Upgrading MacBook’s storage… the easiest way!

May 14th, 2009

I’ve got late 2008 model MacBook, and it’s a great little machine. In fact, I bought it quite fully loaded… with 4 gig of DDR3 1066MHz RAM and 250GB drive. So it wasn’t really required for me to upgrade the drive. But space, as you know in computer world, is never enough. Since I’m planning to use this little thing as primary computer for my photographic and traveling needs, I figured it was only logical to have as much as space possible. Those who, like me shoot in RAW mode would know how easy it is to fill up empty space after long photography sessions. So I bought the currently largest available notebook drive, that is 500GB. Unfortunately I couldn’t find Seagate momentus 7200RPM drive as it would have been better from performance standpoint. Neverthless, I was pretty happy to score WD Scorpio Blue 5400RPM drive at really good price of Rs. 4900 (approx $97).

Now here starts the real fun… these new MacBooks have very easy drive replacement facility, but something struck me as I sat down to replace the drive…. my currently installed softwares and data. I don’t want to re-install every fucking thing again and copy and re-arrange the data afterward. That’s too much of a waste of time. Well, well… it’s true that they say that Google is thy friend. Going through few sites, I came across couple of drive utilities for backup and restore. While most of the people were mentioning Super Duper by Shirt Pocket, there was this one software that caught my eye… Carbon Copy Cloner by Bombich Software. Off-course if you’re Time Machine user and have large external drive for backup, Time Machine let you restore entire system from backup. But since I don’t use it I’m not covering it in this article. So if you’re like me and you don’t use Time Machine then read on about how to do it with third party app like mentioned above.

So here’s little step by step for those who’re looking to upgrade their MacBook or MacBook Pro’s HDD with larger one without having to re-install OSX….

  1. First and foremost, get yourself a 2.5″ drive external enclosure. If you already have one then great, if not buy or borrow one. You’ll need that for prepping your new HDD before you can clone your current installation. Plus, you can use your old HDD as external drive with this enclosure once you install the new one in.
  2. Plug your new HDD in USB enclosure and connect to your MacBook. If the drive is brand new and you haven’t used it before, OSX should display an error stating the drive isn’t ready blah blah blah. Click on “initilize…” on the error message’s box. This will launch Disk Utility.
  3. Select your new drive from left pane. It should be showing the name of your enclosure’s make, as in my case it showed me 465GB StoreJet Transcend Media. Then click on Partition tab and hit “+” button under “Volume Scheme” box to create new partition. you can create as many as 16 partitions, but select whatever suits you. I didn’t want any partitions so I selected 1 partition. Give your partition a Name, select format (if you want other than what’s default selected) and hit Apply.
  4. Once the partition is created, you’re ready to use this new HDD. Congratulations! Now get yourself a cup of coffee, cause the next one could get bit time consuming depending on how much data you have on your current drive. More the data, more time for copying/cloning.
  5. Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner by Bombich Software. Run the software and select Source Disk (your current drive) and Target Disk (your new drive, currently on USB). Hit clone button and enjoy your hot coffee (or you could be drinking white russian, so seriously… whatever rocks your boat) while I go and enjoy my smoke. It won’t hurt to grab something to munch as well, if you have large amount of data already on your drive.
    Note: Using Super Duper is also pretty much similar to Carbon Copy Cloner, selecting source and target drive, so if you like Super Duper then go ahead and use it.
  6. Now you’re done with the cloning of the drive, it’s time to get your hands dirty with screw-driver and stuff. But don’t worry, if you own one these new aluminum MacBook it’s very very easy to replace the HDD. In fact, I had read that even white MacBooks from previous generation had very easy mechanism to replace the HDD. Turn off your MacBook, flip it upside down and open the bottom panel using latch on right hand side. You’ll see battery and hard-drive once you remove the panel.
  7. There is a lone screw on black plastic strip that works as locking down mechanism. Remove the screw using small star-headed screwdriver and you’re good to go. Lift your current HDD gently and unplug the power and data strip from it. Now you’ll notice that there are four small bolts screwed on sides of your current drive, two on each side. This work as locking bars to lock-in the HDD housing base. I’m not sure what exactly you call the screwdriver head that is required to remove these, but I simply used notch pliar to rotate and remove these. Once you remove all four, screw them on sides of your new HDD.
  8. Plug the data + power strip on your new HDD. Now gently place the HDD inside HDD locking base and re-fit the black strip that is used for locking on side of HDD. The other side, as you must have noticed by now is secured on it’s side inside the slots. Place the strip and screw it back in. You’re done and set. Close the panel back in and power on your MacBook.
  9. You’ll notice that the boot-up is slower than usual… DO NOT PANIC. Although your OS installation and everything in now on new HDD, system has to recognize the new drive, note it’s capacity in settings since it’s changed from last drive. Not to mention, spotlight has to index the drive and new-found space all over again. So if the system feels slow, it’s natural.
  10. Depending on the size of your data and HDD, the re-indexing should take anywhere from 15-30 mins. Once it’s done though, you’ll be just fine. So now enjoy your new HDD and extra space. You can use the USB enclosure for your old drive and have nice external drive at your disposal with good enough space.

So now I’ve a nice 465 GB at my disposal on my MacBook… and my old 250GB drive will go in something that I’m going to do this weekend. :)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Computers, Digital Life | Comments (1)

One Response to “Upgrading MacBook’s storage… the easiest way!”

  1. KonstantinMiller Says:
    July 7th, 2009 at 05:38 AM

    I think I will try to recommend this post to my friends and family, cuz it’s really helpful.



Leave a Reply