200GB hdd upgrade for first macbook pro?

[henryrelph]

Hi there i am rapidly running out of hdd space on my macbook pro whichi bought in april last year so it was the first model to be released.

i have a 100gb hdd and 2gb of ram but my question is can i replace my hdd with the new 200gb model available or will my older macbook pro not work with this?

Also the same goes with the new 2gb ram stick available? can i upgrade to 3gb now?

any advice before i purchase will be appreciated!

Thanks

Henry

 

[aljlin]

So there's a couple things that come to mind. I am guessing you have the Core Duo Model? Not the Core 2 Duo refresh. If that is true, then you will not be able to upgrade to the 3 gb model. the 3 gb limit is only applicable to the Core 2 duo models, the Core Duo models have the 2gb limit, and that's a hardware limit not a software based limit (something like that..) (not sure what happens if you try to install 3 gb of ram in the CD). Also, I'm not sure whether the 200 gb hard drive will fit, but in the Macbook Pro, the hard drive is harder to get to as you have to take off the entire lower portion. 100 gb is a little short, but I saw in best buy the other day they have external mini drives, which go up to like 60 gig and are really tiny, that you can just put into your bag if you really need extra space, otherwise maybe you can try to clean your hard drive. I haven't heard anyone who's tried the bigger hard drive but maybe it would work. Actually it probably would work. You can maybe see if they will do the hard drive upgrade for cost, though I may guess it will cost a bit more to do something like that.

 

[???]

Any 2.5" harddrive will fit in a MBP, so you can upgrade to 200GB. But bear in mind warrenty. Have you considered an external drive? its cheap and easy and whoever need access to 200GB of data on a day to day basis?

 

[brianwmay]

Whilst not Apple computers, I've upgraded 2.5 in hard drives a lot in laptops, it's very easy and there are some excellent advice available.

The warranty issue is a valid one.

One of the great boons if you're not sure is a digital camera and putting each set of mini-screws etc in separate clean yoghurt pot with 1, 2 & 3 etc written on each. It's all unnecessary when you have the confidence (which you might already - forgive me for making it too simple), but the first time I was actually shaking!

Good luck - the extra space is worth it! I also use two external 110 Gb USB2 drives - no such thing as too much hard drive space

 

[ccasey]

I think I have a similar model to you - one of the first gen MBPs. A couple months ago I swapped in a 320 GB Western Digital drive to replace the 100 GB that came with the machine, and it was fairly straightforward. If you search you'll find a very thorough and well illustrated guide on the 'net that describes the process completely.

I'm not sure I would've done it if the machine was under warranty, but mine is not so I didn't worry about it.

-Chris