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Upgrading to a Macbook Pro from a Macbook (White) - Swapping RAM and Hard Drive

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  • Feb 21st, 2011 1:44 am
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Deal Fanatic
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Jun 8, 2001
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Ottawa

Upgrading to a Macbook Pro from a Macbook (White) - Swapping RAM and Hard Drive

Folks,

Making the move to the Macbook Pro from a white macbook. In my white macbook, i have upgraded my RAM to 512MB and my hard drive to 500GB. Can I simply take both my RAM and my Hard Drive out of my white macbook and put it in my new macbook pro? Or is there anything I need to do? Just worried whether both the RAM and Hard drive are a simple plug and play? I know with the RAM, it should be okay, but not sure about the Hard Drive.

Thanks!
-sk
3 replies
Deal Fanatic
Mar 10, 2003
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Toronto
skanji wrote: Folks,

Making the move to the Macbook Pro from a white macbook. In my white macbook, i have upgraded my RAM to 512MB and my hard drive to 500GB. Can I simply take both my RAM and my Hard Drive out of my white macbook and put it in my new macbook pro? Or is there anything I need to do? Just worried whether both the RAM and Hard drive are a simple plug and play? I know with the RAM, it should be okay, but not sure about the Hard Drive.

Thanks!
-sk
Depends on which MacBook Pro. If it's a recent MacBook Pro, the answer is no to the RAM - min RAM is 2Gb these days anyway, so your 512MB would hurt more than help. As for the drive, that's complicated. If you want the drive in there because it's bigger than the previous one, then you can physically swap the drive, but I would personally reinstall the software. If you're concerned about the data, then simply run Migration Assistant and work that through.
Deal Fanatic
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Jun 8, 2001
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milhaus wrote: Depends on which MacBook Pro. If it's a recent MacBook Pro, the answer is no to the RAM - min RAM is 2Gb these days anyway, so your 512MB would hurt more than help. As for the drive, that's complicated. If you want the drive in there because it's bigger than the previous one, then you can physically swap the drive, but I would personally reinstall the software. If you're concerned about the data, then simply run Migration Assistant and work that through.

Thanks for the advice.
Deal Fanatic
Aug 14, 2008
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Ontario
The RAM should be much higher in the MBP depending on year/model and not require a swap, 2 to 4GB.

If you hardly use the CD/DVD drive, you can put the 500GB into the optical bay with this adapter:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0604553195

And put an SSD into the main drive:

Beware the new 2011 OCZ V2 is shipping with a 25nm nand, slower than the 2010 34nm... and there is no indication on the box.
I have the older one, so someone else may need to point you to which SSD to get now (if you can't get a 34 OCZ V2).

If you still want to make use of the optical drive you pulled out, you can use this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/External-USB-case-e ... 439wt_1139

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