Nov 09 Macbook Pro Upgrade to 500GB HD

I have a November 2009 Macbook Pro 15" and it came stock with the 5400 320GB HD. I need to upgrade for more space as I'm a DJ and always adding new music so its getting pretty close to being filled up so I want to upgrade to a 500GB, probably a 7200 but just don't know about if it will put out too much eat.

I called apple tech support and they say that they currently don't have an upgrade option for the Macbook Pro. The guy said that its mostly because of the size of the New Macbook Pro as to why it won't fit. I mean I know there is probably someone hear on this forum that has probably upgraded already or knows of someone one way or the other.

The tech warned me though that if I install the HD and it causes an internal error then it won't be covered under warranty. Just wanted to to post this to see if anyone else has upgraded or knows more information.


I appreciate any and all help.......

Sounds like you got one of those techs that have never built, upgraded, nor had their hands inside a computer. Apparently that person hasn't even read the User Guide that is packaged with the new unibody MB and MBP either as pages 38-41 show you how to change out the hard drive. Apple is not purchasing some non-industry standard hard drives to put in their machines.

All you're looking for is a standard 2.5" SATA drive. The standard 2.5" is 9.5mm in height. There have been a couple (only two as far as I am aware, and sorry, don't remember the brand) 2.5" drives produced that are 11mm. They will not work. All the rest should work without any issue.

He is correct, in that if while you are installing the drive, you cause some damage to the machine, the warranty would not cover that damage. There is no reason, however, to suspect that a new drive would cause some "internal error". Also, the new drive would be covered by it's manufacturer and not Apple.

Checkout iFixit.com - it'll show you how to do it if Apple continue to be so helpful.

Did you mean November 08??

Yea sorry I meant 2008, and what about the heat issue should I go with a 5400 because of the heat issue or is a 7200 straight?

Is this a good option: Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

Awethentik said:

Is this a good option: Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives

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Yes. >_>" I've seen it for cheaper though.

A lot of advertising around this issue. I am going for the Western Digital 500GB 2.5" Laptop Hard Drive SATAII 5400rpm 8MB Cache - OEM Scorpio Blue as it's had good reviews.

It's very quiet fast and cool running. Bear in mind we're lucky enough to have metal bodies on our MBPs and the whole computer is a heat sink - not that I regard that particular point as an issue.

Yea but isn't have the Segate with the 16MB of cache a lot better? And also the 7200 would make it a lot faster as well. As far as this heat sink thing you say, so your saying that the unibody actually allow the computer to stay a lot cooler because of more airflow I take it.....?

Awethentik said:

Yea but isn't have the Segate with the 16MB of cache a lot better? And also the 7200 would make it a lot faster as well. As far as this heat sink thing you say, so your saying that the unibody actually allow the computer to stay a lot cooler because of more airflow I take it.....?

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Theoretically yeah the 7200 should be better. However I haven't seen any benchmarks that says it's faster than that particular WD HDD. I have seen some against the WD 320 GB 7200 RPM, and it is faster in almost everything except for the random access times.

Power consumption I haven't seen anything on yet, so waiting it to see if it uses more or less than the current 7200 RPM out now.

Yea I feel yea the only thing that worries me is this:
Beware! Early models are slower than the ST9500325AS model
Reviewed By: on 4/11/2009 Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Capacity, price and performance Potential
Cons: Performance does not achieve the potential. They are SLOW. I returned both drives to Seagate. I had to take a refund because I was told that production has been delayed for an "engineering update".
Other Thoughts: I purchased two drives for my Dell Precision M6400. According to Everest Ultimate, both drives were much slower than the Seagate 5400 rpm equivalent drives they replaced. I ran several tests of both ST9500420AS and the ST9500325AS drives they were to replace. In all tests, the 5400 rpm drives were between 20% and 30% faster than the 7200 rpm drives.

I haven't given up on the drives but beware of the early models, they have a problem. I'll purchase two more in a couple of months.

Warning- there were some issues of data loss that I read about with some models of Seagate drives a few months back. I wish that I could remember where I read it- you can google it for more details.

Awe really that sucks, I hope it wasn't one of those Segate's especially the 7200 16MB cache one, and I don't know if the 5400 is 16MB cache though either.

I'm def. going to wait it out about a month or so, but I def. ready to get me a new drive real soon so I can ultilize the space. I still got an external HD with about 50 to 75 gigs that I got from my partna but don't have enough room to add it to my collection.............

Any others?