A Little Speed Kick for a 17" MacBook Pro
- From: Davoud <star@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 21:18:20 GMT
MBP 17" 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo. 4 GB RAM, 512 MB VRAM, 250GB, 5400 RPM HD.
This is the previous generation of the 17" MB Pro. Of the specs listed
above, the only one that is readily changeable is the HD. I ordered the
newly announced Seagate Momentus 500GB, 7200 RPM drive from OWC in
mid-April. Seagate experienced a delay in shipping this new model, and
I received my drive a couple of days ago. I installed it last night.
Installation notes:
* Before I began I used SuperDuper to clone my Mac HD to an external FW
drive. At the end of the cloning process SuperDuper rebooted the Mac
from the external drive to prove that it had worked. This process was
hassle-free.
* I used Winclone from twocanoes.com to clone the Windows XP Pro
installation on my NTFS partition. Winclone is absolutely free, and
does not pop-up payment or donation NAGS, though one of the app's
windows has a little "Donate" button. Click it!
* Disassembling the MB Pro 17" (I refer to my model only) is not
difficult; there are no extremely delicate procedures. Get a clean
muffin pan to hold the various screws that you will remove; each set
(i.e., the screws from each location) go in a separate bin in the pan.
* You need only two tools: A 14.5mm Phillips screwdriver; I used an
Xcelite that I still have from the days when I performed minor repairs
to 35mm cameras. The second tool is a T6 driver for Torx screws. This
may be available in your local hardware store, but it wasn't in mine; I
could find only larger Torx drivers. I got my T6 from Amazon for under
$5. You may find both of these tools at xcelite.com. Do not substitute
other tools for these two tools.
* You will be removing the top from the MBP chassis, but all of the
screws that you need to remove to do that are accessible from the
bottom of the MB Pro, so flip it over--screen down.
* Only after you have removed all of the screws will you turn the MBP
upright and lift the cover, including keyboard, to expose the insides.
The HD is easily accessible.
* Watch the video at <http://tinyurl.com/17-inch-hd> on one of your
other Macs before and during the performance of this job.
* Both SuperDuper and Winclone did a perfect job restoring the two
OS's. I may have missed something in the Winclone process; after
restoring the Mac OS to the new drive and running Bootcamp to create my
Windows partition I had to boot from the Windows install CD to format
the partition as NTFS. After that is over, the Windows installation
begins with no obvious way to stop it, so I turned the MBP off by
holding the power button down. I don't know whether that was necessary
or whether Winclone can format the Bootcamp partition as NTFS. Anyway,
no harm was done. I rebooted Leopard from the new internal drive and
double-clicked the Winclone archive on the external drive, specified
the NTFS partition on the new drive as the destination, and all went
well. I have tested numerous bits of software on both partitions and
they all functioned normally.
Note that Winclone /requires/ Leopard. Save your time by not asking
about Tiger, etc. The answer is "No." The answer to "What if..." is
also "No."
Apps load faster and video renders faster under Final Cut Pro on the
7200 RPM drive. If you aren't doing graphics work you probably don't
need a 7200 RPM drive. But the 500GB of space is another big
improvement (no pun intended).
Davoud
--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
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