Upgraded My MacBook Pro - Excellent Results

I have a 2007 vintage MacBook Pro, with a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM and 120 GB 5400 RPM hard drive. Recently my available disk space has been trending towards very low numbers (around 20 GB when I finally did the upgrade) and I decided to upgrade it.

So, I went to Crucial and got 4 GB of RAM and went to Newegg and got a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320 GB hard drive. Total cost: about $160.

Yesterday I did the surgery, and with excellent results. The machine is now an average of 33% faster than before, in terms of boot time and cold launch time for most applications.

A few notes:

1/ Even though the machine comes with 2 GB of RAM, you can't just buy another 2 GB to achieve 4 GB. There are only two RAM slots, and both are filled, each with a 1 GB stick. You essentially have to throw away the original 2 GB and replace them with two 2 GB sticks.

2/ Replacing the hard drive is not for the faint of heart. There are lots of excellent tutorials out there on the web, and I followed one slavishly (the one from ExtremeTech) as I did the work, but you pretty much have to disassemble the case to get at the hard drive. Lots of tiny, tiny little screws, and a few sticky spots, not the least of which is the ribbon cable that is literally glued down onto the top of the original hard drive. You have to proceed slowly and carefully.

In the end, it is worth it. Excellent performance increases result. It is like having a whole new Mac!

mac57 said:

I have a 2007 vintage MacBook Pro, with a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM and 120 GB 5400 RPM hard drive. Recently my available disk space has been trending towards very low numbers (around 20 GB when I finally did the upgrade) and I decided to upgrade it.

Yesterday I did the surgery, and with excellent results. The machine is now an average of 33% faster than before, in terms of boot time and cold launch time for most applications.

Click to expand...

I'm going to guess that your 33% speed-up in boot-time & cold launch...is primarily due to the install of that 7200rpm drive (upgraded from a 5400rpm).

I'm surprised to hear that the hard drive install was so tough. I thought that Apple made it easy to install hard drives on all MacBooks & MacBook Pros. Maybe it is just the newer ones (2008 & newer).

Congrats on the install & speedup,

- Nick

Good job! I did the same in my MBP (same year and specs as yours). What I did was follow the steps listed here:

Installing MacBook Pro 15" Core Duo Hard Drive Replacement - iFixit

and as I removed screws I taped them to a paper and labelled them with the step number that corresponded to where they were removed. That way you never have to worry where they came from or where they go. I've done this several times and I'm now at a 500GB drive and its always worked great.

Nick, actually it's the older MBPs (I think this one is a 2007). You have to remove screws from the battery case and all around the body and pull the keyboard off to get to the hard drive. Very easy to screw up unless you take your time and do it right.

Mac7, enjoy your upgrade!

T

Yup, you pretty much have to disassemble the case to get at the hard drive, and then there is a pesky ribbon cable that is literally glued to the top of the original hard drive. Getting that cable free, without breaking it, was the hardest part of the whole thing. Now that I have done it once, I am sure it will seem easy from now on, but it was a pretty unnerving thing at the time!

The other fun thing I have noticed is that since I put this new drive in, Spotlight wants to index the ENTIRE drive again, and that certainly does take time, and make the machine run hot and the fans loud, while it is doing it.

However, it is WELL worth it in the end. mac747, I like your idea of taping the screws down as you took them out. I kept mine very carefully organized as I took them out, but it would have been even better if I had taped and labelled. A good idea if I should ever do this again. Thanks for the tip.

Did the same to mine also. Went with the WD black though.
My boot time was reduced by half and app launches by about 1/3 typical.

I did the same as mac747. Printed out the directions and then taped the screws to each page where they belonged as I went through it.

Gee, I guess I just live life on the edge! I spread out a clean white sheet of paper on my work surface, and laid the screws and parts out in order as I took them out of the machine. When I was done, I just went back through the parts in reverse order. It worked great, but if I had knocked the sheet of paper, I guess I would have been in big trouble! Given that there we so many tiny screws, tape likely would have been safer! A word to the wise for anyone considering this!

Well, I was sitting in the Fam Rm working on the coffee table while watching TV under a ceiling fan and with the dog running around. Not under the best of conditions.

mac747 said:

Nick, actually it's the older MBPs (I think this one is a 2007). You have to remove screws from the battery case and all around the body and pull the keyboard off to get to the hard drive. Very easy to screw up unless you take your time and do it right.

Click to expand...

I have a 2007 MBP...at least if the disassembly procedure is all about "screws"...that's still much better than the disassembly of a G4 iBook. I did one of those once...and it was a BIG pain in the rear!!!

- Nick

I've never had an iBook so I can't relate. But the MBP isn't that bad if you pay attention. It's just intimidating ripping apart a $2000 machine. But I work on $100k Sun servers for a living so $2k is nothing. ha ha.

Mac57 (sorry for the Mac7 typo), when you are ready to upgrade again (we went through 3 upgrades on this MBP which is now mine and my wife has a new MBP with a 500GB right off the bat) you'll find that the ribbon cable on the hard drive doesn't stick as bad the second or third time it's removed.

bobtomay said:

Well, I was sitting in the Fam Rm working on the coffee table while watching TV under a ceiling fan and with the dog running around. Not under the best of conditions.

Click to expand...

OK, it is clear that it is YOU not me who live life on the edge!!