Can I upgrade HD in MacBook

stoofa · 21 Jul 2011 at 11:56

Hi,
Really don't know much about MAC's at all.
I've got a 13.3" White MacBook in front of me.
I've removed the back covering as I wanted to upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB - that looks nice and easy.

I can also see the HD and it appears to be a standard 2.5" unit.
Hitachi brand but it does also have an Apple logo on.

Can I replace this HD with any other standard 2.5" drive?
Just want to make sure Apple dont' do anything silly and put custom firmware on these things.
Also, can I safely replace this 5400rpm unit with a 7200rpm unit?

Thanks.

Jeff90 · 21 Jul 2011 at 12:08

Yes youm can do it no problem. Search on youtube for a video

stoofa · 21 Jul 2011 at 12:16

Great stuff - thanks.
Getting the drive out seems straight forward enough.
It's just knowing Apple as I do I half expected custom firmware on the HD's and the standard and fairly priced ones wouldn't work

Skyboat · 21 Jul 2011 at 15:39

stoofa said:
I half expected custom firmware on the HD's and the standard and fairly priced ones wouldn't work

No that's what Microsoft do

PR. · 21 Jul 2011 at 15:48

Funny you should mention that...

I've had to put my stock 160Gb drive back in to my MBP because the stock HDD uses a custom HDD firmware for power saving. The 640Gb drive I'd been using has been spinning up and down every few seconds for a few weeks... There was a fix but I think 10.6.8 either cleared it or broke it.

OP you might want to check the HDD you're looking at doesn't cause any issues.

AbsenceJam · 21 Jul 2011 at 15:49

Skyboat said:
No that's what Microsoft do

No, it's what Apple do in the iMac.

Phrozenpenguin · 21 Jul 2011 at 16:05

The potential issue is if the internal Macbook sudden motion sensor is enabled and the drive also has one. I usually buy drives without, and let the mac work things out.
Superduper is great for imaging new drives.

Skyboat · 21 Jul 2011 at 18:35

AbsenceJam said:
No, it's what Apple do in the iMac.

Doesn't change the fact M$ were still the first to do it in the Xbox :rolleyes:

AbsenceJam · 21 Jul 2011 at 18:50

Skyboat said:
Doesn't change the fact M$ were still the first to do it in the Xbox

Fanboy ahoy.

mrochester · 21 Jul 2011 at 19:36

AbsenceJam said:
No, it's what Apple do in the iMac.

The iMac doesn't have a user servicable hard drive, so it doesn't really matter if it has custom firmware or whatever.

stoofa · 22 Jul 2011 at 11:40

I have fitted a Samsung 500GB, 7200rpm drive and all appears OK.
Whilst "under the hood" I've popped 8GB of RAM in too.

MAC booted up fine and I'm just finishing the Snow Leopard installation.
Was surprised that the actual installation failed to even see the HD and I had to go into disk management and manually "erase" the new disk.

But that aside - all appears to be working as expected.
Once this is done it's off to get "Lion".

mrochester · 22 Jul 2011 at 11:43

stoofa said:
I have fitted a Samsung 500GB, 7200rpm drive and all appears OK.
Whilst "under the hood" I've popped 8GB of RAM in too.

MAC booted up fine and I'm just finishing the Snow Leopard installation.
Was surprised that the actual installation failed to even see the HD and I had to go into disk management and manually "erase" the new disk.

But that aside - all appears to be working as expected.
Once this is done it's off to get "Lion".

A new hard drive needs to be partitioned and formatted before it can be used

.

stoofa · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:03

mrochester said:
A new hard drive needs to be partitioned and formatted before it can be used .

I'm just so used to the Windows way of doing things - brand new HD at least seen by the OS during installation.
Partitioning and formatting done automatically without any user intervention.