3 ms·

Ha, I just did that this week. I have a late 2011 MBP and I noticed it was dragging a bit so I upgraded it from 8gb ram to 16gb and bought a 500gb SSD to replac

Ha, I just did that this week. I have a late 2011 MBP and I noticed it was dragging a bit so I upgraded it from 8gb ram to 16gb and bought a 500gb SSD to replace the factory HDD. The next day I decided I wanted more space for my pictures so I bought the little enclosure and swapped out my CDROM and just reused the factory 1TB HDD. Like $220 later and it feels like a brand new machine.

rajnp 8y ago
Did the same thing for my 2012 MBP.
mch82 8y ago
Any chance you've got a link to reliable instructions?
- gargravarr 8y ago
  iFixit are great for this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Late+2011+Dual+Hard+Drive/10986 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+...
  - mikeyouse 8y ago
    Yep, I used their instructions for the hard drive replacement and then again for the CDROM swap out. I used to build my own machines so I was pretty confident going in, on my scale the HDD was about a 3 difficulty but the CDROM was maybe a 6.. you need to disconnect several tiny connectors to clear enough space which always makes me nervous about breaking one but it went fine in the end.
rootusrootus 8y ago
I did pretty much the same thing on my late 2011 MBP. And then the graphics went tits up. Argh!
kayoone 8y ago
you were using a 7 year old Laptop with a HDD in 2018 ? Some people don't seem to have any hardware requirements at all.. While i could tolerate a CPU from 2011, using it without an SSD feels so slow today, it's barely usable tbh. I switched to SSDs in 2009 in all my machines and never looked back, despite the price at the time.
- mikeyouse 8y ago
  Yeah I don't have a good excuse for waiting except it was my wife's primary computer for the last few years while she completed grad school and I didn't use it much to notice how much slower it seemed as compared to a modern SSD-based machine. Definitely wish I had done it earlier now. It was an old work machine that I got to take with me when I left that job so it was far overspecced for casual use.. though it feels so much better now.
- haldean 8y ago
  Not everyone can afford a new MacBook when their old one works fine, no matter how much HN shames them for it.

rajnp 8y ago

Did the same thing for my 2012 MBP.

mch82 8y ago

Any chance you've got a link to reliable instructions?

gargravarr 8y ago
iFixit are great for this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Late+2011+Dual+Hard+Drive/10986 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing+MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+...
- mikeyouse 8y ago
  Yep, I used their instructions for the hard drive replacement and then again for the CDROM swap out. I used to build my own machines so I was pretty confident going in, on my scale the HDD was about a 3 difficulty but the CDROM was maybe a 6.. you need to disconnect several tiny connectors to clear enough space which always makes me nervous about breaking one but it went fine in the end.

rootusrootus 8y ago

I did pretty much the same thing on my late 2011 MBP. And then the graphics went tits up. Argh!

kayoone 8y ago

you were using a 7 year old Laptop with a HDD in 2018 ? Some people don't seem to have any hardware requirements at all.. While i could tolerate a CPU from 2011, using it without an SSD feels so slow today, it's barely usable tbh. I switched to SSDs in 2009 in all my machines and never looked back, despite the price at the time.

mikeyouse 8y ago
Yeah I don't have a good excuse for waiting except it was my wife's primary computer for the last few years while she completed grad school and I didn't use it much to notice how much slower it seemed as compared to a modern SSD-based machine. Definitely wish I had done it earlier now. It was an old work machine that I got to take with me when I left that job so it was far overspecced for casual use.. though it feels so much better now.
haldean 8y ago
Not everyone can afford a new MacBook when their old one works fine, no matter how much HN shames them for it.