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?

It might not be cost-effective to put an SSD in it. 750 GB SSDs are currently selling for $425+ and, if you have an older MacBook Pro, its internal interface might not be fast enough to take advantage of an SSD. Here's an informative post in the Apple Support Communities: Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive

If your Mac is fast enough to use a SSD, definitely get one...... but if it isn't fast enough for a SSD and you are happy with the laptop and just want more space, 1TB hard drives are only about $100.

A store front tech would probably put the new drive in a hard drive dock (example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153066), connect that to your laptop, and copy your files that way. Once everything was copied, they'd pull the old drive out of the laptop and insert the new one in its place.

Thank you, RatherBeOnATrain!

Do you really need all 512GB of information on the HD?

Can you archive some items that you're not using on a regular basis, or even move into longer term storage some larger files?

A 1+ TB external HD might be the best solution at <$100.

Any laptop built after 2009 is practically guaranteed to be at least SATA II, supporting 3Gb/sec transfer rates. The OP will see a dramatic improvement in performance even though it may not be SATA III (6Gb/sec). Transfer rate isn't the only criteria either; seek times/latency in "spinny" drives are vastly greater.

My Lenovo T420, released in February 2012, is SATA III; my T400 (still hanging around as an emergency spare) is SATA II and was released in late 2008. I'm quite sure Apple wouldn't have been lagging too far behind.

SSD's are dropping very quickly. 1Tb is only $450 from most vendors.

Irrelevant. The biggest advantage of a SSD is not a matter of the speed of the interface but the lack of latency. A SSD that is throttled to older SATA speeds will still be lightning fast compared to a hard drive.

A while back I had a port failure on my main machine, the temporary fix was to move my SSD to a SATA II port. I didn't even notice the difference.

I believe some older Macs aren't compatible with SSDs because of a bus speed issue. When I was first told about it by an IT consultant/desktop support friend, I didn't believe it either.

MOD EDIT

Mats, head to http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...drive-ssd.html it helps with identifying your Mac and links to the relevant Apple guides on how to replace your disk It also states the earlier models 1.5gbps limit was removed since with a software update but people above are correct in that limit is irrelevant.

My guess is you have a MacbookPro8,1 http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac...=MacBookPro8,1 or perhaps a 8,2 not much of a difference. You will be able to, without much effort (remember, even Apple has a guide to do this), replace the HDD with an SSD. Here's https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook...placement/5119 the ifixit guide. Note the hardest step there is disconnecting the battery which might not be necessary (it's good to protect the system from mishaps of course but perhaps ifixit wants to sell you a spludger -- who knows ) but for example the instructables http://www.instructables.com/id/Inst...Book/?ALLSTEPS guide skips it. I am taking no responsibility of what you are doing with your MacBook of course

Also you can put the existing or a new HDD (Samsung Spinpoint M9T comes in 1.5TB and 2TB sizes, for example) into the optical bay as well if you so want. This requires a simple, cheap adapter (even OWC, the king of fleecing Mac people only asks $35 for this adapter, on eBay you can find many for $6 shipped).

I replaced the HDD on my 2008 MBP with a Samsung 840 Pro 240g SDD. I also maxed out the ram and put on a fresh install of Mavericks. Yes, that computer is only SATA I and cannot take advantage of the drive speeds, but let me just say it is, with that mod, like a new computer and I plan on getting many more years of us out of it. The added bonus is you can then use your old HDD as your time machine drive.

The major noticeable difference is in the drive access speed. Startup from cold is under 20 seconds. Programs open almost instantly. Even the processor hungry ones. I can't recommend making the switch enough.

N.B. - it's easy enough to do yourself and I comfortably did it by watching a youtube video once or twice., but be careful with the ribbon cable. I broke the connector at the motherboard coming out. It was a cheap fix, but put my box out of commission for a week while it was shipped.

Folks, we have a history of allowing all kinds of tech post here. If you think it is off-topic, report to us, don't go posting why you don't think it belongs here.

a 2011 machine will benefit from a nice SSD drive. Its up to you whether you want to milk a few more years or just get a new laptop.

Ifixit.com has a very nice step by step example. This link shows you how to do it for a MacBook Pro 15" late 2011 model: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook...placement/7513

Thank you all. I'm not totally sure what I'll do at this juncture. I also had a chat with a particularly thoughtful "genius" at the Apple Store. We had a good chat about the rise of converting DVDs and CDs to our hard drives, and how this has resulted in a lack of space for many users. In other words, he normalized the problem, and also made some space-saving suggestions.

There seem to be multiple sensible solutions. And a DIY swap doesn't look particularly terrifying. Likewise, the Apple Store recommended two particular third party stores in town. I'm sure I can make this work one way or another.

The DIY swaps for Macbook hard drives is very easy. I've done many, and the longest part is waiting for the hard drive to be cloned.

Use CarbonCopyCloner (freeware) and a 2.5" enclosure to copy to the new SSD.

Have a set of precision screwdriver and torx bit handy as per iFixIt guide.

Takes about 10 minutes (or less!) to do the swap carefully.

Boot! That's it you're done.