Upgrading Hard Drive for Laptop
 

Hey guys,

I just wanted to touch bases with you guys first to make sure I'm not mistaken on any of my steps for upgrading my hard drive.

Alright so lets with the basics:
Currently have a Macbook with a 120GB hard drive

So I wanted to upgrade to something with more room so lets say 320GB.

All I would need to do is match it up so get a 2.5" SATA HD and since I don't see a limit on the maximum size, I figured that 320GB would be a fair point. Going to go with something w/ more RPM 7200 and it shouldn't over heat too much or too badly.

Please tell me if the steps I'm going to take are wrong.

Step 1: Buy the HD.
Step 2: Back up everything on my external HD
Step 3: Install HD
Step 4: Retrieve everything back from my external HD

So just 4 simple steps to getting my HD upgrade.

Now what is going to probably confuse me is HOW I'm going to get all my info from my external back to my internal. If someone could shed some light on this, I would greatly appreciate it!

From what I figure, all I would need to do is install the new HD and then install OS and from there, go into my "time machine" function and retrieve all info.

Thanks in advance!

i still think the 500gb are a better deal, ncix sale up tonight so remember wait

have u tried super duper or carbon copy cloner? it was a breeze on the mac. I'm pretty sure the free versions will cover what you need to do, but you can always torrent or use iserial reader

I heard good things about Migration Tool.

Can just buy the new hard drive, connect both the old and new hard drive to a desktop computer and use cloning software to copy the entire old hard drive to the new one. Pop the new hard drive into the laptop and you're done.

^

Hmm, I always wondered if when cloning, the HDs had to be the same size. Guess they don't have to judging from your reply. Thanks!

Wouldn't that be exactly what I'm doing except less efficient?

:lol

No, they don't. Depending on the software and filesystem type, it can autogrow the new partition.

So if you're going from a 160GB to 320GB drive, it'll clone the entire contents of the 160GB drive, but make the new partition 320GB.

Sometimes it doesn't work, and it'll make a 160GB partition on the new drive, but you could then use other software to resize the partition to 320GB afterwards.

How the hell do you figure that?

Your way:

1.) Buy new HD
2.) Copy all data files to external HD
3.) Put new HD into laptop
4.) Install OS on new HD
5.) Install programs on new OS install
6.) Change settings on new software installs
7.) Copy data from external HD to new HD

My way:

1.) Buy new HD
2.) Clone old HD to new HD
3.) There is no #3, because that's it

Your way, no matter what, the system won't be the same as the old one.

My way, it will be as if you never changed a thing on your system, except you have more hard drive space.

:thumbsup: to Carbon Copy Cloner. Used that when I upgraded my brother's MBP from a 160GB to a 500GB drive. Very simple and intuitive to run and works great.

BTW, using Carbon Copy Cloner, the resulting partition was 500GB (although I did set it up in the disk utilities as a single partition - I'm sure you can set it as whatever you want and have it still work as long as your partition is sized large enough to fit your existing data)

Acronis True Image software.. My favorite and will do a direct clone of your hard drive to your new one less than 1 hour. (depending on data)

Saves your from having to reinstall windows.

For my lappy I used GPartEd (not sure it's Mac compatible but worth a try). What I did was this:

1) Install new HDD
2) Put old HDD in external case and connect it to the computer
3) Boot up GPartEd (it's a Live CD)
4) Use the copy function to copy the partition over
5) Once it's done copying, resize the partition on the new drive so it uses all the available space

I upgraded from 160GB to 500GB fairly simply using CCC.

Step 1 - buy 500GB HDD and external 2.5" case ($12). Install 500GB HDD into external case.

Step 2 - connect 500GB HDD to MBP using USB or whatever. Use CCC to clone 160GB hard drive into 500GB.

Step 3 - take out 160GB HDD and install 500GB HDD into MBP.

Step 4 - ????

Step 5 - Profit!

That's it. No need to reinstall OS or whatever. Works perfect, and now you have 160GB external 2.5" drive!

MBP is Macbook Pro right? Just so that I'm not confusing terms.

Yes. This is the new unibody MBP, but the Macbook has the same capability to upgrade the hard drive - just a difference in the procedure to extract the hard drive. Easier for you, I would say!

I did my upgrade like roastpuff. Buy new drive + sata usb enclosure. CarbonCopyClone existing drive to new drive. Swap the drives. Done.

Bear in mind please that your hard drive may not have a standard sata connection. it MAY have power and data built into one cable.

edit: on further reading, apparently it doesn't matter. Have fun with the upgrade!