switching a macbook pros HDD

Just curious how difficult this would be. I am looking at the refurbished MBP right now and the HDD seem a little small. How much would I be looking at for a new HDD also? Thanks for the help.

 

Its not impossible, but its not as easy as on the MacBook, let's put it at that .

I also want to note that technically you are voiding the Apple warranty by doing so! So proceed with caution, you may not want to change the HDD yourself, as you can technically be voided.

How much it costs would depend on how large you want the HDD to be, and what RPM speed!

 

Check newegg.com for prices.
I find it amazing that you can now get a 200GB 7200rpm laptop hard drive for under $200. Hard drives are stupidly cheap now. If you care more about storage than speed you can get a 5400 rpm hard drive at 320GB for the same price as that 200GB. A good middle ground is the Seagate Momentus 250GB for right over 100usd.

As for how easy it is to install; that all depends on how handy you are. I've seen tear downs and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody who's taken apart less than 5 laptops. It's not for the faint of heart. It also voids your warranty(though the Apple store or Apple certified repair center may do it under warranty).

 

Well I dont want to void any warranties, so looks like this is a pass thanks guys.

 

Don't let them fool you. It's not that hard. I've done it at least 4 times to a MBP. Takes about 30 minutes - tops! There are step-by-step instructions on www.ifixit.com

Also, keep you old hard drive under the rare chance that you need warranty work and you can put the old one back in. They will not be able to tell that you've done a switcheroo.

 

Ahh so as long as I replace the parts my steps are untraceable? Cause I just know a lot of consoles use stickers and other random tricks so they can spot if you did open up the case and mess around with things. Cause I am not worried about doing the work... i am more concerned about the warranty getting tossed.

 

I did this last weekend. It was the first time I took a notebook apart. I went from a 160gb 5400rpm drive to a 200gb 7200rpm drive. It was pretty straight forward and pretty easy. The most difficult part was taking off the topcase and snapping off the clips.

 

so does apple have some sticker tape over some area so u can't remove when replace drive?

 

I don't think it's clear cut at all as to whether the warranty is voided. Most likely legally it's NOT voided unless you damage something while doing the swap.

No, there's no tape or anything like that over anything (and even if there were, most likely that would carry no legal weight, though dealing with tech support might be another matter...)

The non-officially-user-replaceable drive is the biggest thing stopping me from the Macbook Pro. It sort of doesn't look THAT bad to swap, but if something went wrong...

I would swap it because there's no way I'd send in a computer for repair with my own hard drive-so any notebook I get I'll swap the drive out first thing (plus that lets me get the drive I want anyway-that 200GB/16MB/7200RPM Seagate).

 

Well, what I've heard is that most Apple employees don't mind changing the hard drive, but I was just reminding that Apple technically can refuse to service your MBP because you changed your hard drive.

 

I think it is a good practice to return any notebook back to stock form before getting it serviced. I've heard too many stories of people loosing upgraded RAM/Hard drives during service.

 

Presumably you'd switch it back before getting is serviced, but they shouldn't be able to deny warranty on anything except the new part (or any damage caused by switching drives).

 

I've replaced several MacBook Pro drives with faster drives, and it really is quite simple if you follow instructions. It would be impossible for Apple to know you'd done it if you're careful.

 

Do you actually have to disconnect the keyboard from the case while doing it? The instructions always show that, but I've never understood why. It seems like you could just prop it up and leave it connected.

I don't like either that you have to physically pull that tape/ribbon connector off and stick it back on the new drive.

The guy in that one video seemed to have a tricky time getting the hard drive to sit back in it's "spot" correctly, which kind of disturbed me (since he would have done it a ton of times).

I wish they'd just use a normal user-replaceable hard drive like most other companies. Just let you remove the panel below it to take it out or whatever.