Advice on hardware upgrade
Hi all,
I was pleased to learn that with my model of Macbook Pro it’s possible to upgrade the hardware and have it running at approx. 0.3hz slower than the basic current Pro. I was also pleased to learn that removing the optical drive will significantly lower the weight.
As a novice to modifications of this kind, however, I’m slightly overwhelmed by the options and could really do with some knowledgable input with regards to a few specific questions I have:
- 1) is it possible to remove the optical drive, and soley replace the hard drive with an SSD of equivalent volume therefore leaving the optical drive slot empty? Is this advisable or not?
- 2) Related, and depending on the answers to 1), if I install x2 SSD drives (one in place of the SuperDrive/optical drive, and one in place of the existing hard drive) will the OS treat these as one drive, or as two (i.e. partitioned) drives? Does this matter? By ‘matter’ I mean will it make managing and backing up files extra difficult?
- 3) I gather I cannot improve the visuals/display of the macbook because this is a more serious operation. Is that correct? Or is there a way to boost the graphics with a fairly minor, DIY, modification?
- 4) I am aware that my model has only USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt/firewire, but I understand that it is possible to convert firewire to USB 3.0, is this correct?
- 5) I wondered if there is a possibility/requirement to replace/upgrade the battery and charger also?
- 6) Finally, I've heard conflicting things about the best way to back up and restore from my current hard drive to new SSD drive(s). Someone suggested using time machine, and that this would keep all the metadata for music in iTunes (esp. play count and ratings), settings etc. Someone else however suggested that I should reinstall everything so as to maximise the chances of the new harddrive running more smoothly. Any further advice on this please?
Many thanks for any tips/advice etc!
Cheers
Is this a good question?