We all need our personal space…

[laurion]

On the good news for me front, I did just upgrade the hard drive in my MacBook Pro from the 100 GB it shipped with to a 320 GB.  Got tired of having to plug in an external hard drive just to listen to iTunes or sync the iPod.  On the MacBook, this is an easy process; a few screws and a lever.  Don’t know why, but they decided that on the professional, higher-end, more likely to have owners that want to upgrade MacBook Pro, this is a process that involves 25+ screws, including Torx size 6, dismantling the lower case, detaching several ribbons (almost lost the bluetooth), rubber bumpers, and a lot more time.

Originally published at lebor.net. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[artan]

That sounds much like the process I had when I upgraded the HD in my (now 4 year old) pro-level laptop. I'm guessing that they likely just used the same case engineering for the MacBook Pros, but redesigned the case for the MacBooks. That took me... a little less than 2 hours screw to screw, having already done 2 power board replacements on comparable machines so having some design familiarity.

One thing that I really liked about the Dell laptops we had at work was that the HD was removable from the side with only one screw and no case disassembly. This made it so much easier to replace when we had the run of them that failed...

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

It's because a more advanced user will feel proud of all the work they had to do to alter their computer!

[laurion]

Could be. *grin*

Could also be they think anyone willing to spend more money the first time will be willing to just buy a new machine.

Could be the machines announces later today will be better at it, if, as arawen has posited, the MacBooks were a redesign, so they were able to design that in when the MBP wasn't much of a redesign.

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

Having just looked over the new ones, you appear to be correct. The HD in the new Macbook line (both Pro and regular) can be accessed from the battery cover thingy in the back. Looks like it would be relatively painless to change one.

Not that such does you any good with your current machine, of course. ;-)