Add Extra Hard Drive To Macbook Pro
For this how-to, we replaced the hard drive on a 15-inch MacBook Pro (non-Retina) from 2012 with a 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD from OWC, which costs $579. That works out to about $1.21 per GB. If your Mac is old and still has an optical drive (like a pre-2012 MacBook Pro), you might be able to upgrade your drive and add a second or third one if you replace the optical drive to create space. That’s a pretty old machine, though, so consider whether the upgrade is worthwhile. May 16, 2016 Did your MacBook run out of storage space? Use an expansion card in your computer's SD port as a quick and easy way to add up to 256GB of additional space without adding any bulk, or requiring any tools or programming knowledge! Following on from the previous post on upgrading your MacBook Pro’s RAM, today we have a tutorial on how to fit your Mac with a speedy Solid-State Drive (SSD).Upgrading RAM was a relatively cheap way to increase the speed of your Mac - it did so by making your Mac run smoother if you have multiple applications open at the same time and generally allowing your Mac to do more without slowing. MCE Tech OptiBay Replaces the DVD drive to add a second internal hard drive to your MacBook Pro. Only affects battery life by 10-15% and can spin the second drive down when not in use. Useful if you need added capacity.
There is a cool alternative way you can easily add up to 128GB of storage to your MacBook Air or Pro — without cracking the case and installing a new SSD flash drive, without buying a bulky external hard drive, and without jamming a USB thumb drive into the side of your MacBook. The alternative method?
A Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card.
Designed to fit into the SDXC card slot, which is usually used for loading photos into your Mac from a camera, the tiny little drive is specially made to fit flush inside the SDXC slot, giving you extra storage space in a form factor that works perfectly with your 13-inch MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with Retina display (the 11-inch MacBook Air does not have an SDXC slot).
The Transcend JetDrive Lite lets you add a flush-fitting drive to your MacBook Air or Pro’s SD card slot.
A 128GB card, for example, can hold 62,000 high resolution photos, 32,000 mp3 songs, or 32 hours of Full HD quality video.
If your 128GB MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is running out of space, a Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card is flat out the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective solution I’ve seen yet.
The maximum read speed is 95MB/s, which will be slower than the flash drive that’s in your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with Retina display, but typically faster than most traditional hard drives. The maximum read speed is 60MB/s. What does this really mean? If you’re actively working with a large file — like editing a movie — you might want to make sure that your movie files are on your MacBook’s main drive for best performance.
Offload Large Files to the JetDrive Lite
That said, this new light drive option will let you add storage to offload all sorts of photos, video, and documents, freeing up your primary drive. The Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card will show up on your desktop like an external drive. If, for instance, your iTunes library is full of movies, TV shows, and songs, you can move it to the expansion card, which is what I would do first to free up a large mount of space. Why? In addition to gaining a big win over your storage problem, nearly all of you iTunes media is likely purchased from Apple, which means if there is ever any problem with the drive, you can easily download your purchased movies, video, and songs again from Apple at no charge.
In addition to moving large files to the drive, you can use it as a complete backup to your internal 128GB drive, but since you’re reading this, you probably need the free space more than a skinny on-board backup solution. Note: Just use a good external drive or thumb drive for your backups and store it somewhere safe.
Once you have the JetDrive Lite, you’ll want to use Disk Utility on your Mac to reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended. One last tip: Because the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display models have slightly different SDXC card slot depths, you’ll need to choose the correct JetDrive Lite to fit your particular MacBook.
And one last hint: If you think you might rather just install an internal SSD drive to increase storage capacity, here’s some help on how to get that done for MacBook Air and for MacBook Pro with Retina displays.
Get the Transcend JetDrive Lite:
- JetDrive Lite 130 for 13-inch MacBook Air, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2010 – Early 2014 models) - JetDrive Lite 330 for 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2012 – Mid 2014 models) - JetDrive Lite 350 for 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Mid 2012 – Early 2013 models) - JetDrive Lite 360 for 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2013 – Mid 2014 models)
Note: There are some alternate options for this class of SD card slot drive for MacBooks: The PNY StorEDGE, which sits nearly flush (but not flush), or the Nifty MiniDrive, which sits flush but requires a separate purchase of a microSD card to get the storage you need.
Discussion
Hey
Disk space is a funny thing. You buy a disk, think it will last you ages and then half a year later you are pushed for space. This has happened to my MacBook Pro. The 120Gb hard drive inside is nearly full, and the 150Gb external drive powering both a Time Machine backup and some general storage is pushing 100% capacity. As a result I need more space. I am going to discuss with you today, how you can increase the disk space on your Mac by plugging in new hard drives giving you that all important space.
There are 3 main methods of increasing hard disk space. Internal hard drive, external hard drive and a network attached unit. They vary in price range and capabilities. As a side note, any prices I give in this post are rough approximations. You will have to do your own research. I will also try and find drives which are around 1Tb in size. Since this is a price point which is affordable and has *plenty* to last. I highly doubt 1Tb will last long, the way I am going through it.
The Macs that I will be focusing on today are the iMac, Mac Pro and MacBook/Pro. The mini is not included but it is very similar to the setup I am going to discuss with the MacBooks. If you have older Macs they will probably still follow these lines. If you want to raise any questions or have a better idea, please leave them in the comments.
Internal Drive
A internal hard drive is probably the route you want to try first if you are expanding your disk capacity. The basic idea behind this is to add a second drive into the computer. The other two method that I will discuss are more external. An internal drive has the benefits of being more secure, as well as less prone to accidents and generally being in the way.
Mac Pro
Probably the easiest way to add storage to a Mac Pro is to add a hard disk to one of the four internal bays. A Mac Pro can take 4Tb of disk storage. Simply open up the case, take out a drive bay and insert a new drive. Officially, the only Mac in the line up in which you can do this. For more information check out the user guide.
iMac
By default there is no way to add internal storage for your iMac. Which is a real shame, I am sure Apple could have made an ergonomic method of inserting another drive. The best method if you want an internal only solution is to replace the hard drive by taking the computer apart. You will first have to clone your current hard drive onto the new drive with a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner. Only if you know what you are doing would I suggest this method.
MacBook/Pro
My laptop is in this list and unfortunately there is no real room for you to insert another drive. You have two options at this point, upgrade your existing drive or add a second one replacing your optical disk drive. I hardly ever use my disk drive, as a result it is rich pickings for a hard drive. This very cool trick, take your optical drive out, replaces it with a special mould so everything inside doesn’t fall apart and puts a 500Gb drive in its place. As a result you get two drives, one is your original and the second is where you optical drive used to reside. You can get this very cool product from OptiBay. It is a little expensive, but one of the most unique products I have seen for a long time. I am not sure if it works with the new MacBook range, you will have to enquire. I was considering this option at one point, but I didn’t have the cash flow.
External Drive
One of the most common ways to expand your storage is through an external drive. This is basically a hard drive in a box, plugged into your Mac through either USB or Firefire. It is a simple way to easily expand as well as pretty cheap. It can be used across any Mac with a USB port. It is also very versatile, since you can pick what drive you want, and where you want to put it. You can also leave the drive at home so it can act as a backup drive.
There are a couple of methods for external drives. You can either buy a package, or do it yourself. The prices range from the bare bones to quite an expensive RAID setup. It all depends on how much storage you are willing to pay for. For example a MyBook is around the $90 mark. You get the nice packaging, all of the lights etc. It is a very good option. My favourite method is to buy your own caddy and drive separately. The one I recommend is this caddy, it comes packages by various brands but it works and 1Tb drive which you can get for only £70.
A diy external drive is cheaper and it gives you the room to expand later. It doesn’t take two seconds to pull out an old drive and stick in a newer larger version. On the other hand the all in ones from MyBook, for example, look a lot nicer and a probably better for people who are not to good with the details of technology.
Network Drive
The final way to upgrade the storage on your Mac is to use a Network Attached Storage device. These drives are very similar to an external drive which you plug into your USB slot. The one big difference is that it is plugged into your router instead. Usually NAS’ offer a lot more features such as the data being available to every one on a network. The only down side I find with a NAS is the speed. They are a lot slower since data has to travel over your network. Unless you have tuned your Ethernet to run as fast as possible (which I can never do) it will never seem as fast as USB.
I personally recommend a Buffalo NAS drive if you want to go down the NAS route. My father has one on his home network and it works really well. It acts like a normal disk. It does take a bit more setup for the system itself and on your Mac. But for anyone who wants a way of increasing storage on all of your computers in the house, a NAS is a feasible option.
Conclusion
If you want to upgrade HDD space you have three options, internal upgrade which is the most complicated, External drive which is the cheapest and finally a NAS. I prefer an external USB hard drive. I have a couple stacked up next to my Mac. They are simple to use and offer a lot of storage. The only problem I am facing now is the lack of USB ports. If you want to find cheap hard drives I would check out Amazon since they usually have the best deals.
If you have any more tips or tricks, or even a completely different method for upgrading disk storage on your Mac please leave a comment. If you have a really inventive way of adding space I would love to hear it. Using drives from other computers, isn’t really fair. Since you are just moving space around and not actually gaining anything.