UKC

I've decided to get a new Apple Mac book Pro but the top SSD option (1TB) is outrageously overpriced so am going to source one myself and stick the spare one in an old Mac Book Pro.

Question is, now that Apple no longer supply system disks how can it be done?
Advice appreciated.

In reply to Indy:

Is it the Retina or non-Retina MBP?

The best way of doing it is to fit your SSD in a USB 3 or Thunderbolt drive bay, then use a utility like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the internal drive to the SSD. Then simply swap the drives. I'm not familiar with the MacBook Pro but this operation was trivial on my 2012 Mac Mini, so providing it's physically possible to change the internal drive this should be perfectly feasible.

Oh and the difference in performance between spinning media and SSD is enormous!

In reply to Indy:

This is the crucial question: Is it the Retina or non-Retina MBP? as previously asked.

If non-retina, it is not difficult, but you will not achieve quite the same performance as the SSD in the new retina MBPs. However adding something like a Crucial M550 960 is a really cheap option. However I didn't think the Apple were still selling these except for the rather outdated 13 inch and a 1GB SSD has never been an Apple option for this machine.

If retina, then updates are available from specialist supplies as 'ram-like' accessories such as the jet drive ( http://www.transcend-info.com/apple/jetdrive/ ). These are not cheap and are a better option for someone who has mistakingly bought the wrong machine.

HTH Steve

In reply to Only a hill:

Thanks.
Aren't there issues with cloning drives and software licenses?
I assume you mean that SSD's are much faster than spinning disc's?

If it makes any difference it's one of these....
http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MGXC2B/A&step=con...

In reply to Indy:

Ok, that Mac already comes with SSD storage as standard. The Retina model doesn't have any option for a spinning hard disk.

In reply to Indy:

If you look at the jet drive link in the previous post, you'll notice they only support slightly older mac book pro retinas. The late 2013 and mid 2014 models aren't supported.

I had a brief look at SSD upgrades a few months ago for a late 2013 MBPR and there didn't seem to be any 3rd party upgrade options. This may have changed, but you'll want to research it more before dropping a fair bundle of cash on a mac.

In reply to turtlespit:



Thanks, have to admit I didn't think this would be an issue. Initial enquiries have drawn a blank with the 'premium' resellers and experience tells
me the Apple store won't bend over to be helpful on this. Over to Google!