How do you upgrade the hard drive in the "Mid-2009" 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 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" 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.

Apple explains how to install a hard drive on pages 35-43 of the 13-Inch, 15-Inch, and 17-Inch "Mid-2009" 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, complete with drawings, which absolutely should be read in their entirety before one replaces the hard drive. 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.

All of the "Mid-2009" 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.

It is worth mentioning that 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 GBps 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 Apple manuals go on to 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.