How do you upgrade the hard drive in the "Mid-2009," "Mid-2010," "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch MacBook Pro models? What type of hard drive do these models support? Can one replace the hard drive with an SSD?

Upgrading the hard drive in the "Mid-2009," "Mid-2010," "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch MacBook Pro models requires a screwdriver, but it still is just about as simple and straightforward as upgrading the RAM.

Identification Help

If you're not sure which "Unibody" MacBook Pro model you have, these models share model numbers, unfortunately. EMC numbers are not externally listed, either.

As a result, they only can be externally differentiated by the last three or four characters of the serial number. Models with eleven character serial numbers can be uniquely identified by the last three characters and models with twelve character serial numbers only can be uniquely identified by the last four characters courtesy of EveryMac.com's Ultimate Mac Lookup feature.

However, in software, it also is possible to get "close enough" to an exact match to determine hard drive compatibilty and connection speed by model identifier. In turn, each model can be uniquely identified via model identifier and one or more secondary identifiers (like processor speed and/or processor type). For example, the 13-Inch "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" MacBook Pro models -- which both support 6.0 Gb/s SATA 3.0 -- can be identified by the model identifier MacBookPro8,1.

Supported Storage Types

When the "Mid-2009" models were first released, systems configured with a hard drive only had 1.5 GBps SATA enabled, whereas systems configured with an SSD had faster 3.0 Gb/s SATA II enabled. This caused a great deal of discontent among those across the blogosphere interested in performing their own SSD upgrades, but thankfully Apple quickly corrected this issue with a software update. The "Mid-2010" MacBook Pro models have 3.0 Gb/s SATA II properly enabled by default. The "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" MacBook Pro models are even faster -- equipped with 6.0 Gb/s SATA 3.0.

All of these MacBook Pro models can be configured with an SSD via build-to-order at the time of purchase and replacing the stock hard drive with an SSD on your own also is no problem for the technically inclined.

Official Hard Drive Upgrade Instructions

Apple explains how to replace the hard drive starting on page 35 of the 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch "Mid-2009", 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch "Mid-2010," and 13-Inch, 15-Inch and 17-Inch "Early 2011" MacBook Pro User Guides, respectively, and this provides most of what you need to know to upgrade the pre-installed hard drive.

Apple starts by noting that:

You can upgrade the hard disk drive in your MacBook Pro. When you open the back of your MacBook Pro, the hard disk drive is located next to the built-in battery. The replacement drive must be a 2.5-inch drive with a Serial ATA (SATA) connector.

It continues with detailed instructions. However, the basic procedure is to turn off the notebook, disconnect cables, and let it cool; flip it over and unscrew the bottom plate, discharge static electricity, unscrew the retaining bar, disconnect the SATA connector, remove the mounting screws, install the new drive, and reassemble the computer.

Hard Drive Upgrade Video Instructions

The Apple manuals provide installation instructions complete with drawings -- which absolutely should be read in their entirety before one upgrades the hard drive -- but perhaps even better, site sponsor OWC provides a convenient step-by-step video of the process for the 13-Inch model (the 15-Inch and 17-Inch model are internally similar):

In addition to instructional videos, as you would expect, Other World Computing offers memory and hard drive upgrades for all MacBook Pro "Unibody" systems.

Also see:

• How do you upgrade the RAM in the "Mid-2009," "Mid-2010," "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch MacBook Pro models? How much RAM of what type do they actually support?
• Is it possible to add a second hard drive to a "Unibody" MacBook or MacBook Pro?