Upgrade MacBook Pro 2008 to SSD

macbook promacosssdupgrade

I'm about to purchase a nice 120gb SSD for my Macbook Pro laptop. While installing the new drive is simple enough (physically), I've never installed Mac OSX on a bare drive. Are there any caveats or issues that I should know about before starting this process?

I've debated on cloning the drive and for the most part, I'd rather not (I think). It'd be easier to probably start over but I could be convinced otherwise. I have backups of all the software, VM images and files so that shouldn't be a problem, but I've never installed OSX from scratch. Upgrading has been pretty easy for me in the past.

Assuming I have to format the SSD as HFS+ before I can install Mac OSX, are there two SATA connectors inside a Macbook Pro so that I can boot into MacOSX and format it? I've never cracked open a Macbook other than installing addition RAM (which is pretty damn easy). I'm presuming that there's a SATA connection for the HDD and one for the CD/DVD drive.

Best Answer

When booting from installation disk, open Disk Utility (in the "Utilities" menu) and format the disk as HFS+ with Journaling, case-insensitive. I have never installed a blank disk before, but had to repeatedly wipe the one installed. This is how I did it.

If you have not yet bought your SSD, you should read up on their performance on systems without TRIM support.

Edited to add:

Regarding your different options for system installation: I've had only success (aside from a bad 3rd party driver) using system restoration from Time Machine backups. However, I prefer using a clean installation and only restoring my users. Especially the ~/Library contains a lot of application data I'm not willing to move out of reach, backup or not. Aside from that, it's really personal preference: A "clean slate" versus "the comfort of a familiar system".

Regarding installation:

If you have the "late 2008" MacBook Pro, see this PDF on how to replace the hard drive. If you have the "early 2008" MacBook Pro, the hard disk is not classified as user-replacable. See macfixit.com or youtube for tutorials on how to do that.

Related Question