Hi there,

I have a 1 year old Macbook Pro 2.2 Ghz with a 160G 7200 rpm hard drive.

My goal is to have more hard disk space available, and reduce the shuffling of media content (mp3, video, photos) between the laptop and external hard drives.

I've noticed in the last week an announcement by Seagate for their new range of high capacity 7200 rpm drives.

The Seagate® Momentus® 7200.3 laptop hard drive delivers industry-leading 7200-RPM performance while offering the industry’s lowest power consumption levels. Available with 16 MB of cache and a SATA 3Gb/s NCQ interface, the Momentus 7200.3 hard drive is perfect for performance laptops, workstations and small form factor desktop systems.

Dell and Alienware, the First to Ship 320GB Hard Drives - Seagate's Momentus 7200.3 hard drives will empower the future notebooks - Softpedia

Queries are:

• Will this drive work in a Macbook Pro?
• Is it available in Australia?
• What is involved to upgrade the drive yourself?

sundance

I'm also interested in a larger HDD for my Macbook also. How much would this impact on battery life? If at all, I saw a 7200RPM that's energy consumption was less then my 5400.

there are guide on MacFixit.com. As for if the drive will work I have know idea. If it is SATA 2.5" laptop drive with a 9.5mm height it should work.

I have read that it is very difficult to replace the HDD in a MBP. Yes it can be done but I understand it's very fiddly. I don't know if Apple regards it as a User Replaceable item which does not void the warranty if replaced. Someone else will surely clarify this. I am also wanting a definitive answer. Is there anyone on this forum who has done this mod.

Replacing a hard drive in a MacBook Pro voids Apple's warranty if they find out unless you do it through an ASP who has people qualified for this sort of work.

<< used to work for an APR with an attached ASP .

it is quite easy if you take your time, the safer option is to not unplug keyboard and track pad and just tilt them back,
and be careful removing the ribbon cable from the original hdd

It's not actually legal for them to void your warranty if, say, your optical drive fails for an unrelated reason 6 months after you change your hard disk.

However, Apple will probably try to pull a fast one on you so just say you got it done at an AppleCentre is they ask.

If you simply must have more internal drive space now, then I would get a reseller to do it and just pay the fee. If it is something you would like to do but is not imperative at the moment and you only had something like 6 months left on your warranty then I would wait and then do it myself. Of course you also have to be technically able.

Stewie

If it's not in warranty then
MacBook Pro 15" Core 2 Duo Disassembly: Installing Hard Drive Replacement - MacBook Parts

otherwise it is preferred if you can get an apple tech to do the upgrade (as others have mentioned) to preserve whatever warranty remains. Apple can and will void your waranty if you DIY because once you open the case Apple can no longer guarantee the internals are free from defect (e.g. someone sneezes and you close the case with moisture/snot/whathaveyou shorting out some component)

As for the drive, you should be able to put in any 9.5" laptop sata hard drive. The battery life may be affected but I shouldn't expect by much unless you repeatidly spin up/spin down your drives (the most power hungry part of running any hard drive is during spin up).

nextbyte is charging $150 for service and I can get my own hdd (MSY has a good price).

what do you guys think?

It took me 15' to replace the HDD. Pretty straight forward. Took few hours to reinstall OSX and other stuff. Restore iTunes music is a bit painful. Restore photos from Time Machine you lose all event names

Is there a service manual you can download for the MBP? If so do that. I have a Dell 8600 and I used the Service Manual to completely dis/reassemble it (was actually a great idea as cleaned out a lot of crap inside it, it's now 4 years old). If you can get hold of a proper service manual and you have a good toolbox, I'd imagine it'd be very easy.

I heard of some of the 250Gb drives wouldn't work in Macbooks - does anyone know if this has been resolved yet?? I'm planning on getting one soon to replace the little 60gig thats in there

Cheers!

all you need is a small philips , a torx bit and about 20 mins.

it's really too simple for next bite to charge 150 bills for though.

my WD 250gb hard drive from msy was less than $150 ...

Hi, does anyone happen to know if Apple have any plans for upgrades to the macbook range (not powerbook) and if so within what time span, I gather any such news would only be rumour so no specific date would be set.