MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade tips

After upgrading my Mac Book Pro hard drive last week, I've got a few tips if you're heading down that road yourself.

The job: Upgrading my internal 80 GB hard drive to a 120 GB or larger drive.

What I ended up selecting for the replacement drive was a Hitachi Travelstar (5K160) 160GB Mobile Hard Drive. I chose this as my upgrade drive for a few reasons:

* I knew that specific drive would work well as I learned about it in a Mac World hard drive upgrade article.
* The drive has received very good or excellent reviews as a MacBook Pro upgrade drive. It gets good marks for how quiet it is (my unit is no louder than the one it replaced), it is a bit faster than the stock 80 GB unit, and battery life doesn't suffer, but improves.
* The price of the drive is hard to beat.

Here's my notes and recommendations, I hope they help you make a quick, painless upgrade to your MacBook Pro:

LEVERAGE THESE TWO GUIDES AS A STARTING POINT FOR YOUR HARD DRIVE UPGRADE:

* Mac World: Upgrading the MacBook Pro's hard drive
* iFixit: Fixit Guide (select your MacBook model, then download and print the guide)

SHOPPING LIST

* Hitachi Travelstar 160GB Mobile Hard Drive - OEM
* #0 Phillips Screwdriver, Torx T6 (Many kits do not have the #0 OR the T6--Radio Shack sells an excellent kit with both included)

ADDITIONS/MODIFICATIONS TO THE MAC WORLD AND IFIXIT GUIDE:

* If you are going to use Boot Camp (ever), read my last post about how to erase (format) the hard drive to ensure it is Boot Camp ready.
* When you disassemble your MacBook Pro, use some duct or masking tape to ensure you don't lose screws. It may sound silly, but when that first screw goes tic-tac-tic across your tile floor and you waste 20 minutes trying to find it you'll thank me. Actualy printing out the iFixit Guide and taping the screws to it isn't a bad way to go.

* After removing the hard drive from the Mac chassis, you also need to remove four additional screws which have rubber 'washers' and transfer them over to your replacement drive. Removing the screws from my factory drive was easy. When you place them onto your new drive just be sure not to over-tighten them. I'm not sure exactly what those 'washers' are called. Take a look at the photos below to see exactly what I'm referring too.

* For backing up my drive, I used Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac World's article suggests Super Duper) and had no problems whatsoever. Carbon Copy Cloner is a well thought out donation-ware (uncrippled shareware) title.

THE "DO NOT COVER" HOLE ON THE HITACHI TRAVELSTAR

After seating the new drive in the chassis, I started putting the cabling back in place and ran into a problem. The Travelstar 160 GB had a clear message on it to not cover a hole on its housing. That hole is a "breather hole" and meant to be left open. After trying several different ways, I could not find a way to re-route Apple's cabling. There are two DIY solutions. One, cover the hole. I covered mine and I've been watching the drive temperature and it has been fine. The second, with some thin foam or plastic build a riser so the drive can breathe.

I hope your upgrade is quick and easy!