Although you can use Disk Utility's Restore screen to do this, I personally used SuperDuper, my favorite cloning utility. That task out of the way, you'll want to make the new drive a clone-a bootable, mirror-image copy-of the old one. The Travelstar drive is initially formatted for Windows computers, so you need to use Disk Utility to format it as a 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' volume. And the enclosure lets you use your old hard drive for backups or other data storage afterwards. I'm a big fan of hard-drive kits that include such an enclosure, as it makes the process of copying your data before the swap much simpler (and faster)-otherwise, you'd need to use another Mac or a separate hard drive to temporarily host your data. The drive connects to your laptop using two USB cables, one for data and one for additional power. Putting the new drive in the enclosure-it doesn't come pre-installed-is a simple process involving five Phillips screws, four to mount the drive in the enclosure and one to secure the case. Although not the largest laptop drive out there-in the short time since I received this kit, Fujitsu and Western Digital have announced 250GB laptop drives compatible with the MacBook Pro-the 5K160 is a nice upgrade for those whose MacBook Pro (or MacBook) shipped with a much smaller drive.īefore you install the drive, you'll need to copy the data from your original hard drive to the new one using the included USB drive enclosure. The Travelstar 5K160 Upgrade Kit is actually Hitachi's Travelstar 5K160 HTS541616J9SA00 2.5-inch SATA hard drive-which uses newer perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology-combined with a USB 2.0 drive enclosure and backup software. (As I mentioned in that earlier article, upgrading the hard drive in a MacBook Pro likely voids your warranty.)

Here's a brief look at both the drive itself and the upgrade process. One of those upgrades was Hitachi's Travelstar 2.5' Internal Hard Drive 2-in-1 Notebook PC Upgrade Kit ($210 MSRP, although available for around $200 at street prices), which I've since installed and spent some time with.

A while back, I mentioned that I'd be testing out a number of possible upgrades for the MacBook Pro.

2006 macbook pro hard drive replacement