Upgrading late 2011 MBP 17"

[applefanboi]

Hi everyone!

With my tax refund I have decided to use a portion of it to upgrade the RAM and HDD on my MBP. Right now I only have 4 GB so looking to go to at least 8.

As for the HDD I'm looking to make the switch to a SSD, I'm thinking of using only the 128 GB option and buying a time capsule to store movies, media, etc.

My question is what to look for in buying the parts to install. Normally on my windows machine I'd use TigerDirect.com or Newegg.com but I have no idea what I need to be looking for on type of drive to get etc.

Any input or thoughts would be appreciated. I'm looking to make the upgrades next weekend.

 

[warcraftWidow]

Macs just use standard memory and laptop hard drives so you don't need to look for anything special.

I'd suggest going to Other World Computing as they sell lots of do it yourself mac upgrade kits-both memory and hard drives.

You may want to look at their kits to install a new hard drive and move your existing hard drive to the internal DVD spot. And then they have a kit that takes the DVD drive you removed and gives it an enclosure so you can use it as an external DVD drive. This may be cheaper than buying a Time Capsule.

Even if you don't buy anything from them, you can search by MacBook year/model and they'll tell you exactly what to get.

 

[applefanboi]

yeah I found the memory fairly easy.

i just wanted to double check before I purchased anything... i've never upgraded laptop parts before, just my old desktop back in the day Definitely will check out Other World Computing and get some ideas.

Is there an easy way to install OS X onto the new HD? I guess I could find software or something to clone a backup of my drive to my external HD and copy from there, but I'd guess I would need to be able to boot up into the OS first... My mac came with Lion and then I made the upgrade to Mountain Lion and don't have any discs... I guess I could always take it to the apple store perhaps, I do need to get my keyboard cleaned good...

 

[warcraftWidow]

Make a bootable USB installer for ML. A quick google should find directions for you. But basically you download it from the AppStore and do an "open package contents" on the downloaded file. Inside is a DMG file that you use Disk Utility to write to the USB.

And after putting the new hard drive in, when you boot hold down the Cmd-R (I think) to force a boot from the USB.

 

[applefanboi]

Awesome, thanks again! I've decided to go with the OWC 128 GB SSD drive and 8 GB of Kingston RAM.

 

[ghostface147]

128 gig SSD? Man that is tiny. Remember, OS X doesn't support TRIM (which keeps an SSD "clean") on non-Apple SSD drives out of the box. There are tweaks that enable it however.

 

[warcraftWidow]

128 GB is more than enough if its mainly going to house the OS and apps. He was discussing getting a Time Capsule to store other media. I ousted going the Data Doubler route with OWC and replacing the DVD drive with his existing hard drive.

 

[applefanboi]

It is tiny, but I think the SSD would really help with my games and such.

What is TRIM and what do you mean by "keeping it clean?" =_= see, there are many things that I'm just out of the loop on...

 

[warcraftWidow]

It is tiny, but I think the SSD would really help with my games and such.

What is TRIM and what do you mean by "keeping it clean?" =_= see, there are many things that I'm just out of the loop on...

TRIM is related to how the controller deletes and clears blocks on the SSD. Supposedly, it has to do with the longevity of the drive. But you can find lots of arguments online about whether it is needed or not. Some SSDs probably do. If I remember correctly, OWC SSDs use Sandforce controllers which supposedly have their own mechanism to handle this and don't need TRIM. I'd search on the OWC site to see what they recommend for their drives.

Yes any SSD will make a big difference in games and launching any other apps. The memory will probably make more difference when playing the games but you should see much faster loading times.

 

[applefanboi]

Okay, bit of a delay, but finally replaced the spinning drive with a SSD and I LOVE it. Now to replace the optical drive with the old spinning drive...

I've found a few on Amazon for pretty cheap. Would this work for my Mac? Again, it's a late 2011 MacBook Pro 17"

Protronix Hard Drive Caddy for Unibody Macbook / Macbook Pro SuperDrive (13 15 17) - Amazon.com

 

[Peter Cohen]

Personally I'm a big fan of Other World Computing.

OWC Data Doubler