The Mac Space Blog

I recently ran out of hard drive space on my Apple MacBook.  My huge iPhoto library was the culprit.  So I found a great deal on a hard drive and swapped it out with the one in the MacBook.  Below is a walk through on upgrading your MacBook hard drive, and ending up with a spare external drive to boot!

Step by step MacBook hard drive upgrade:

Get a new 2.5″ drive

Get a 2.5″ SATA drive and 2.5″ external case (USB and/or Firewire).  Note: newer MacBooks no longer have a firewire port so be sure to get the correct external case for your needs.  The MacBook’s internal drive is a 2.5″  SATA drive.  I found a 250GB model for a little over $100.  While buying the drive, I picked up a USB external case for the old drive, so I could use it as a backup drive and for transferring the data.

Format new hard drive

Put the new drive in the external case and format it using Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder.  Be sure to select GUID Partition Table which ensures bootability with Intel based macs.

Backup the old drive

Now it is time to transfer data to the new hard drive.  I recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your internal drive to the new external.  Though CCC is easy to use and free, it does have some advertisements which rotate while the backups are proceeding.

When the backup is complete, you can actually go to your system preferences and select the external drive as your boot drive to test it out by rebooting.  Once you’re confident the backup is good to go, power down and unplug your MacBook.

Switch the drives

It is now time to switch the drives.  You’ll need a coin, small philips screwdriver and a T8 Torx screwdriver.   Pull the external drive out of the case.  Open the MacBook’s battery lock (coin) and remove the battery. Remove the L shaped metal plate shown in the left image below.

The area behind short side of the L shaped plate is where the hard drive is located.  There’s a white pull tab you’ll need to access to pull out the drive.

Pull out the drive using the pull tab. When you have the drive out, use the Torx T8 to unscrew the drive from its EMI (electromagnetic interference) shield.  Being careful not to touch the circuit boards of either drive, put the new drive in the EMI case and screw it in.  The drive will slide right back into place.  Reassemble the L bracket and replace the battery.

Enjoy all that new hard drive space’

You should now be able to boot your Mac.  If you aren’t able to boot because the startup disc can’t be found, use the OSX install disc to reset the startup disk.

Done!

I was checking out the new MacBooks the other day.  I was getting excited about the day I could pass my old one down to my kids or sell it on ebay and get a new shiny one.  Then I noticed something horribly wrong.

THERE’S NO FIREWIRE ON THE NEW MACBOOKS!

DOH!  OOPS. I’m sure Apple, the inventor of this amazing technology called  “Firewire,” just forgot it.  It can’t be that Apple wants to force people like me, who use many many firewire drives and other devices like audio and video interfaces, to buy MacBook Pros?  No way.  That would be very “microsoft” of them to do something like that wouldn’t it?

I’m sure Apple will announce a big “ooops” and recall all the MacBooks and replace them with ones which have Firewire.  Unless that happens, I WON’T EVER be in the market for a MacBook again.  That doesn’t mean I’ll buy a brand new MacBook Pro either.  Now I don’t know what I’ll buy.

If you are in the need of ram for your Macintosh, here’s a good chart for you to check out which will tell you the correct type to buy:
DDR2 667MHz FB-DIMM ECC RAM:

• Mac Pro

DDR2 5300 SO-DIMM RAM:

• MacBook Pro
• MacBook
• Mac mini with Intel Processor
• iMac with Intel Processor

DDR 4200 RAM:

• Power Mac G5 (Dual-core 2Ghz or 2.3GHz and Quad 2.5GHz)
• iMac G5 (with iSight camera)

DDR 3200 RAM:

• Power Mac G5 (Single and Dual Processor models, 1.6-2.7GHz)
• iMac G5 (without iSight Camera)
• Mac mini (Power PC, 1.25GHz - 1.42GHz)
• Power Mac G4 (1.25GHz and higher)
• eMac (1.25GHz and above)

DDR 4200 SO-DIMM RAM:

Today Apple introduced the thinnest laptop on the planet, the MacBook Air.

Features include:

• 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• Glossy 13.3-inch, widescreen LED backlit MacBook Air display. 1280×800 resolution.
• Three pounds
• Full size backlit keyboard
• Port hatch to hide inputs and outputs
• 2GB ram
• 80GB hard drive
• Optional external optical drive
• Optional 64GB solid state hard drive