AmesMUG: Macbook Pro Internal Hard Drive

[Trevin Ward]

Clark,
  I'd recommend against the Hitachi drive.  Hitachi doesn't have the
finest reputation and neither did IBM (where it bought it's hard drive
business from).  Toshiba and Seagate (although possible issues on the
Seagate front might not make them the best choice currently) are
probably your better choices.  Part of the reason Hitachi (and
Fujitsu) tend to have faster bigger drives out first is their quality
assurance isn't the best.  As far as external cases go there a number
of decent small enclosures you can get, although SATA->Firewire drives
are few and expensive so USB 2 might be the only viable choice. Newegg
carries 19 such drive enclosures:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090092+1053807124+1054107131+1054207132&name=USB+2.0

  As far as doing the installation yourself I'd recommend against it.
 Working on  and in a Macbook pro for anything other then replacing
the memory isn't a small task for most and a lot of people will end up
messing up their computer in the process.  Technically no, replacing
your drive doesn't void your warranty, but it does if anything is
damaged.  Secondly apple wont cover anything related to Hard Drive
problems (although most Apple Authorized Service providers probably
will).  I'd recommend taking the machine, purchased drive and
enclosure into either Computer Service in 74 Durham (I should note
here that I work at Computer Service so this isn't an entirely
unbiased recommendation).  It'll be ~$52 for the drive installation
(that's an hour's labor) and if you're interested in a "backup" we can
image your old drive and move it to your new one (we do this service
pretty frequently but it's under our backup services hence the quotes)
that's $41.  Alternatively you can just take the "new" external drive
and install OS X on your machine and when it asks if you want to move
data from an old mac just hook up the old drive and it'll move your
Data over with a fresh install to boot.  I don't know their services
as well but Heartland Technology are the only other Apple Authorized
Service providers in Ames, they're located on 13th St. out by the I-35
interchange, they probably can provide similar services.

Trevin Ward


--
Trevin Ward
Director of Information Technology
Government of the Student Body
Senior, Political Science
Iowa State University


On Nov 11, 2007 11:31 PM, Clark Colby <cacolby3 at iastate.edu> wrote:
> So i was originally planning on buying a new external hard drive but
> i think i have changed my mind to buying an internal. I was looking
> at the Apple store but it seems like they are over priced. I then
> started shopping online and found a Hitachi 200 GB 7200rpm Sata Hard
> Drive. http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?
> ProductCode=10005818&prodlist=pricegrabber it is $187 here and $204
> at NewEgg.
> It really scares me to think about losing all of my documents and
> programs on my current hard drive and would really appreciate some
> help with the switch.
> My first question is if the hard drive i am looking at is a good one?
> Secondly does it void the macbooks warranty to add a new hard drive?
> Third where to i store all the programs or information during the
> change? I have an external hard drive but it is full as well..... I
> am hoping when i take out this 80GB internal i can buy a case for it.
> So my last question is what is a good small case not to expensive for
> the old internal hard drive?
>
> Thank you,
> Clark Colby
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