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Crunch

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 26, 2008
701
76
Crazy L.A.
Hi everyone. So I might just be getting a MacBook Pro sometime soon. I'd like to know what kind of external hard drive solution you can recommend? On the one hand, I've browsed some sites and gone into a few stores but I guess I need to know few things first. Does the latest 17" MBP have an eSATA port? USB 3.0? I know it was FireWire and I think I read it has the 800Mbps flavor, is that right?

Then I have a quick question about the Unibody design of the latest MBP's. I understand that I won't be able to take the battery out, which is totally fine with me. However, will I be able to add more RAM and swap out whatever hard drive that will end up coming with it for my own already purchased Intel SSD? I noticed quite a few screws on the bottom of the MBP when I was at a store today. If I'm not allowed to do it, how would I get my SSD into the MBP? I don't want to void the warranty.

As far as external storage is concerned, is there an empty caddy that takes SATA and SATA II drives that I could use to connect one or more of my 2.5" hard drives? Maybe I should just get a 2TB drive and consolidate them all onto one drive? What are some of the better brands of hard drives these days, particularly high-capacity ones like 2 or more TB?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions that you may have for me.

Thank you. :)
 
Does the latest 17" MBP have an eSATA port? USB 3.0? I know it was FireWire and I think I read it has the 800Mbps flavor, is that right?

The 17" MacBook Pro does not have an eSATA port or a USB 3.0 port. However, it does have an expresscard slot that you can use to give the MacBook Pro an eSATA or USB 3.0 port.

Will I be able to add more RAM and swap out whatever hard drive that will end up coming with it for my own already purchased Intel SSD? I noticed quite a few screws on the bottom of the MBP when I was at a store today. If I'm not allowed to do it, how would I get my SSD into the MBP? I don't want to void the warranty.

It will not void your warranty. However, Apple has the nasty habit of blaming any problems that the computer has on 3rd party RAM. So if it is going in for service, make sure that you swap everything back out with the default RAM and the hard drive with the default hard drive.

As far as external storage is concerned, is there an empty caddy that takes SATA and SATA II drives that I could use to connect one or more of my 2.5" hard drives? Maybe I should just get a 2TB drive and consolidate them all onto one drive? What are some of the better brands of hard drives these days, particularly high-capacity ones like 2 or more TB?

Check out Western Digital :)
 
The 17" MacBook Pro does not have an eSATA port or a USB 3.0 port. However, it does have an expresscard slot that you can use to give the MacBook Pro an eSATA or USB 3.0 port.

The expresscard slot is a headache, many eSATA cards have some driver issue be it not letting the computer sleep or crashing after some use. See E-sata Express card , which one actually works.

With usb 3 we have no support at all in OS X at the moment. We are hoping for future support but nothing yet.
 
Sometimes the tests that Apple's Repair Center uses can detect that RAM is marginally faulty. It's not their policy to blame third party RAM or HDDs unless they're actually causing a problem.

It's very easy, and it's Apple-approved, for a customer to replace RAM or hard drive in any unibody MacBook / MacBook Pro.

•

There are only five brands of hard drive, and every hard drive fails. Buy whatever FireWire 800 drive has a good warranty =).
 
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