rpm and will outperform any 5400rpm drive.

b6a4c13195d93124.png
 

awer25

macrumors 65816
Apr 30, 2011
1,100
327
+1 for the Samsung 1TB 2 platter drive (Spinpoint M8). Faster than the WD three platter drive and uses less power.

Also consider Hitachi 7K750 750GB which should be coming soon. First benchmarks show it's fast. It's 7200rpm and will outperform any 5400rpm drive.

Philflow - Is there any chance you could benchmark the Samsung 1TB drive in HD Tune? I saw your benchmark here, but I'm used to using HD Tune and it would be more useful for me.

Thanks!
 
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