Upgrading my MBP HD

Okay. First of all, i know this has probably been discussed probably a million times on this forum, and i apologise for wasting your time on this, but i believe, for all new switchers out there, its a relatively important issue. Information ive gathered so far on this forum has been in bits and pieces and its all over the place.

Being unsatisfied with my stock 2009 13'' MBP 5400rpm 160GB HD, im seriously contemplating upgrading it to at least a 320GB 7200rpm HD. And i have a ton of questions. Hopefully someone or rather some of you, will be able to help me answer them to the best of your ability. It sorts of consolidates everything together for the newbies as well.

Ive already gone through some sites as well as youtube videos (bullychris) on replacing RAM and HD, but i still have a few questions.

1) Are there any sites that gives a detailed step-by-step explanation on installation of HD? What im looking for is one that goes from pre-harddisk-installation (cloning etc etc) to actual hardware installation to post-harddisk-installation (restoring all the settings, user preferences etc)

2) I still do not get the difference between cloning (superduper etc) and restoring my stuff after upgrade using time machine. Wouldnt restoring it from time machine be a whole lot easier? If i use superduper, will my settings and user preferences remain? (stuff like my wallpaper, system preferences etc), or does superduper only clone the data on my HD? I know someone said smth about bootable backup. Whats that? Do i need to be able to do a bootable backup?

3) I have windows xp pro running on bootcamp as well, after harddisk installation, do i have to re-install my xp through bootcamp?

4) What are the brands/specifics/models etc etc to avoid when getting my 7200rpm HD? my budget is somewhere along the line of $8/90-$100, (from what i see from OWC is a pretty fair budget.)

5) Final question which i already know the answer, but just a final confirmation. Changing my HD doesnt void my warranty right?

Keep the answers and thoughts and suggestions and comments coming in. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

1. Try MacOSXHints.com:
a) Cloning HD: macosxhints.com - Creating and restoring OS X disk images
b) Backup restore incl Bootcamp: macosxhints.com - Installation tips for a 10.5/Boot Camp hard drive upgrade

2. A restore would be easier as you will get all the files and settings restored as well. While a data restore will not restore applications or system libs.

3. Use Winclone to backup/restore windows partitions.

4. Do not know any specific brands to avoid as most will work ok.

5. No, unless you damage your Mac in the process but macs are much easier to get into these days.

i heard that 7200rpm drains battery life pretty fast, is that true?

nictan said:

i heard that 7200rpm drains battery life pretty fast, is that true?

Click to expand...

Nope, that's a myth. I have a 7200RPM drive and all it did was make my computer a lot faster and increase my storage capacity. Best upgrade for my Mac.

1) Check out iFixit.com I used their guide upgrade mine.

2) For cloning software, you need to also buy a hard drive enclosure for your new drive, and then plug it in via FireWire or USB. Then you would clone absolutely everything on your current drive to your new drive, then swap the drives and then start it up and then it should work right away.
I personally did not go that route though, I just restored from a back-up from Time Machine. Worked great for me as everything was exactly the same as I left it.

4) Essentially all brands are the same. Just try to your best to stick with a company with a good reputation such as OWC, Seagate, WD

5) Not quite. Let's say you have AppleCare, then it will still cover everything except for the hard drive you installed. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

I did some video guides on hdd upgrade and cloning, check out my sig.

For what it's worth, I upgraded the hard drive in my MacBook from a 120 GB 5400 rpm drive to a 320 GB 7200 rpm drive last year. It was definitely worth it (even if the drives were much more expensive last year) and battery life hasn't been affected that much in the process.

As for restoring your data via Time Machine, that's what I did and it worked great. I just popped in the new hard drive, reinstalled OSX and restored the data from my Time Machine backup when it prompted me. All the applications and settings I had on my computer were reapplied when it was finished. It was literally like waking up with the exact same computer, only with a much bigger hard drive. If you can go this route, I highly recommend it. It's very simple and works.

nictan said:

i heard that 7200rpm drains battery life pretty fast, is that true?

Click to expand...

Battery life will be about the same. The 7200 drive is faster, so it runs less, while the 5400 drive is slower, so it has to run slightly longer.

okay great. seems like quite a few people here have upgraded their HD by going through the TIME MACHINE route. that sounds a lot simpler to me though.

anw, im on leopard now, and i am on the snow leopard up-to-date program. can i do the following?

1) get a new HD when SL comes out
2) replace the HD and then do a install of SL instead of leopard
3) time machine back my stuff

does it work that way? meaning i want my new HD to start afresh with SL.

nictan said:

okay great. seems like quite a few people here have upgraded their HD by going through the TIME MACHINE route. that sounds a lot simpler to me though.

anw, im on leopard now, and i am on the snow leopard up-to-date program. can i do the following?

1) get a new HD when SL comes out
2) replace the HD and then do a install of SL instead of leopard
3) time machine back my stuff

does it work that way? meaning i want my new HD to start afresh with SL.

Click to expand...

I originally wanted to do the same thing but I think you actually can't do that. Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've heard, in order to upgrade to SL via an upgrade disc, then the system checks to see if Leopard was already previously installed. You're better off restoring from a back up. It doesn't take that long anyway. When I restored over 200GB of data, I think it took only an hour and a half or so

okay thanks. so would it be better if i installed SL prior to changing the HD or change the HD and then upgrade to SL?

another question. what is the difference between the seagate momentum and the seagate barracuda? why is the 500GB more expensive than 320GB?

320GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200.4 7200RPM... (ST9320423AS) at OWC

500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA II 72... (ST3500418AS) at OWC

The 500gb drive is a desktop drive.. that's why it's cheaper

oh woops didnt notice that. thanks if not i might have bought a wrong HD thanks!