I have a MacBook Pro that I bought in 2011. I'm running out of space on it. It has a 516 GB hard drive, but that's turning into not enough.

It's a fantastic machine otherwise. Incredibly reliable, and I've taken it all over the world without incident. It's fast, versatile, and light weight.

A new MacBook Pro is something like $2,500 (with all the memory and highest speeds.) That's a pretty steep expenditure. It it was $1,200 to $1,500 I would be much more willing to replace it.

For those with more technical knowledge, it's a 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i7 with 8 GB, 1333 MHz.

How hard is it to replace the drive?

I have the Time Capsule backup system, but I'd be really fearful about doing this myself. And I'm a bit dubious of "Mac Specialist" store front establishments.

Any thoughts?