Replacing hard drive in a mid-2009 MacBook Pro

[elfy]

Hi there. My MacBook Pro has been doing the spinning beachball freezing thing for a while. I've wiped it and reinstalled Snow Leopard a couple of times and it's just getting worse. I ran disk utility and it said there is an invalid node structure error. I think the hard drive is basically on its last legs.

I'm looking at replacing the drive and wondered if anyone knew more about compatibility than I do. The computer is a mid-2009 MacBook Pro 17" Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz. Would I be right in thinking as long as the replacement drive is SATA 2 3gb/s then it should work?

This one for example?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-seagate-st500lm012-spinpoint-m8-25-hdd-95-mm-sata-ii-3gb-s-5400rpm-8mb-cache-12ms

 

[SpecFoto]

Yes that should work just fine. The SATA 3 drives are backwards compatible though. I used a Spinpoint Mt9 1.5TB Sata 3 drive in my 2008 13" MBP, it just ran at 3gb/s, not 6. So if you thinking of upgrading your Mac to a newer model any time soon, you may want to buy the faster drive. I believe it was 2012 that the MBP internal speed was upped, as my 15" 2012 MBP is 6gb/s.

 

[elfy]

Thanks man, good info. I've just got a Mac Mini. The MacBook is my wife's, so if we can get it running again I won't be upgrading for a while. Cheers.

 

[jogo23]

While at it, why not upgrade to a SSD? Day and night difference compared to a HDD. I'd recommend the Crucial MX100. I installed it in my MBP mid 2010 and it runs amazing.

 

[snaky69]

Thanks man, good info. I've just got a Mac Mini. The MacBook is my wife's, so if we can get it running again I won't be upgrading for a while. Cheers.

If your wife doesn't need too much capacity, I'd tell you to consider sticking a SSD in there instead of a mechanical hard drive. There'd be quite a nice boost in general snappiness which could mean keeping that computer around even longer.