Upgrading a 2011 MacBook Pro

[striges]

Hello there, hope you're all snazzy. I am seeking a little bit of assistance, more for confirmation than anything, to check I will be going about this in the way way.

I am wanting to upgrade the hard drive of my early 2011 13-inch MacBook Pro. My disc drive stopped working a long time ago and I would like to replace it with a new solid state hard drive for the OS, as well as having a regular hard drive as a partition for the majority of the space. I'm thinking a 250GB solid state should do, and a 1TB hard drive.

I just wanted to check that this was possible, and what brands should I look for, what brands I should avoid, and if there is anything else I should keep in mind or know about before going into this. One thing I am needing to find out is what size hard drives can fit into a 13" MacBook Pro. I am assuming I can download the OS upon installing the HDs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ben

 

[tubeexperience]

Just get a 1TB SSD.

Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2.5" 1TB is only $230.

 

[alvesik]

It's definitely possible but will require removing the optical drive and replacing it with one of your new drives. I've never done it myself (I replaced my mid 2009's hdd with an ssd that's it) but I have friends who have. Good luck! And sorry I don't know more about the specifics

 

[JTToft]

The recommended configuration on that machine is SSD in original hard drive bay and HDD in optical drive bay due to speed and stability differences between the connections. The HDD in the optical bay should be SATA II (not just SATA II compatible, but actually SATA II) to ensure proper compatibility.
As for an SSD, Samsung 850 EVO is the overwhelming recommendation on these forums as well as the best selling SSD in the world. It's excellent on all parameters.
For HDD, get whatever's cheapest and has the best warranty or what suits your religion. People will tell you this brand is great or that brand sucks, but they're all pretty much the same.

For sizes in terms of GB, any size is fine. Physical sizes are 2.5" and up to 9.5 mm in height.

The advice in the first post about getting a large SSD rather than SSD+HDD is sound, but it's up to you of course.

 

[striges]

Thanks for all the information, guys, appreciate it a lot.