[chgolatin2]

I guess that my hard drive is somewhat almost done w it's space, which is 250gb.  Since I'm no computer wizard I need some help installing a new hard drive that has more space.  I think that my MacBook Pro has about 3 or 4 yrs of used.  It's been 4 yrs that I don't even touch my Dell PC.  Once you go apple you never go back that's for sure.

For all of those MacBook Pro users, what is a good hard drive brand or best type needed for my computer and lastly how can I transfer all of my files, bookmarks, music, videos, movies etc unto the new hard drive? Also, I think that I'm about do for some new added memory.  What memory brand do you guys recommended and how do check to see if you have enough memory or add more to maximize its performance?

Sorry for all the newbie questions, plz bare w me.   Links and how to's will be perfect.

Thanks to all in advance!

[TomS]

These guys are great with how to videos and really good service. I've upgraded all of our Macbooks (5 of them) over the years with their stuff. It's very easy.

http://www.macsales.com/

[xr2]

Are you currently using time machine?  If no, I recommend buying 2 drives.  1 external USB drive, and one to replace the internal drive.  If you setup time machine with the external drive, it will back everything up to that drive for you.  Then we when you replace the internal drive, boot with the OS CD and restore using time machine and it should put you right back where you were.  I would then continue using Time Machine to keep a backup.

As for RAM, you can go to www.crucial.com and they have both an automatic scanner and a selector tool that you can use to identify the exact type of RAM you need.  I've had good luck with Crucial in the past, but you are free to take that information elsewhere if you find a better deal.

[Philistine]

I've got a MacBook Pro that's 3.5 years old, I upgrade the hard drive 6 months ago and decided on a SSD.  A fellow AC member recommended a Samsung (apparently Apple uses Samsung SSD's and they consistently get the best reviews in independent survey's), having said that I'm sure the other leading SSD's are just as good.  The original drive was 250gb and I replaced it with a Samsung 830 of a similar size, the drive package I bought came with a usb/esata adapter to transfer the data on the original drive to the new one (can't recall the transfer software I used at the time).  It cloned the original drive but I decided to change direction and do a clean install of Mountain Lion and a restore/backup from Time Machine - this gave me all the apps and data but used less disk space than cloning the hard drive.  I've been very happy with it so far and it's extended the life of my McBook by another 3 years.

The Samsung 830 has been replaced by the 840 pro and there's a less expensive 840 available that has slower read/write speeds.  My MacBook uses eSata 2, I'm assuming yours does also, and doesn't benefit from the higher read/write speeds of the newer drives that use eSata 3 - consequently I would focus on reliability more than speed if you go down the SSD path. 

My next project was to use the original hard drive in the optical drive bay, but since freeing up space (from the OS fresh install and restore) on my SSD this project has gone on the back burner.  At the same time I also doubled the memory and was able to get a battery replacement under the Apple Care program, all of these 'upgrades' will help with breathing more life into my MacBook.